Scala naturae

okin006 asks:

Quoted message said:

I try to find the picture of the SCALA NATURAE created by Aristote. Does anybody knows where i
could find it ?

Another commonly used phrase for Aristotle's "scala naturae" is "The Great Chain of Being." A
schematic of the notion, along with Aristotle's ideas on a hierarchically ordered cosmos, can be
found in the image at:

web.clas.ufl.edugreatChain.gifOpen ↗

Wirt Atmar

okin006 said:

I try to find the picture of the SCALA NATURAE created by Aristote. Does anybody knows where i
could find it ?

Please help me.

Aristotle didn't create it, so much as it was reconstructed from various sources in his writings,
especially the Historia Animalium and the Generatio Animalium.

You can find a nice diagrammatic version specifically of Aristotle's view on page 40 of

Singer, Charles Joseph. 1959. A history of biology to about the year
1900: A general introduction to the study of living things. 3rd ed. London: Abelard-Schuman.

It is in the two previous editions as well.

The term scala naturae was introduced, I think, by Charles Bonnet around 1769, in the _Contemplation
de la Nature_. Bonnet's diagram of the scala naturae will be found in most histories - try Peter
Bowler's book:

Bowler, Peter J. 2003. Evolution: the history of an idea. 3rd , completely rev. and expand ed.
Berkeley: University of California Press.

More information on the scala can be found in the classic work by Lovejoy, in which the notion was
first delineated:

Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1936. The great chain chain of being: a study of the history of an idea.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
--
John Wilkins DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT? wilkins.id.au