The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an IdeaFrom later antiquity down to the close of the eighteenth century, most philosophers and men of science and, indeed, most educated men, accepted without question a traditional view of the plan and structure of the world.In this volume, which embodies the William James lectures for 1933, Arthur O. Lovejoy points out the three principles—plenitude, continuity, and graduation—which were combined in this conception; analyzes their origins in the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists; traces the most important of their diverse samifications in subsequent religious thought, in metaphysics, in ethics and aesthetics, and in astronomical and biological theories; and copiously illustrates the influence of the conception as a whole, and of the ideas out of which it was compounded, upon the imagination and feelings as expressed in literature. |
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absolute actual aesthetic animals appear argument Aristotle assumption attributes Chain chiefly conceived conception consequence consists cosmic created creation creatures degree deity Descartes distinctive diversity divine doctrine earth eighteenth century emanationism Essay essence essential eternal evil existence expressed fact finite Friedrich Schlegel germs human Ibid ideas imperfect implied individual infinite infinity inhabitants Kant kind Leibniz less logical man's manifested matter means medieval merely metaphysical mind monads moral nature necessarily necessity Neoplatonic Nicolaus Cusanus notion object observes otherworldliness passage perfection Philos philosophers planets Plato Platonistic plenitude and continuity Plotinus possible premises principle of continuity principle of plenitude principle of sufficient rational reality realized Robinet scale Schelling Schriften seems sense sensible Soame Jenyns sort soul species Spinoza stars sufficient reason Summa contra Gentiles supposed temporal tendency theodicy theology theory things thought Timaeus tion true universe W. D. Ross whole wholly writers