“The Great Chain of Being” Persists in Modern Background

Great Chain of Being: Levels

God existence + life + will + reason + immortality + omniscience,

omnipotence Angels

existence + life + will + reason + immortality Humanity

existence + life +  will + reason Animals

existence + life + will Plants

existence + life Matter

existence Nothingness

Social Significance of G.C.B.MORALS

It is a moral imperative for each creature to know its place in the Chain of Being and fulfill its own function without trying to rise above its station or lowering itself by behavior proper to the lower links in the chain.

A human who eats like a pig, or as randy as goat, has allowed the lower, animal instincts in his nature to override his awareness of God's divine will.

Fleshly or carnal sin, and he denies spiritual aspect of his nature.  Likewise, a human who attempts to rise above his social rank does so

through arrogance, pride, or envy of his betters.  Here, the error is an intellectual or spiritual sin.  

Social Significance of G.C.B. POLITICS

Monarchical government was ordained by God and inherent in the very structure of the universe. 

Rebellion against a king was not challenging the state; it was an act against the will of God itself, for a king was God's appointed deputy on earth, with semi-divine powers.

At the same time, a monarch had the moral responsibility to serve God and protect his subjects.  In return for absolute power, a king was expected to rule with love, wisdom, and justice. 

To do otherwise was to abandon those natural qualities that make a monarch fit to rule in the first place. 

Misusing royal authority was a perversion of divine order just as rebellion against royal authority.

 In theory, there were two classes of people: Nobles and Commoners.  In practice, there are a many gradations of both classes.  These gradations, or class levels, were also thought of as parts of a Great Chain of Being, which extended from God down to the lowest forms of life, through the class structure of society and even to the trees and stones of the earth.

Social Significance of G.C.B.SCIENCE

Medieval and Renaissance science influenced by the idea that physical world reflected God’s ordained will.  In astronomy, for example, orbits of the planets were mathematically perfect circles (as a perfect God would not produce imperfectly orbiting bodies). 

Earth was center of these circles, which ascended planet by planet to the primum mobile, the realm of God's eternally-unchanging perfection. 

Copernican revolution in astronomy came about within the framework of the Great Chain of Being rather than in spite of it. 

Earth-centered model for planetary rotation isn't all bad. Astronomers can predict events in the heavens. However, by late Middle ages the Ptolemaic theory had reached terminal complexity,

and it seemed unlikely to Copernicus that God would make such an unlovely, overly complex universe.  

So what if the Earth weren't at the center of the universe? Note that Ptolemy was legitimately scientific—not a religious concept but a

physical model of universal motion.

Social Significance of G.C.B. RELIGION

God the centre and culmination of all aspects of … well, of everything.

The great Chain of Being, harmonising with Ptolemaic cosmology, is powerful+accessible visual support

The Great Chain of Being Today?

Overthrow of Ptolemy

By the 16th Century, technological advances in optics produced mutually-supporting advances in mathematics, geometry. For example: 1608: Hans Lippershey, first refracting telescope 1624: William Oughtred invents the slide rule

Brahe, Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo: major 16th C. figures who worked from observations and calculations that these technological advances made possible to derive a model of planetary motion which simplified & rationalised a persuasive replacement for ptolemy.

Radically altered the social conception of TRUTH Truth became ‘the simpler & more elegant physical model’

Nature in the Romantics’ Vision

Nature in the Romantics’ Vision

The Romantic sentiment. William Wordsworth (1770-1850)….Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;

Our meddling intellect

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--

We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;

Close up those barren leaves;

Come forth, and bring with you a heart

That watches and receives.