The Ladder of Nature was adopted by Neoplatonists, Christian theologians and early modern philosophers. It underpinned Leibniz’s cosmology. Vastly expanded and much transformed from its Attic origins, it reached the apogee of its influence in the eighteenth century, which is when it appears in Systema naturae.* Linnaeus’ version of the Ladder of Nature is quite Aristotelian. Biologists forget that he classified not just plants and animals, but all Earth’s natural products – Per regna tria naturae runs the subtitle: there’s a taxonomy of stones too. The three great Kingdoms of Nature’s Empire –
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