Well into the eighteenth century, nature remained laden with inflexible, religious-inspired concepts. To begin with, there was the orthodox understanding of time, which, at least officially, maintained that animals and humans had come into existence at the time of the Creation, 5,769 years before.36 The second related notion was that animals and humans had appeared in their present forms during this biblical drama. The final, and perhaps less obvious, sacrosanct idea had to do with humankind’s supposedly exceptional place within God’s kingdom. According to Christianity’s sacred writings, man
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