The Great Chain of Being

The concept of the "Great Chain of Being" is well represented in this segment of Alexander Pope's philosophical poem "Essay on Man". This Enlightenment hymn to order in the universe argues the perfection of creation, not merely for each creature but for the organization that holds all together. Notice that Pope's argument for this order and balance is quite different from what a modern argument would be. Pope does not discuss the food chain or the ecological balance that links vegetation and animal life, or water or food sources and animal life in interdependence. Instead, Pope argues that there are gradations of powers and elegance of construction that forms a ladder connecting the rudest forms of life through slow ascent to the most elegant.

This poetic taxonomy, or categorizing of life, seems silly to us and is often based on misinformation (note, for example, how Pope mistakenly associates the slovenly habits of the pig with lack of intelligence). Pope's insistence that each creature is perfectly equipped to be just what it is is a happy thought, and there is something persuasive about this attempt to impose order on the welter of life on the planet. The argument that creation is perfect is something we would like to believe. From a scientific, post-Darwinian view, however, it is simply worthless as an account of nature.

The idea of perfection in creation can be tested easily in regard to our own bodies. What exactly is the reason why we have an appendix? This attachment to our lower intestines serves absolutely no function and has been the cause of much disease and death. Our "Wisdom Teeth" are better out than in. Lower back pain is the legacy of our ancestors' decision to stand upright on a skeletal frame meant for going on all fours (though of course one might argue that without this, there would be no way for chiropractors to live!).

"The Great Chain of Being" is a lovely "philosophical" ideal. Darwin was interested in the even more compelling reality of things.

Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assigned; Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.

Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends: Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,

From the green myriads in the peopled grass
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between,

And hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which warbles through the vernal wood: The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what seems so subtly true

From poisonous herbs extract the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, to shine! 'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier; For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions sense from thought divide: And middle natures, how they long to join, And never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation' could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these powers in one?

See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above how high, progressive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,

From thee to nothing. --On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours: Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall. Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, Planers and suns run lawless through the sky; ...

The Great Chain of Being

An intro to Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man"