Читать книгу Principles of Microbial Diversity - James W. Brown - Страница 32

Well before people discovered that species changed over time, both living and nonliving things were organized (in Western culture, including Aristotle) into the “chain of being” (Fig. 2.1).

All species and substances were placed onto individual slices of a vertical scale, ascending from “inferior” to “superior.” Much thought and energy were put into deciding exactly how to order the major categories of materials, living things, species, races, social classes, and even individuals onto this linear arrangement. (It will come as no surprise to the cynical that the ethnic group placed at the top of the human region of the chain generally matched that of whoever was organizing the chain.) This was an impossible task, with lots of problematic and contradictory issues. In retrospect, it is obvious that the reason for this was that there is no linear relationship between things in nature.

As an aside, this linear arrangement of substances survives, in general form, in the periodic table, in which the elements are arranged in order of increasing

Figure 2.1 The “chain of being,” with some representative organisms shown. To the right is a closer view of one thin slice of this “chain.” doi:10.1128/9781555818517.ch2.f2.1

atomic number. The chain is broken into segments, and the segments are stacked in such a way that elements with similar properties form columns. The reason this works is because elements are structured in a linear series based on atomic number.