Editing Great chain of being (section)

=== From Aristotle to Linnaeus ===
{{Further|Aristotle's biology#Classification}}

The basic idea of a ranking of the world's organisms goes back to [[Aristotle's biology]]. In his ''[[History of Animals]]'', where he ranked animals over plants based on their ability to move and sense, and graded the animals by their reproductive mode, live birth being "higher" than laying cold eggs, and possession of blood, warm-blooded mammals and birds again being "higher" than "bloodless" invertebrates.{{sfn|Leroi|2014|pages=111–119}}

Aristotle's non-religious concept of higher and lower organisms was taken up by [[natural philosophers]] during the [[scholasticism|Scholastic period]] to form the basis of the ''Scala Naturae''. The ''scala'' allowed for an ordering of beings, thus forming a basis for classification where each kind of mineral, plant and animal could be slotted into place. In medieval times, the great chain was seen as a God-given and unchangeable ordering. In the [[Northern Renaissance]], the scientific focus shifted to biology; the threefold division of the chain below humans formed the basis for [[Carl Linnaeus]]'s ''[[Systema Naturæ]]'' from 1737, where he divided the physical components of the world into the three familiar [[Kingdom (biology)|kingdoms]] of minerals, plants and animals.<ref name="Linn1758" >{{cite book |first=Carl |last=Linnaeus |author-link=Carl Linnaeus |title=Systema naturae |publisher=Laurentius Salvius |location=Stockholm |date=1758 |url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/542 |language=la |edition=[[10th edition of Systema Naturae|10th edition]] |access-date=2018-01-13 |archive-date=2008-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081010032456/http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/542 |url-status=live }}</ref>