Species

22 Species

exactly the kind of reication to which Boëthius, who is defending Aristotle, objects.

Although Aristotle’s essence concept was not then considered to be an inappro-

priately abstracted notion when Boëthius wrote,^100 the issue had been raised by

Porphyry himself as to whether species exist merely as abstract mental objects. The

Epicureans were not well regarded during the period of Christian domination.^101 The

tradition was held to be an impious and immoral philosophy, by Christian as well as

by Jewish thinkers of the post-classical era. The direct inuence of Epicurean gen-

erative conceptions is thus likely to be sparse before the Enlightenment.

THE HERMETIC TRADITION: SPECIES COME FROM LIKE

Even less immediately inuential were the Hermetic writers, although they became
signicant during the Renaissance. Around 100CE, a text was written under the
pseudonym of Hermes Trismegistus, today known as Asclepius I.^102 This tradition
in part is the direct descendent of Plato and the Academy, with a strong veneer of
mysticism and gnosis (sacred knowledge). In this text, nature is the matter that nour-
ishes the forms (species) that are imposed on it by God,^103 and in the manner of
Plato’s souls in The Republic, different kinds (species) are realized according to the
source. The god-kind produces gods, the daemon-kind produces daemons,^104 and the
man-kind produces men.^105 Unlike Plato, however, the author allows that individuals
might partake in many kinds “... though all individuals exactly resemble the type
of their kind, yet individuals of each kind intermingle [miscentur] with all other
kinds.” A later scribe has interposed the comment that organic bodies receive their
kinds by the at of the gods, and individual things receive form by the ministration
of daemons.
In Asclepius II (c. 150–270 ) by a different author, matter is considered “unge-
nerated” but to have a “generative power” and to be creative,^106 reiterated also in
Book II (c. 270 ). The Hermetic tradition is likely inuenced strongly by the Stoics.
The subsequent inuence of the Hermetics was strong in the alchemical and mystery
religions, and through them to the gnostic traditions of European thought, including
the Kabbalah.^107 It is therefore a minor source for the later Great Chain of Being.

THE LATE CLASSICAL TRADITION OF NATURAL HISTORY

The classical period of biology divides mainly into two—the Peripatetic period

deriving from Aristotle and Theophrastus, and the practical or encyclopedic period

instituted by Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides, in which botanical and zoological

(^100) Which Whitehead 1938 later called the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness.
(^101) Clark et al. 2007. Nor the Jewish tradition: A heretic in the Mishnah (Sanh. 10:1) is called apikoros,
which derives from Epicurus’ name, presumably from the popular misconception that Epicurus denied
the gods existed, or perhaps from Josephus’ mention in the Antiquities, x.11.7 [Deutsch 1901–1906].
(^102) Scott 1924.
(^103) 3c.
(^104) Daemon (Greek δαίμων) = spirits, not merely demons.
(^105) 4.
(^106) 15.
(^107) L el l i 2 0 0 7.