Great Chain of Being

The Great Chain of Being is the picture of reality as a continuous, graded order — from the One or God at the summit, down through Intellect, Soul, the heavens, and living kinds, to the lowest matter. Every possible grade of perfection is filled, each link shading into the next.

Though the phrase is later (the systematic study is Arthur Lovejoy’s), the idea is built from Platonic materials: the emanation of all things from the One, the procession and return, the chains (seirai) linking each god to its dependents, and the principle of plenitude. Through Proclus and Dionysius it shaped medieval and Renaissance cosmology.