1. Introduction: the Study of the History of Ideas

2. The Genesis of the Idea in Greek Philosophy: the Three Principles

3. The Chain of Being and Some Internal Conflicts in Medieval Thought

4. The Principle of Plenitude and New Cosmography

5. Plenitude and Sufficient Reason in Leibniz and Spinoza

6. The Chain of Being in Eighteenth-Century Thought, and Man's Place and Rôle in Nature

7. The Principle of Plenitude and Eighteenth-Century Optimism

8. The Chain of Being and Some Aspects of Eighteenth-Century Biology

9. The Temporalizing of the Chain of Being

10. Romanticism and the Principle of Plenitude

11. The Outcome of the History and Its Moral

Notes

Index of Names and Subjects

Mr. Lovejoy taught philosophy for nearly forty years at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of numerous work, including Essays in the History of Ideas and Revolt against Dualism.