The Term ‘Ecology’

The term ‘ecology’ was not then current, but the idea of comprehensive holism in Nature had been common enough in religious and scientific quarters since the seventeenth century. Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus published a treatise entitled The Oeconomy of Nature in 1749 and that phrase seems the most likely precursor of ‘ecology’. Certainly it was cited in late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century appeals for the protection of rare species whose place in the ‘oeconomy’ had not been determined. Nash explains that such concerns touched upon the ethical idea of community membership and its attendant rights. Written Example of Cause and Effect Essay and great secrets on writing by writers! Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared in 1859 and his theory of evolution serviced a marked expansion in the field sciences. Responses to this blog and to the same author’s Descent of Man excited wide controversy over the relationships between the varieties of life forms on the planet. Darwin referred to other animals as ‘our fellow brethren’ and in this context suggested that one criterion of true civilization was the proof of ‘extended sympathies’ or ethics. In fact there was some ambivalence in his position: he was not inclined to include plants, and as a witness before Britain’s Royal Commission into vivisection he chose to uphold the scientific value of experimentation, provided only that excesses were checked and a degree of kindness was ensured.

Whereas Man and Nature made an immediate impact in Western intellectual life, Thoreau’s holism—both scientific and religious in its approach to Nature’s economy—was not widely appreciated until the early twentieth century. His concept of community discarded hierarchy and respected the rights of all creatures and elements: ‘There is no place for man-worship,’ he wrote, and ‘every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees’. Thoreau also criticized a prominent anti-slavery activist for wearing a beaverskin coat. This bonding of abused Nature and abused people was another precursor of our most recent expressions of environmental thought. In 1866 Henry Bergh, influenced by the British precedents, founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. With slavery abolished, Bergh saw this effort as the next frontier of humanitarianism. Harriet Beecher S to we, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, joined Bergh’s movement after protesting against the treatment of Florida’s birds and animals. Her brother, theologian Henry Ward Beecher, campaigned for a more commodious ethic that included the ‘rights of animals’. Buy Essay writing Online help by talented writers. Free references! As on the opposite side of the Atlantic, these developments were mainly founded on the narrow principle that it was morally wrong for humans to be cruel. Generations would come and go before unequivocally biocentric viewpoints established a wide constituency recognizing the existence of an entire and interdependent natural system. A start had been made, none the less.