I'm working on translating documents related to education in Colombia revolutionary period so I can post them online for public access. The Congress of Nueva Granada passed in 1826 an Organic Law on Instruction, and when discussing what curriculum should be taught, they mention historia natural en sus tres reinos, or natural history in its three kingdoms. After a little research, I found a couple of old reference books which use this terminology, but none actually define it. Can someone help me with this?
The three kingdoms are Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral. This goes back to Aristotle, if not earlier. Aristotle's Scala Naturae (the "Ladder of Nature", sometimes translated less accurately as the "Scale of Nature") divided the natural world into mineral, vegetable, animal, and human. This idea of three categories + humans persisted through Medieval thought, and was formalised into the three kingdoms by Linnaeus in his *System Naturæ (1735): Regnum Lapideum, Regnum Vegetabile, and Regnum Animale. His great classification of all nature in *Imperium Naturæ (1758) begins with a division into God (Deus) and the World (Mundus). The World is next divided into the Celestial (Astra, the stars and planets), the Elements (Elementa, earth, air, fire, and water), and Natural Bodies (Naturalia). it is these Natural Bodies that are then divided into the three kingdoms of Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral.
The three kingdoms were still in widespread use in the 19th century. For example, from Friedrich Mohs' Treatise on mineralogy, or The natural history of the mineral kingdom (1825) described the three kingdoms:
Natural History considers the differences mentioned in §. §. 8. and 9., as the foundations of dividing the natural productions. Each member of this division is called a Kingdom. That division which comprehends the animals is termed the Animal; that which contains the plants, the Vegetable; and that which comprises the minerals, the Mineral Kingdom.
Mohs continues and notes that the three kingdoms are also the foundation of the division of the natural sciences into Zoology, Botany, and Geology/Mineralogy.
However, new developments in science such as cell theory, bacteriology, genetics, and evolutionary theory that would overthrown the simple three kingdom picture were on the way. Now, when the three kingdoms are gone from science, they persist in popular culture as a simple classification, and in the game "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?", and in various odd places in culture (such as the DC Comics supervillian Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man).
For a history of the three kingdoms, and their scientific demise, see
