The Temple of Nature: Or, The Origin of Society, a Poem with Philosophical Notes |
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User Review - Devil_llama - LibraryThingA long poem that sets out the author's ideas on the formation of nature. It is a bit disconcerting to read a poem to explicate a scientific idea, but I have wanted to read this for some time. Dr ... Read full review
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Common terms and phrases
accumulated acquire action Additional animals appears arise arts association atmospheres attend attract Beauty become believed blood bodies buds called CANTO cause cease chemical colours combined conductor consequence consists constitute earth effects eggs electric ethers excited exertion exist experiment explosion eyes fibres figure fluid give glass greater hands heat Hence ideas insects kinds language leaves less letter light living Love magnetic matter means metallic microscopic motions move names nature Note novelty o'er objects observed organic oxygen pain parent particles pass perhaps perpetual plants plate pleasure possess present previously probably produced quantity repel repetition reproduction repulsive resemble resinous resinous ether rise round Sect seems seen sensation sense sensorial power sexual side similar sounds spontaneous stimulus successive suggest supposed surface Taste termed things tion touch trains trees unite usual vegetable vitreous volition volvox waves Whence wings young
Popular passages
Page 51 - ... for wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy...
Page 9 - Last, as fine goads the gluten-threads excite, Cords grapple cords, and webs with webs unite; And quick CONTRACTION with ethereal flame Lights into life the fibre-woven frame. — Hence without parent by spontaneous birth Rise the first specks of animated earth;22 From Nature's womb the plant or insect swims, And buds or breathes, with microscopic limbs....
Page 52 - O'er seas and soils, prolific hordes! would spread Erelong, and deluge their terraqueous bed; But war, and pestilence, disease, and dearth, Sweep the superfluous myriads from the earth.
Page 11 - ORGANIC LIFE beneath the shoreless waves Was born and nurs'd in Ocean's pearly caves First forms minute, unseen by spheric glass, Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass; These, as successive generations bloom, New powers acquire, and larger limbs assume; Whence countless groups of vegetation spring, And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.
Page 27 - When the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom; its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected ; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odour of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavour of it; afterwards the appetites of hunger and...
Page 17 - ... animal. So the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of horns similar to his own, and have therefore been formed for the purpose of combating other stags for the exclusive possession of the females, who are observed, like the ladies In the times of chivalry, to attend the car of the victor.
Page 24 - ... which reside in the muscles or organs of sense. Association is an exertion or change of some extreme part of the sensorium residing in the muscles or organs of sense, in consequence of some antecedent or attendant fibrous contractions.
Page 17 - A great want of one part of the animal world has consisted in the desire of the exclusive possession of the females ; and these have acquired weapons to combat each other for this purpose...
Page 62 - ... them is reproduced, the other has a tendency to accompany or succeed it. When fibrous contractions succeed or accompany other fibrous contractions, the...
Page 11 - Britannia's thunders on the flood; The Whale, unmeasured monster of the main; The lordly lion, monarch of the plain; The eagle, soaring in the realms of air, Whose eye, undazzled, drinks the solar glare; Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd, Of language, reason, and reflection proud, With brow erect, who scorns this earthy sod, And styles himself the image of his God...
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Temple of Nature: Or, The Origin of Society, a Poem with Philosophical Notes |
| Author | Erasmus Darwin |
| Publisher | Jones, 1825 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | 27 Feb 2006 |
| Length | 100 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |