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A^Z+t*- &
THE
TEMPLE  OF  NATURE;
OR, THE
ORIGIN OF SOCIETY:

          A  POEM,
   WITH PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.
   ERASMUS  DARWIN,  M.D. F.R.S.

AUTHOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN, OF ZOONOMIA, AND OF PHFTOLOGIA.
Unde hominum, pecudumque genus, vitaeque volantum,
Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus.
Igneus est illis vigor, & coelestis origo.
                       Virg. JEn. VI. 728.

                     /; A   f  { -r- .
         NEW-YORK:   ''<!%i.  V  > »V
PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. AND J. SWORDS,
      NO. 160 PEARL-STREET.
1804. 
 
P R  E F A C E.
 1 HE Pocni which is here offered  to die
 Public, docs not pretend to instruct by deep
 researches of reasoning; its aim is simply to
 amuse, by bringing distinctly to the imagina-
 tion the beautiful and sublime images of the
 operations of Nature,  in the order,  as the
 Author believes, in which  the progressive
 course of time presented them.

   The Deities  of Egypt, and afterwards  of
 Greece and  Rome,  were derived from men
 famous in those early times, as in the ages  of
 hunting,  pasturage, and agriculture.  The
 histories of some of their actions recorded in
Scripture, or celebrated in  the heathen my-
thology, are introduced, as the Author hopes,
without impropriety, into  his  account  of
those remote periods of  human society. 
                PREFACE.
   In the Eleusinian mysteries,  the philoso-
phy of the works of Nature, with the origin
and progress of society, are believed to have
been  taught by allegoric  scenery, explained
by the  Hierophant to the  initiated, which
gave rise to  the machinery of the following
Poem.
Priory, near Derby,
  January 1, 1802. 
  ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.




        CANTO I.




PRODUCTION OF LIFE. 
                        CONTENTS.

[. Subject proposed.   Life,  Love, and Sympathy,  1.  Four past Ages,
  a fifth beginning,  9.  Invocation to Love, 15.   II. Bowers of Eden'
  Adam and Eve, 33.  Temple of Nature, 65.  Time chained by Sculp-
  ture, 75.   Proteus bound by Menelaus, 83.   Bowers of Pleasure, 89.
  School  of Venus,  97.  Court of Pain, 105.   Den  of  Oblivion, lis!
  Muse of Melancholy, 121.   Cave of Trophonius, 125.   Shrine of Na-
  ture, 129.  Eleusinian Mysteries,  137.  III.  Morning, 155.   Pro-
  cession  of Virgins,  159.  Address to the Priestess, 167.  Descent of
  Orpheus into  Hell, 185.s  IV. Urania, 205.  God  the First Cause,
  223.  Life began beneath the Sea, 233.  Repulsion, Attraction, Con-
  traction,  Life, 235.  Spontaneous Production of Minute  Animals,
  247.  Irritation, Appetency, 251.    Life enlarges  the Earth,  265.
  Sensation, Volition, Association,  269.  Scene in the Microscope;
 Mucor,  Monas,  Vibrio,  Vorticella,  Proteus, Mite, 281.  V. Vegeta-
 bles  and Animals  improve by Reproduction, 295.  Have all  arisen
 from Microscopic Animalcules,  303.  Rocks  of Shell and Coral, 515.
 Islands  and Continents  raised by Earthquakes, 321.  Emigration of
 Animals from the Sea, 327.  Trapa,  535.  Tadpole, Musquito, 343.
 Diodon,  Lizard, Beaver,  Lamprey,  Remora,  Whale, 351.  Venus
 rising from the Sea, emblem of Organic Nature,  371.  All Animals
 are first  Aquatic, 385.  Fetus in the Womb, 389.  Animals from the
 Mud of  the Nile, 401.  The Hierophant and  Muse,  421—450 
CANTO  I.
PRODUCTION  OF  LIFE.
 I. -D Y firm immutable immortal laws
 Impress'd on Nature by the Great First Cause,
 Say, Muse !  how rose from elemental strife
 Organic forms, and kindled into life;
 How Love and Sympathy, with potent charm,
 Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm;
 Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains,
 And bind Society in golden chains.

  Four past eventful Ages then recite,
And give the fifth,  new-born of Time, to light;      10
The  silken tissue of dieir joys disclose,
Swell with deep chords  the murmur of their woes;
Their laws, their labours, and their loves proclaim,
 And chant their virtues to the trump of Fame.

  Immortal Love ! who ere the morn of Time,
On wings outstretch'd,  o'er Chaos hung sublime;
                         B 
10            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 1.
Warm'd into life the bursting egg of Night,
And gave young Nature to admiring Light!—
You !  whose wide arms,  in soft embraces hurl'd
Round the vast frame, connect the whirling world !   20
Whether immers'd in day, the Sun your throne,
You gird the planets in your silver zone;
Or warm, descending on ethereal wing,
The Earth's cold bosom with the beams of spring;
Press drop to drop,  to atom atom bind,
Link sex to sex, or rivet mind to mind ;
Attend my song!—With rosy lips rehearse,
And with your polish'd arrows write my verse!—
So shall my lines  soft-rolling eyes engage,
And snow-white fingers turn the volant page ;          30
The smiles of Beauty all my toils repay,
And youths and virgins chant the living lay.

   II.  Where Eden's sacred bowers triumphant sprung,
By angels guarded, and by prophets sung,
Wav'd o'er the east in purple pride unfurl'd,
And rock'd the golden cradle of the World ;


   Cradle of the world, 1. 36.   The nations which possess Europe and a
part of Asia and of Africa, appear to have descended from one family;
and to have had their origin near the banks of the Mediterranean, as pro-
bably in Syria, the site of Paradise, according to the Mosaic history.  This
seems highly probable from the similarity of the structure of the lan-
guages  of these nations, and from their early possession of similar reli-
gions, customs, and arts, as well as from the most ancient histories ex-
tant.  The two former of these may be collected from  Lord Monboddo's 
Canto l.    PRODUCTION  OF LIFE.            n

Four sparkling currents lav'd with wandering tides

Their velvet avenues,  and flowery sides;

On sun-bright lawns unclad the Graces stray'd,

And guiltless Cupids haunted every glade;             40

Till the fair. Bride, forbidden shades among,

Heard unalarm'd the Tempter's serpent-tongue ;

Eyed  the sweet fruit,  the mandate disobey'd,

And her fond Lord with sweeter smiles betray'd.

Conscious awhile  with throbbing heart he strove,

Spread his wide arms, and barter'd life for love!—

Now rocks on rocks,  in savage grandeur roll'd,

Steep above  steep, the blasted plains infold;

The incumbent crags eternal tempest shrouds,

And livid lightnings cleave the lambent clouds;        50

Round the firm base loud-howling whirlwinds blow,

And sands in burning eddies dance below.


learned work on the  Origin of Language, and from Mr. Bryant's cu-
rious account of Ancient Mythology.
   The use of iron tools, of the bow and arrow,  of earthen vessels to
boil water in, of wheels for carriages, and the arts of cultivating wheat,
of coagulating  milk for cheese,  and of spinning vegetable fibres for
clothing,  have been known in  ah* European countries as long as their
histories have existed; besides the similarity of the texture of their lan-
guages, and of many words in them; thus the  word sack  is said to
mean a bag in all of them,  as caxKon in Greek, saccus in Latin, sacco
in Italian, sac in French, and sack in English and German.
   Other families of  mankind, nevertheless,  appear to have arisen in
other parts of the habitable earth,  as the language of the Chinese is
*iid not to resemble those of this part of the world in any respect.  Ar.d
the inhabitants of the islands of the South-Sea had neither  the use of
iron  tools, nor of the bow, nor of wheels, nor of spinning, nor had
learned to coagulate milk,  or to boil water, thougli the domestication of
fire seems to have been the first great discovery that distinguished man-
kind from the bestial  inhabitants of the forest. 
 12            ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 1.
  Hence ye profane!—the warring winds exclude
 Unhallow'd throngs, that press with footstep rude ;
 But court the Muse's train with milder skies,
 And call with softer voice the good  and wise.
—Charm'd at her touch, the opening wall divides,
 And rocks of crystal form the polish'd sides ;
 Through the bright arch the Loves  and Graces tread,
 Innocuous thunders murmuring o'er their head;       60
 Pair after pair, and tittering, as they pass,
 View their fair features in the walls of glass ;
 Leave with  impatient step the circling bourn,
 And hear behind the closing rocks return.

  Here,  high in air, unconscious of the storm,
 Thy temple, Nature, rears its mystic form;
 From earth  to heav'n,  unwrought by mortal toil,
 Towers the vast fabric on the desert soil;
O'er many a league the ponderous domes extend,
And deep in earth the ribbed vaults descend;          70
A thousand  jasper steps, with circling sweep,
Lead the slow votary up the winding steep ;
 Ten thousand piers, now join'd and now aloof,
Bear on their branching arms the fretted roof.

  Unnumber'd aisles  connect unnumber'd halls,
And sacred  symbols crowd the pictur'd walls;

  Pictur'd malls, 1. 76.  The application of mankind, in the early ages
of society, to the imitative arts of  painting, carving, statuary, and the 
 Canto 1.    PRODUCTION  OF LIFE.            13

 With pencil rude forgotten days design,

 And arts,  or empires, live in every line*

 While chain'd reluctant  on the marble ground,

 Indignant  Time reclines,  by Sculpture bound;         80

 And sternly bending o'er a scroll unroll'd,

 Inscribes the future with his style of gold.

 —So erst, when Proteus on the briny shore,

 New forms assum'd of eagle, pard, or boar;

 The wise Atrides bound in sea-weed thongs,

 The changeful god amid his scaly throngs;

 Till in deep tones his opening lips at last

 Reluctant told the future and the past.


   Here o'er piazza'd courts, and long arcades,

 The bowers of Pleasure root their waving shades;   90

 Shed o'er the pansied moss a checker'd gloom,

 Bend with new fruits, with  flow'rs successive bloom.

 casting of figures in metals, seems to have preceded the discovery of let-
 ters; and to have been used as a written language to convey intelligence
 to their distant  friends, or to  transmit to posterity the history of them-
 selves, or of their discoveries.  Hence the origin of the hieroglyphic
 figures which crowded the walls of the temples of antiquity; many of
 which may Ik* seen  in the tablet of Isis in the works of Montfaucon;
 and some of them are still used in the sciences of chemistry and astro-
 nomy, as the characters for the metals and  planets, and the figures of
 animals on the celestial globe.
   So erst, viben Proteus, 1. 83.  It seems probable that Proteus was the
 name of a hieroglyphic figure  representing Time;  whose form was per-
petually changing, and who could discover the past events of the world,
and predict the future.  Herodotus does not doubt but that Proteus was
an F.£\ ptian king  or deity ; and Orpheus calls him the  principle of all
things, and the most ancient  of the gods;  and adds,  that he keeps the
keys of N;uuu, fDanet's Dict.J  all which might well accord with a
 figure representing Time. 
14           ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.    Canto 1,
Pleas'd, their light limbs on beds of roses press'd,
In slight undress recumbent Beauties rest;
On tiptoe steps surrounding Graces move,
And gay Desires expand their wings above.

  Here young Dione arms her quiver'd Loves,
Schools her bright  Nymphs,  and practises her doves;
Calls round her laughing eyes, in playful turns,
The glance that lightens, and the smile that burns;    100
Her dimpling cheeks with transient blushes dyes,
Heaves her white bosom with seductive sighs;
Or moulds, with  rosy lips, the magic words
That bind the heart in adamantine cords.

   Behind, in twilight gloom, with scowling mein,
The demon Pain convokes his court unseen;
Whips, fetters,  flames, pourtray'd on sculptur'd stone,
In dread festoons adorn his ebon throne ;
Each side a cohort of diseases stands,
And shudd'ring  Fever leads  the ghastly bands;       110
O'er all Despair  expands his  raven wings,
And guilt-stain'd Conscience darts a thousand stings.

   Deep-whelm'd beneath,  in vast sepulchral caves,
Oblivion dwells amid unlabell'd graves;
The storied tomb,  the laurell'd bust o'erturns,
And shakes their ashes from the mould'ring urns.—, 
Canto 1.    PRODUCTION  OF LIFE.           15
No vernal zephyr breathes, no sunbeams cheer,
Nor song, nor simper, ever enters here;
O'er the green floor,  and round  the dew-damp wall,
The slimy snail, and bloated lizard crawl;            120
While on white heaps of intermingled bones
The muse of Melancholy sits and moans;
Showers her cold tears o'er Beauty's early wreck,
Spreads her pale arms,  and bends her marble neck.

   So in rude rocks, beside the jEgean wave,
Trophonius scoop'd his sorrow-sacred cave;
Unbarr'd to pilgrim feet the brazen door,
And die sad sage returning smil'd no more.

   Shrin'd in  the midst majestic Nature stands,
Extends o'er earth and sea her hundred  hands;       130
Tower upon tower her beam)- forehead crests,
And births unnumber'd milk her hundred breasts;
Drawn round  her brows a lucid veil depends,
O'er her fine waist the purfled woof descends;
   Trophonius scoop'd, I. 126.  Plutarch mentions, that prophecies of
evil events were uttered from the cave of Trophonius; but the allegorical
story, that whoever entered this cavern were never again seen to smile,
seems to have been designed to warn the contemplative from considering
too much the dark side of nature.  Thus an ancient poet is said to have
written a poem on the miseries of the world, and to have thence become
so unhappy as to destroy him.self.  When we reflect on the perpetual
destruction of organic life, we should also recollect, that it is perpetually
renewed in other forms by the same materials, and thus the sum total
of the happiness of the world continues undiminished; and that a phi-
losopher may thus smile again on turning his eyes from the coffins of
nature to her cradles. 
16
ORIGIN  OF SOCIETY.      Canto 1.
Her stately limbs the gather'd folds surround,

And spread their golden selvage on the  ground.


   From this first altar fam'd Eleusis stole

Her secret symbols and her mystic scroll;

With pious fraud in after ages rear'd

Her gorgeous temple, and the gods rever'd.           140

—First in dim pomp, before the astonish'd throng,

Silence,  and  Night,  and Chaos, stalk'd along;

Dread scenes of  Death, in nodding sables dress'd,

Froze the broad eye, and thrill'd the unbreathing breast.

Then the young Spring, with winged Zephyr, leads

The queen of Beauty to the blossom'd  meads;

   Fam'd Eleusis stole, 1. 137.  The Eleusinian mysteries were invented
in Egypt,  and afterwards transferred into Greece along with most of tha
other early arts  and religions of Europe. They seem to have consisted
of scenical representations of the philosophy and religion of those times,
which had previously been painted in hieroglyphic figures, to perpetuate
them before the discovery of letters;  and are well explained in Dr. War-
burton's Divine Legation of Moses; who believes with great probability,
that Virgil, in the sixth book  of the iEneid, has described a part of these
mysteries in his account of the Elysian fields.
   In the first part of this scenery was represented Death,  and the de-
struction of all things; as mentioned  in the note on the Portland Vase
in the Botanic Garden.  Next the marriage of Cupid and Psyche seems
to have shown  the reproduction  of living nature; and afterwards the
procession of torches, which is said  to have constituted a part of the
 mysteries,  probably signified the  return of light, and the resuscitation
 of all things.
   Lastly, the histories of illustrious persons of the early ages seem to
 have been enacted;  who were first represented by hieroglyphic figures,
 and afterwards became the gods  and goddesses  of Egypt,  Greece, and
 Rome. Might not such a dignified pantomime be contrived, even in this
 age,  as might strike the spectators with awe, and,  at the same time,
 explain many philosophical  truths, by adapted imagery, and thus both
 amuse and instruct.' 
 Canto 1.    PRODUCTION OF LIFE.          17
 Charm'd in her train admiring Hymen moves,
 And tiptoe Graces hand in hand with Loves.
 Next,  while on pausing step the masked mimes
 Enact  the triumphs of forgotten times,              150
 Conceal from vulgar throngs the mystic truth,
 Or charm with Wisdom's lore the initiate youth;
 Each shifting scene some patriot hero trod,
 Some sainted beauty, or some saviour god.

   III.   Now rose in purple pomp the breezy dawn,
 And crimson dew-drops trembled on the lawn;
 Blaz'd high in air the temple's golden vanes,
 And dancing shadows veer'd upon the plains.—
 Long trains of virgins from the sacred grove,
 Pair after pair, in bright procession, move,          160
 With flower-fill'd baskets round the altar throng,
 Or swing their censers, as the}- wind along.
 rhe fair Urania leads the blushing bands,
 Presents their offerings with unsullied hands;
 Pleas'd to their dazzled eyes in part unshrouds
 The goddess-form;—the rest is hid in clouds.

  " Priestess of  Nature !  while with pious awe
Thy votary bends,  the mystic veil withdraw;
Charm after charm, succession bright,  display,
And give the Goddess to adoring day!             170
So kneeling realms  shall own the Power divine,
And heaven and earth pour incense on her shrine,
                         c 
18            ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 1,
  " Oh grant the Muse with pausing step to press
Each sun-bright avenue, and green recess ;
Led by thy hand, survey the trophied walls,
The statued galleries,  and the pictur'd halls;
Scan the proud pyramid, and arch sublime,
Earth-canker'd urn,  medallion green with time,
Stern busts of Gods, with helmed heroes mix'd,
And Beauty's radiant forms,  that smile betwixt.      180

  " Waked by thy voice, transmuted by thy wand,
Their lips shall open, and their arms expand;
The love-lost lady, and the warrior slain,
Leap from their tombs,  and sigh or fight again.
—So when ill-fated Orpheus tun'd to woe
His potent lyre,  and sought the realms below;
Charm'd into life unreal forms respir'd,
And list'ning shades the dulcet notes admir'd.—

  " Love led the Sage through Death's tremendous porch,
Cheer'd with his smile, and lighted with his torch;—  190

   The statued galleries, 1. 176. The art of painting has appeared in the
early state of all societies before the invention of the alphabet.  Thus
when the Spanish adventurers, under Cortez, invaded America, intelli-
gence of their debarkation and movements was daily transmitted to
Montezuma, by drawings, which corresponded with the Egyptian hie-
roglyphics.  The antiquity of statuary appears from the Memnon and
sphinxes of Egypt; that of casting figures in metals from the golden
calf of Aaron; and that of carving in wood from the idols or house-
hold gods, which Rachel stole from her father Laban, and hid beneath
her garments as she sat upon the straw.  Gen. c. xxxi. v. 34.
   Love led the Sage, 1. 189.   This description is taken from the figures 
Canto 1.    PRODUCTION OF LIFE.           19
Hell's triple Dog his playful jaws expands,
Fawns round the God, and licks his babv hands;
In wondering groups the shadowy nations throng,
And sigh or simper, as he steps along;
Sad swains, and nymphs forlorn, on Lethe's brink,
Hug their past sorrows, and refuse to drink ;
Night's dazzled Empress feels the golden flame
Play round her breast, and melt her frozen frame ;
Charms with soft words, and sooths with amorous wiles,
Her iron-hearted Lord,-—and  Pluto smiles.—       200
His trembling Bride the Bard triumphant led
From the pale mansions of the astonish'd dead;
Gave the fair phantom to admiring light,—
Ah, soon again to tread irremeable night!"

   IV. Her  snow-white arm,  indulgent to my song,
Waves the fair Hierophant, and moves along.—
High plumes, that bending shade her amber  hair,
Nod, as she steps,  their silver leaves in air;
Bright chains of pearl, with golden buckles brac'd,
Clasp her white neck,  and zone her slender waist;    210
Thin folds of silk in soft meanders wind
Down her fine form,  and undulate behind;


en the Barbarina, or  Portland Vase, where Eros, or Divine Love,  with
his torch, precedes the manes through the gates of Death, and reverting
his smiling countenance, invites him into the Elysian fields.
   Faxons round th- God, 1. 192.  This idea is  copied from a painting
ef the descent of Orpheus,  by a celebrated Parisian artist. 
20            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto i.

The purple border, on the pavement roll'd,

Swells in the gale, and spreads its fringe of gold.


   " First, if you can, celestial Guide!  disclose

From what fair fountain mortal life arose,

Whence the fine nerve to move and feel assign'd.

Contractile fibre,  and ethereal mind:


   " How Love and Sympathy the bosom warm,

Allure with pleasure,  and with pain alarm.            220

With soft affections weave the social plan,

And charm the listening  Savage into Man.-


   " God the First Cause !—in this terrene abode;

Young Nature lisps, she is the child of God.

   God the first cause, 1. 223.
     A Jove principium, musx!  Jovis omnia plena.       Virgil.
     In him we live, and move, and have our being.    St. Paul.
   Young Nature lisps, 1. 224.  The perpetual production and  increase
of the strata of limestone from the  shells  of aquatic animals;  and of
all those incumbent on them from the recrements of vegetables and of
terrestrial animals,  are now well understood from our improved know-
ledge of geology;  and show, that the solid parts of the globe are gra-
dually enlarging, and consequently that it  is young, as the fluid parts
are not yet all converted  into solid ones.  Add  to this,  that  some parts
of the earth and its inhabitants appear younger than others; thus the
greater height of the mountains of America seems  to show that conti-
nent to be less ancient than Europe, Asia, and Africa; as their summits
have been less washed away, and the wild  animals  of America, as. the
tigers and crocodiles, are said to be less perfect in respect to their size
and strength ; which would show them to be still in a state of infancy,
or of progressive  improvement.   Lastly, the progress of mankind in
arts  and sciences, which continues slowly to extend, and to increase,
seems to evince the youth of human  society;  whilst the unchanging 
 Canto 1.    PRODUCTION OF LIFE.            21

 From embryon births her changeful forms improve,

 Grow as  they live, and strengthen as they move.


   " Ere Time began,  from flaming  Chaos hurl'd,

 Rose the bright spheres,  which form the circling world j

 Earths from  each sun with quick explosions burst,

 And second planets issued from the first.               230

 Then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth,

 Surge over surge, involv'd the  shoreless earth ;

 Nurs'd by warm sun-beams in primeval caves

 Organic Life began beneath the waves.


   " First Heat from chemic dissolution springs,

 And gives to matter its eccentric wings ;

 state of the societies  of some  insects, as of the bee,  wasp,  or ant,
 which  is usually ascribed to instinct, seems to evince the  longer exist-
 ence,  and greater maturity of  those  societies.   The. juvenility of the
 earth shows, that it has had a beginning or birth, and is a strong  na-
 tural argument,  evincing the existence of a cause of its production,
 that is,  of the Deity.
   Earths from  each sun, 1. 229.  See Botanic Garden, Vol. I.  Cant. i.
 1. 107.
   First Heat from chemic, 1. 235.  The  matter of heat is an ethereal
 fluid, in which all  things are immersed, and which constitutes the  ge-
 neral power of repulsion; as appears in explosions which are produced
 by the sudden evolution of combined heat, and by the expansion  of all
 bodies  by the slower diffusion of it  in its uncombined state.  Without
 heat all the matter of the world would be condensed into a point by the
 power  of attraction; and neither fluidity nor life could exist.   There
are also particular powers of repulsion, as those of magnetism and elec-
 tricity, and of chemistry,, such as oil and water; which last may be as
numerous as the particular attractions which constitute chemical affini-
ties;  and may both of them exist as atmospheres round the individual
 particles of matter. See Botanic Garden, Vol.  I. additional note VII.
 pn elementary heat. 
22             ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 1.

With strong Repulsion  parts the exploding mass,
Melts into lymph,  or kindles  into gas.
Attraction next, as earth or air subsides,
The ponderous atoms from the light divi des,           240
Approaching parts with quick embrace combines,
Swells into spheres, and lengthens into lines.
Last, as fine goads the glutton-threads excite,
Cords grapple cords, and webs with webs unite ;
And quick Contraction with ethereal flame
Lights into life the fibre-woven frame.—
   Attraction next, 1. 239.  The power of attraction may be divided into
general attraction, which  is called  gravity;  and into particular attrac-
tion, which is termed chemical affinity.  As nothing can act where it
does not  exist, the power of gravity must be conceived  as  extending
from the sun to the planets, occupying that immense space; and  may
therefore be considered as  an ethereal fluid, though not cognizable by our
senses, like heat, light, and electricity.
  Particular attraction,  or chemical affinity,  must likewise occupy the
spaces between the particles of matter which they cause to approach each
other.  The power of gravity may therefore  be  called  the general at-
tractive ether, and the matter of heat may be called the general repul-
sive ether;  which constitute the two great agents in the changes of in-
animate matter.
  And quid Contraction, 1.  245.  The power of contraction, which existg
in organized bodies, and distinguishes life from inanimation, appears to
consist of an ethereal fluid which resides in the brain and nerves of liv-
ing bodies, and is expanded in the  act of shortening their fibres.   The
attractive and repulsive ethers require only the vicinity of bodies for the
exertion of their activity; but the contractive ether requires at first the
contact of a goad or stimulus, which appears  to draw it off from the
contracting fibre, and to excite the sensorial power of irritation.   These
contractions of animal fibres are afterwards excited or repeated by the
sensorial powers of sensation,  volition,  or association, as explained at
large in Zoonomia, Vol. I.
    There seems nothing more wonderful in the ether of contraction pro-
ducing the shortening of a fibre, than in the ether of attraction caus- 
Canto 1.    PRODUCTION  OF LIFE            23

Hence without parent by spontaneous birth

Rise the first specks of animated earth ;

From Nature's womb the plant or insect swims,

And buds or breathes, with mycroscopic limbs.       250


   u In earth,  sea,  air, around,  below, above,

Life's subtle woof in Nature's loom is wove ;

Points glued to points, a living line extends,

Touch'd by some goad approach the bending ends;

Rings join to  rings, and irritated tubes

Clasp with young lips the nutrient globes or cubes;

And urged by appetencies new select,

Imbibe,  retain,  digest,  secrete,  eject.

In branching cones the living web expands,

Lymphatic ducts, and convoluted  glands ;             260



ing two bodies to approach each other.  The former indeed seems in
some  measure to resemble the latter, as  it probably occasions the minute
particles of the fibre to  approach into absolute or adhesive contact, by
withdrawing from them their repulsive atmospheres ; whereas the latter
seems only to cause particles of matter  to approach into what is  popu-
larly called contact, like the particles of fluids; but which are only in
the vicinity of each other, and still retain their repulsive atmospheres,
as may be seen  in riding through shallow water, by the number of minute
globules of it thrown up by the horse's feet,which roll far on its  surface;
and by the difficulty with which small globules of mercury poured on the
surface of a  quantity of it can be made to unite with it.
   Spontaneous birth, 1. 247.  See Additional Note, No. I.
   In branching cones, 1. 259.  The whole  branch of an artery  or vein
may be considered as a cone, though  each distinct division of it is a cy-
linder.  It is probable  that the amount of the areas of all the small
branches from  one  trunk may equal that of the trunk, otherwise the
velocity of the blood would be greater in some parts than in others, which
probably only exists when a part is compressed or inflamed, 
24            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 1.

Aortal tubes propel the nascent blood,
And lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood;
Leaves, lungs,  and gills, the  vital ether breathe
On earth's green surface, or the  waves beneath.
So Life's  first powers arrest the winds and floods,
To bones convert them, or to shells,  or woods;
Stretch the vast beds of argil,  lime,  and sand,
And from diminish'd oceans form the land I
   " Next the long nerves unite their silver train,

And young Sensation permeates the brain ;          270


   Absorb the refluent fiood, 1. 262.  The force of the arterial impulse ap-
pears to cease, after having propelled  the blood through  the capillary
vessels; whence the venous circulation is owing to the extremities of the
veins absorbing the blood, as those of the lymphatics absorb the fluids.
The great force of absorption is well elucidated by Dr. Hales's  experi-
ment on the rise of the sap-juice in a vine-stump. See Zoonomia, Vol.
I.  Sect. XXIII.
   And from diminish'd oceans, 1. 268.  The increase of the solid parts
of the globe by the recrements of organic bodies, as limestone rocks from
shells and bones, and the beds  of clay, marl, coals, from decomposed
woods,  is now well known to those who have attended to modern geo-
logy; and Dr. Halley,  and others,  have  endeavoured to show, with
great probability, that the ocean has decreased in quantity during the short
time which  human history has existed.  Whence it appears, that the
exertions of vegetable and animal life convert the fluid parts of the globe
into solid ones; which is probably effected  by combining the matter of
heat with the other elements, instead of suffering it to remain  simply
diffused amongst them, which  is a curious conjecture,  and deserves
further investigation.
   And  young Sensation, 1. 270.   Both sensation and  volition consist in
an affection  of the central part of the sensorium,  or of the whole of it;
and hence cannot exist till the nerves are united in the brain.  The mo-
tions of a limb of any animal cut from the body, are  therefore owing to
irritation, not to sensation or to volition.   For  the definitions of irrita-
tion, sensation, volition, and association, see Additional Note II. 
             Canto 1.     PRODUCTION OF LIFE.           25
             Through each new sense the keen emotions dart,
             Flush the young cheek, and swell the throbbing heart
             From pain and pleasure quick Volitions rise,
             Lift the strong arm,  or point the inquiring eves;
             With Reason's light  bewilder'd Man direct,
             And right and wrong with balance nice detect.
             Last in thick swarms Associations spring,
             Thoughts join to thoughts,  to motions motions  cling;
             Whence in long trains of catenation flow
             Imagined joy,  and voluntary woe.                   280

               "  So, view'd through crystal spheres in drops saline,
             Quick-shooting salts in chemic forms combine ;
             Or Mucor-stems,  a vegetative tribe,
             Spread their fine roots, the tremulous wave imbibe.
             Next to our wondering eyes the focus brings
             Self-moving lines, and animated rings ;
             First Monas moves,  an unconnected point,
             Plays round the drop without a limb or joint;
             Then Vibrio waves,  with  capillary eels,
             And Vorticella whirls her living wheels;             290


               Or Mucor-stems, 1. 283. Mucor or mould in its  early state is pro-
             perly a microscopic vegetable, and is spontaneously produced on  the scum
             of all  decomposing organic matter.  The Monas is a moving speck, the
             Vibrio an undulating wire, the  Proteus perpetually changes its  shape,
^            and the Vorticella has wheels about its mouth, with which it makes an
             eddy,  and is supposed thus to draw into its throat invisible animalcule;.
             These names  are from Linnaeus and Muller.  See Appendix  to Addi-
             tional  Note I.
D 
26             ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.      Canto 1.

While insect Proteus sports with changeful form
Through the bright tide, a globe,  a cube, a worm.
Last o'er the field the Mite enormous swims,
Swells his red heart,  and writhes his giant limbs-.


   V.  " 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 ;       300
   Beneath the shoreless waves,  1. 295.  The earth was originally co-
vered with water,  as appears from some of its highest mountains, con-
sisting of shells cemented together by a solution of part of them, as the
limestone rocks of the Alps.   (Ferber's Travels.)  It must be therefore
concluded, that animal life began beneath the sea.
   Nor is this unanalogous to what still occurs,  as all quadrupeds and
mankind in their embryon state are aquatic animals; and thus may be
said to resemble gnats and  frogs.   The fetus  in the uterus has an organ
called the placenta, the fine extremities of the vessels of which permeate
the arteries of the uterus, and the blood of the fetus becomes thus oxy-
genated from the passing stream of the maternal arterial blood, exactly
as is done by the gills of fish from the stream of water which  they
occasion to pass through them.
   But the chicken in the egg possesses a kind of aerial respiration,
since the extremities of its  placental vessels terminate on a membranous
bag,  which contains air, at the broad end of the egg; and in this the
chick in the egg differs from the  fetus in the womb, as  there is in the
egg no circulating  maternal blood for the insertion of the extemities of
its respiratory vessels; and in this also I suspect that the eggs of birds
differ from the spawn of fish; which  latter is immersed in water, and
which has probably the extremities of its respiratory organ inserted into
the soft membrane which covers it, and is in contact with the water.
   First forms minute,  1. 297.  See Additional  Note  I. on Sponta-
neous Vitality. 
Canto 1.    PRODUCTION OF  LIFE.           27

Whence countless groups of vegetation spring,

And breathing realms of fin, and feet, and wing.


   " Thus the tall  Oak, the giant of the wood,

Which bears 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,           310

Widi brow erect, who scorns this earthy sod,

And styles himself the image of his God;

Arose from rudiments of form and sense,

An embryon point, or microscopic ens!


   "■ Now in vast shoals beneath the brineless tide,

On earth's firm crust testaceous tribes reside;

Age after age' expands the peopled plain,

The tenants perish, but their cells remain;


  An embryon point, 1.  314.  The arguments showing that all vege-
tables and animals arose from such a small beginning, as a living point
or living  fibre,  are detailed  in Zoonomia,   Sect. XXXIX. 4. 8. on
Generation.
   Brineless tide,  1. 315. As the salt of the sea has been gradually ac-
cumulating, being washed down into it from the recrements cf animal
and vegetable bodies, the sea must originally have been as fresh as river
water; and as it is not saturated with salt, must become annually saline.
The sea,-water about our island contains at  this time from  about one .
twenty-eighth to one thirtieth part of sea salt, and about one eightieth
of magnesian salt.—Brovmrigg on Sid: 
28
ORIGIN  OF SOCIETY.     Canto 1.
Whence coral walls and sparry hills ascend

From pole to pole,  and round the line extend.        320


   " Next when imprison'd fires in central caves

Burst the firm earth,  and drank the headlong waves;

And, as new airs with dread  explosion swell,

Form'd lava-isles,  and continents of shell;

Pil'd rocks on rocks,  on mountains mountains raised,

And high in heaven the first volcanoes blazed;

In countless swarms an insect-myriad moves

From sea-fan gardens, and from coral groves;


    Whence coral walls, 1. 319.  An account of the structure of the earth
is given in Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Additional Notes, XVI.  XVIII
XIX.  XX. XXIII.  XXIV.
    Drank  the headlong waves,  1. 322.  See Additional Note III.
   An  insect-myriad moves, 1. 327.   After  islands  or continents were
raised above the primeval ocean, great numbers of the most simple ani-
mals would attempt to seek food at the edges or shores of the new land,
and might thence gradually become amphibious; as is now seen in the
frog, who changes from an aquatic animal to an amphibious one; and
in the gnat, which changes from a natant to a volant state.
   At  the same time new microscopic animalcules  would immediately
commence wherever there was warmth and moisture, and some organic
matter, that might induce putridity.  Those situated on dry land, and
immersed in dry air, may gradually acquirtHiew powers to preserve their
existence; and by innumerable successive reproductions  for  some thou-
sands, or perhaps millions of ages, may at length have produced many
of the vegetable and animal inhabitants which now people the earth.
   As  innumerable shell-fish must have existed a long time beneath the
ocean, before the calcareous mountains were produced  and elevated, it
is  also probable, that many of the insect tribes, or less complicate ani-
mals, existed long before the quadrupeds or more complicate ones,  which,
 in some measure,  accords with the theory of Linnseus in respect to the
 vegetable world; who thinks,  that all the plants now extant arose from
 the conjunction and reproduction of about sixty different  vegetables,
 from which he constitutes his natural orders. 
 Canto 1.    PRODUCTION  OF LIFE.            29

 Leaves the cold caverns of the deep, and creeps

 On shelving shores, or climbs on rocky  steeps.        330

 As in dry air the sea-born stranger roves,

 Each muscle quickens, and each sense improves;

 Cold gills aquatic form respiring lungs,

 And  sounds aerial  flow from slimy tongues.


   " So Trapa,  rooted in  pellucid tides,

 In countless threads her breathing leaves divides,


   As the blood of animals in the air becomes more oxygenated in  their
lungs, than that of animals in water by their gills, it becomes of a  more
scarlet colour, and  from its greater stimulus the sensorium seems to pro-
duce quicker motions and finer sensations; and as water is a much better
 vehicle for vibrations or sounds  than air, the fish, even when dying in
 pain, are mute in the atmosphere, though it is probable that in  the water
they may utter sounds to be heard at  a considerable distance.   See on
this subject, Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Canto IV. 1. 176,  Note.
   So Trapa, rooted, 1. 335.   The lower leaves of this plant grow under
water, and are divided into minute capillary ramifications;  while the
upper leaves are broad  and round, and  have air  bladders in their  foot-
stalks to support them  above the surface of the  water.   As  the aerial
leaves of vegetables do  the office of lungs, by exposing a large  surface
of vessels, with their contained fluids, to the influence of the air; so these
 aquatic leaves answer a  similar purpose, like the gills offish, and perhaps
gain from water a similar material.  As the material thus necessary to
life seems to be more easily acquired from air than from water, the sub-
 aquatic  leaves of  this plant and of sisymbrium,  oenanthe, ranunculus
aquatilis, water crow-foot,  and  some others, are cut into fine divisions,
 to increase the surface,  whilst those above water are undivided. See Bo-i
tank Ga^en, Vol. II. Canto IV. 1. 204,  Note.
   Few of the water plants of this country are used for economical pur-
 poses ; but the ranunculus fluviatilis may be worth cultivation;  as on the
 borders of the river Avon, near Ringwood, the cottagers cut this plant
 even- morning in boats, almost all the year round, to feed their cows,
 which appear in good condition, and give a due quantity of milk.  See a
 paper from Dr. l'ultney in the Transactions of the Linnxan Society,
 Vol. V. 
30             ORIGIN  OF SOCIETY.     Canto 1.

Waves her bright tresses in the watery mass,

And drinks with gelid gills the vital gas ;

Then broader leaves in shadowy files advance,

Spread o'er the crystal flood their green expanse ;     340

And, as in  air the adherent dew  exhales,

Court the warm sun, and breathe ethereal gales.


   " So still the Tadpole cleaves the watery vale

With balanc'd fins,  and undulating tail;

New lungs and limbs proclaim his second birth,

Breathe the dry air, and bound upon the earth.

So from  deep lakes the dread Musquito springs,

Drinks the soft  breeze, and dries his tender wings,

In twinkling squadrons cuts his airy way,

Dips his red trunk  in blood, and  man  his prey.       350



  So still the Tadpole, 1. 343.  The transformation of the  tadpole from
an aquatic  animal into an aerial one is abundantly curious.  When first
it is hatched from the spawn by  the warmth of  the season, it resembles
a fish;  it afterwards puts forth legs, and resembles a lizard;  and finally
losing its tail, and acquiring lungs instead of  gills, becomes an aerial
quadruped.
  The rana temporaria of Linnaeus lives in the  water in spring, and on
the land in summer, and catches flies.  Of the rana paradoxa the larva
or tadpole is as large as  the frog,  and dwells in Surinam; whence the
mistake of Merian  and of Seba, who call it a frog fish.   The esculent
frog is green, with  three yellow lines  from the mouth to the a*us; the
back transversely gibbous, the hinder feet palmated; its more frequent
croaking in the evenings is said to foretell rain.   Linnaei Syst. Nat. Art.
Rana.
  Linnaeus asserts,  in his introduction to the class Amphibia, that frogs
are so nearly allied  to lizards, lizards to serpents, and serpents to fish,
that the boundaries  of these orders can scarcely  be ascertained.
  The dread Musquito springs, 1.  347.  See Additional Note IV. 
 Canto 1.    PRODUCTION OF LIFE.           31
   " So still the Diodons, amphibious tribe,
 With two-fold lungs the sea or air imbibe;
 Allied to fish, the lizard cleaves the flood
 With one cell'd heart, and dark frigescent  blood;
 Half-reasoning Beavers long-unbreathing dart
 Through Erie's waves with perforated heart;
 With gills and lungs respiring Lampreys steer,
 Kiss the rude rocks, and suck till they adhere;
 The lazv Remora's inhaling lips,
 Hung on the keel, retard the struggling ships;       360
 With gills pulmonic breathes the  enormous Whale,
 And spouts aquatic columns to the gale;
 Sports on the shining wave at noontide hours,
 And shifting rainbows crest the rising showers.

   " So erst,  ere rose the science  to record
 In letter'd syllables the volant word;
 Whence chemic arts, disclosed  in pictured lines,
 Liv'd to mankind by hieroglyphic signs;
 And clustering stars,  pourtray'd on mimic  spheres,
 Assumed the forms of lions,  bulls, and bears;       370


  So still the Diodons, 1. 351.   See Additional Note V.
  At noontide hours, 1. 363.  The rainbows in our latitude are only seen
in the mornings or evenings, when the sun is not much more than forty-
two degrees high.  In the more northern  latitudes, where the meridian
sun is  not more than  forty-two degrees high, they are also visible at
noon. 
32             ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 1.

—So erst,  as Egypt's rude designs explain,

Rose young Dione from the shoreless main;

Type of organic Nature ! source of bliss!

Emerging Beauty from the vast abyss!

Sublime on Chaos borne, the Goddess stood,

And smiled enchantment on the troubled flood ;

The warring elements to peace restored,

And young Reflection wondered  and adored."


   Now paused the Nymph,—the  Muse responsive cries,

Sweet admiration sparkling in her eyes,               380

" Drawn by your pencil, by your hand unfurl'd,

Bright shines the tablet of the dawning world;

Amazed the Sea's prolific depths I view,

And Venus rising from the waves in You!




  As Egypt's rude designs, 1. 371.  See Additional Note VI.
  Pose young Dione, 1. 372.  The  hieroglyphic iigure of Venus rising
from the sea supported on a shell by two tritons, as well as that of Her-
cules armed  with a club, appear to be remains of the most remote anti-
quity : as the former is devoid of grace, and of the pictorial art of de-
sign ; as one half of the group exactly resembles the other; and as that
of Hercules is armed with a club, which was the first weapon.
  The Venus seems to have represented the beauty of organic Nature
rising from the sea, and afterwards became simply an emblem of ideal
beauty; while the figure of Adonis  was probably designed to represent
the more abstracted idea of life or animation. Some of these hierogly-
phic designs seem to evince the profound investigations in science of the
Egyptian philosophers, and to have outlived all written language; and
still constitute the symbols, by which painters and poets give form and
animation to abstracted ideas, as to those of strength and beauty in the
above instances. 
 Canto 1.    PRODUCTION OF LIFE.           33

   " Still Nature's births enclosed in egg or seed,

 From the tall forest to the lowly weed,

 Her beaux and beauties, butterflies and worms,

 Rise from aquatic to aerial forms.

 Thus in the  womb the nascent infant laves

 Its natent form in the circumfluent waves;            390

 With perforated heart unbreathing swims,

 Awakes and stretches all its recent limbs ;

 With gills placental seeks the arterial flood,

 And drinks pure ether from its Mother's blood.

 Erewhile the landed Stranger bursts his way,

 From the warm wave emerging into day;

 Feels the chill blast, and piercing light, and tries

 His tender lungs,  and rolls his dazzled eyes;

 Gives to the passing gale his curling hair,

 And steps a  dry inhabitant of air.                      4O0



  Aviakes and stretches, 1. 392.  During the first six months of gestation,
 the embryon probably  sleeps,  as it seems to have no use  for voluntary
 power;  it then seems to awake, and to stretch its limbs, and change its
 posture in some degree, which is termed quickening.
  With gills placental, 1. 393.  The placenta adheres to any side of the
 uterus in natural gestation, or of any other cavity in extra-uterine gestation;
 the extremities of its arteries  and veins probably permeate the arteries
 of the mother, and absorb from thence through their fine coats the oxygen
 of the mother's blood;  hence,  when the placenta is withdrawn, the side
 of the uterus where it adhered bleeds;  but not the extremities of its own
 vessels.
  His dazzled eyes, 1. 398.  Though the membrana pupillaris described
 by modern anatomists guards the tender retina from too much light, the
young infant nevertheless seems to feel  the presence of it by its frequently
moving its eyes, before it can distinguish common objects.
E 
34            ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto L
    " Creative Nile, as taught in ancient song,
 So charm'd to life his animated throng;
 O'er his wide realms the slow-subsiding flood
 Left the rich treasures of organic mud;
 While with quick growth young Vegetation yields
 Her blushing orchards, and her waving fields;
 Pomona's hand replenish'd  Plenty's horn,
 And Ceres laugh'd amid her seas of corn.'-*
 Bird, beast, and  reptile, spring from sudden birth,
 Raise their new forms,  half animal, half earth;      410
 The roaring lion shakes his tawny mane,
 His  struggling limbs still rooted in the plain;
 With flapping wings  assurgent eagles toil
 To rend their talons  from the adhesive soil j
 The impatient serpent lifts his crested  head,
 And drags his train unfinish'd from the bed.__
 As Warmth and Moisture blend their magic spells,
 And brood with mingling wings the slimy dells;

  As warmth and moisture, 1. 417,
                   In eodem corpore saepe
      Altera pars vivit; rudis est pars altera tellus.
      Quippe ubi temperiem sumpsere humorque calorque,-
      Concipiunt; et ab his oriuntur,  cuncta duobus.
                                    Ovid. Met. 1. 1. 430
   This story from Ovid of the production of animals from the mud of
theNde seems to be of Egyptian origin, and is probably a poetical account
ot the opimons of the magi or priests of that country; showing that the
simplest ammationswere spontaneously produced like chemical combina-
tions, but were distinguished from  the latter by their perpetual improve-
ment by the power of reproduction, first by solitary, and then by sexual
generate ; whereas the products of natural  chemistry are only enlarged
by accretion, or purified by filtration. 
 Canto 1.    PRODUCTION OF LIFE.          35
 Contractile earths in sentient forms arrange,
 And Life triumphant stays their chemic change."    420

   Then hand in hand along the waving glades
 The virgin Sisters pass beneath the shades j
 Ascend the winding steps with pausing march,
 And seek the Portico's susurrant arch;
 Whose sculptur'd architrave on columns borne
 Drinks the first blushes of the rising morn,
 Whose fretted roof an ample shield displays,
 And guards the beauties from meridian rays.
 While on light step enamour'd zephyr springs,
 And fans their glowing features with his wings,      430
 Imbibes the fragrance of the vernal flowers,
 And speeds with kisses sweet the dancing  Hours.

   Urania,  leaning with unstudied grace,
 Rests her white elbow on a column's base;
 Awhile reflecting takes her silent stand,
 Her fair cheek press'd upon her lily hand;
 Then, as awaking from ideal trance,
 On the smooth floor her pausing steps advance,
Waves high her arm, upturns her lucid eyes,
 Marks the wide scenes of  ocean,  earth, and skies ;    440
And leads, meandering as it rolls along
 Through Nature's walks,  the shining stream of Song, 
36           ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.    Canto 1.
  First her sweet voice in plaintive accents chains
The Muse's ear with fascinating strains;
Reverts awhile to elemental strife,
The change of form, and brevity of life;
Then tells how potent love, with torch sublime,
Relights the glimmering lamp, and conquers Time.
—The polish'd walls reflect her rosy smiles,
And sweet-ton'd echoes talk along the aisles.         450
END OF CANTO I. 
  ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.




       CANTO II.




REPRODUCTION OF LIFE. 
CONTENTS.
\. Brevity of Life, 1.   Reproduction, 13.   Animals improve, 31.   Life
  and Death alternate, 37.  Adonis emblem of Mortal Life, 45.  II.
  Solitary reproduction, 61.  Buds, Bulbs, Polypus, 65.  Truffle;  Buds
  of trees how generated, 71.   Volvox, Polypus, Taenia, Oysters, Co-
  rals,  are without Sex, 83.  Storge goddess of Parental Love;  First
  phain of Society, 92.  III. Female sex produced,  103. Tulip bulbs,
  Aphis, 125.   Eve from  Adam's rib, 135.  IV. Hereditary diseases,
  159.   Grafted trees, bulbous roots degenerate, 167.  Gout, Mania,
  Scrofula,  Consumption,  177.  Time and  Nature,  185.   V. Urania
  and the Muse lament, 205.  Cupid and Psyche, the deities of sexual
  love, 221.   Speech of Hymen, 239.  Second chain of Society,  250.
  Young Desire, 251.  Love and Beauty save the world, 257.  Vege-
  table sexes, Anthers and Stigmas salute, 263.  Vegetable sexual ge-
  neration,  271.  Anthers of Vallisneria  float to the  Stigmas,  279.
  Ant, Lampyris, Glow-Worm, Snail, 287.   Silk-Worm,  293.   VI.
  Demon of Jealousy, 307.   Cocks, Quails, Stags, Boars,  313.  Knights
  of Romance,  327.   Helen and Paris,  333.   Connubial  love,  341.
  Married Birds, nests of the  Linnet  and Nightingale, 343-  Lions,
  Tigers, Bulls, Horses, 357.    Triumphal car of Cupid, 361.  Fish,
  Birds, Insects, 371.  Vegetables, 389.   March of Hymen,  411.   His
  }amp, 419.  VII. Urania's advice to her Nymphs, 425.  Dines with
  the Muse on forbidden Fruit,  435.  Angels visit Abraham, 447—458. 
CANTO   II.
REPRODUCTION  OF  LIFE.
I. " JTlOW shortthe span of Life! some hours possess'dj

Warm but to cool,  and active but to rest!—

The age-worn fibres goaded  to  contract,

By repetition palsied, cease to act;

When Time's cold hands the languid senses seize,

Chill the  dull nerves, the lingering currents freeze;


  How short the span of life, 1. 1.  The thinking few in all ages have
complained of  the  brevity of life, lamenting that mankind are not
allowed time sufficient to cultivate science, or to improve their intellect.
Hippocrates introduces his celebrated aphorisms with this idea: " Life
is short, science long, opportunities of knowledge rare, experiments fal-
lacious,  and reasoning difficult."—A  melancholy reflection to philoso-
phers !
  The  age-worm fibres, 1. 3.  Why the same kinds of food which en-
large and invigorate the body from infancy to the meridian of life, and
then nourish it for some years  unimpaired, should at length gradually
cease to do  so, and the  debility of age and  death supervene, would ba
liable to surprise us, if we were not in the daily habit of observing it;
and is a circumstance which has not yet been well understood.
  Before mankind introduced civil society, old age did not exist in the
world,  nor other lingering diseases; as all living creatures, as soon as
they became too feeble  to defend themselves, were slain and eaten by
others,  except  the young broods, who were defended by their mother;
and hence the animal world existed  uniformly in its greatest strength
and perfection.  See Additional Note VII. 
40           ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 2.
Organic matter,  unreclaim'd by Life,
Reverts to elements by chemic strife.
Thus Heat evolv'd from some fermenting mass
Expands the kindling atoms into gas;                 10
Which sink ere long in cold concentric rings,
Condensed, on Gravity's descending wings.

  " But Reproduction with ethereal fires
New Life rekindles, ere the first expires;
Calls up renascent Youth, ere tottering age
Quits the dull scene, and gives him to the stage;
Bids on his cheek the rose of beauty blow,
And binds the wreaths of pleasure round his brow;
With finer links the vital chain extends,
And the long line of being never ends.                20

  " Self-moving Engines, by unbending springs,
May walk on earth,  or flap their  mimic wings;
In tubes of glass  mercurial columns rise,
Or sink, obedient to the incumbent skies ;
Or, as they touch the figured scale,  repeat
The nice gradations of circumfluent heat.
But Reproduction, when the perfect Elf
Forms from fine  glands another like itself,
Gives the true character of life and sense,
And parts the  organic from the chemic  Ens.—        30
     But Reproduction,  1. 13.  See Additional Note VIII.
     Unbending springs, 1. 21. See Additional Note I. 4. 
 Canto 2.  REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.         4i

 Where milder skies protect the nascent brood,

 And earth's warm bosom \ ields salubrious food ;

 Each new Descendant, with  superior powers

 Of sense and motion,  speeds the transient hours ;

 Braves every season,  tenants every clime,

 And Nature rises on the wings of Time.


   " As Life discordant elements arrests,

 Rejects the noxious,  and the pure digests;

 Combines with Heat the fluctuating mass,

 And gives a while solidity to gas ;                      40

 Organic forms with chemic changes strive,

 Live but to die, and  die but to revive!

 Immortal matter braves the transient storm,

 Mounts from the wreck, unchanging but in form.—


  Combines with Heat,  1. 39.  It was shown in note on line 248 of the
 first Canto, that much of the aerial and liquid parts of the  terraqueous
 globe was converted, by the powers of life, into solid matter;  and that
 this was effected by the combination of the fluid heat, with other ele-
 mentary bodies, by the appetencies and propensities of the parts of living
 matter to unite with each other.  But when these appetencies and pro-
 pensities of the parts of organic matter to unite with  each other cease,
 the chemical affinities of attraction and the aptitude to be attracted, and
 of repulsion and the aptitude to be repelled, succeed, and reduce much of
the solid matters back to the condition of elements; which seems  to be
effected by the matter of heat being again set at liberty, which was com-
bined with other matters by the powers of life; and thus, by its diffusion,
the solid bodies return into liquid ones, or into gases,  as occurs in the
proeesses of fermentation, putrefaction,  sublimation,  and calcination.
 Whence solidity appears to be produced in consequence of the diminution
of heat, as the condensation of steam into water, and the consolidation
of water into ice, or by the combinnc'on of heat with bodies,  as with the
materials of gun-powder before.its explosion.
  Immortal matter, 1. 43.  The  perpetual mutability of the forms of
F 
42            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 2.

   ct So,  as the sages of the East record

In sacred symbol,  or unletter'd word;

Emblem of Life,  to change eternal doom'd;

The beauteous form of fair Adonis bloom'd.—-

On Syrian hills the graceful Hunter slain,

Dyed with his gushing blood the shuddering plain;   50

And,  slow-descending to the Elysian shade,

A while with Proserpine reluctant stray'd;

Soon from the yawning grave the bursting clay

Restor'd the Beauty to delighted day;

Array'd in youth's resuscitated charms,

And young Dione woo'd him to her arms.—

Pleased for a while, the assurgent youth above

Relights the golden lamp  of life and love ;

Ah, soon again to leave the cheerful light,

And sink alternate to the realms of night.             60

matter seems to have struck the philosophers of great antiquity;  the sys-
tem of transmigration taught by Pythagoras, in  which the souls of men
were supposed, after death, to animate the bodies of a variety of animals,
appears to have arisen from this source.  He had observed the perpetual
changes of organic matter from one creature to  another, and concluded
that the vivifying spirit must attend it
  Emblem of Life, 1. 47.  The Egyptian figure of Venus rising from
the sea seems to have represented the Beauty of organic Nature; which
the philosophers of that country, the magi, appear to have discovered
to have been elevated by earthquakes from the primeval ocean.  But the
hieroglyphic figure of Adonis seems to have signified the spirit of anima-
tion or life, which was perpetually wooed or courted by organic matter,
and which perished and revived alternately.  Afterwards the  fable of
Adonis seems to have  given origin to the first  religion promising a re-
surrection from the dead; whence his  funeral and return to life were
celebrated for many ages in Egypt and Syria, the ceremonies of which
Ezekiel complains as idolatrous, accusing the women of Israel of lament-
ing over Thammus; which St. Cyril interprets to  be Adonis, in his Com-
mentaries on Isaiah.  Danet's Diction. 
Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.        43
   II.  " Hence ere Vitality, as time revolves,
Leaves the cold organ, and the mass dissolves ;
The Reproductions of the living  Ens
From  sires to sons,  unknown to sex, commence.
New buds and bulbs the living fibre shoots
On lengthening branches,  and protruding roots ;
Or on the  father's side from bursting glands
The adhering young.its nascent form expands ;
In brandling lines the parent-trunk adorns,
And parts  ere long like plumage,  hairs, or horns.      70

   " So the lone Truffle, lodged beneath the earth,
Shoots from paternal roots the tuberous birth ;
No stamen-males ascend, and breathe above,
No seed-born offspring lives by female love.
From  each young tree, for future buds design'd,
Organic drops exude beneath the  rind ;
While these with appetencies nice invite,
And those with apt propensities unite ;
New embryon fibrils round the trunk combine
With quick embrace,  and form the living line :        80
Whose plume and rootlet, at their early birth,
Seek the drv air, or pierce the humid  earth.

  So the lone Truffle,  1. 71.  Lycoperdon  tuber.  This plant never rises
above the earth;  is propagated without seed by its roots only, and seems
to require no  light.  Perhaps many other fungi are generated, without
seed, bv their roots only, and without light, and approach on the last
account  to animal nature.                                  T
  JVhi.'c these with appetencies, 1. 77.  See Additional Note VIII. 
44             ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 2,

   " So safe  in  waves  prolific Volvox dwells,

And five descendants crowd his lucid cells;

So the  male  Polypus parental  swims,

And branching  infants bristle  all his limbs;

So the lone  Taenia,  as he grows,  prolongs

His flatten'd form with young adherent throngs;

Unknown to sex the pregnant oyster swells,

And coral insects build their radiate shells;             90


   Prolific Volvox, 1. 83.  The volvox globator dwells in the lakes of Eu-
rope, is transparent, and bears within it children and grand-children to
the fifth generation.  Syst. Nat.
   The male Polypus, 1. 85.  The Hydra viridis and fusca of Linnams
dwell in our ditches and rivers under aquatic plants : these animals have
been shown, by ingenious observers, to revive after having been dried,
to be restored when mutilated, to be multiplied by dividing them, and
propagated from portions of them; parts of different ones to unite, to
be turned inside outwards and  yet live, and to be propagated by seeds;
to produce bulbs, and vegetate by branches.  Syst. Nat.
   The lone Tenia,  1. 87.  The tape-worm dwells in the intestines of ani-
mals, and grows old  at on?  extremity, producing an infinite series of
young ones at  the  other: the  separate joints have been  called Gourd-
worms,  each of which possesses a mouth of its own,  and organs of di-
gestion.  Syst.  Nat.
   The pregnant oyster, 1. 89.  Ostrea edulis  dwells in  the  European
oceans, frequent at the tables  of the luxurious,  a living repast!  New-
born oysters swim swiftly by an undulating movement of fins thrust out
a little way from their shells. (Syst. Nat.J  But they do not afterwards
change their place during their whole lives, and are capable of no other
movement but that of opening the shell a little way: whence Professor
Beckman observes, that their offspring is probably produced without ma-
ternal organs;  and  that those who  speak of male and  female oysters
must be mistaken.  (Phil. Mag. March, 1800.)  It is also observed,  by
 H. I. le Beck,  that on nice inspection of the Pearl oysters, in the gulf of
 Manar,  he could observe no distinction of sexes.   Nicholsons Journal,
 April, 1800.
   And coral insects, 1.  90.  The  coral habitation of the  Madrepora of
 Linnauis consists of one or more star-like cells;  a congeries of which
 form rocks beneath the sea:  the animal which constructs it is termed 
Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.        45
Parturient Sires caress their infant train,
And heaven-born Storge weaves the social chain;
Successive births her tender cares combine,
And soft affections live along the line.

  " On angel wings the Goddess Form descends,
Round her fond broods her silver arms she bends;
White streams of milk her tumid bosom swell,
And on her lips ambrosial kisses dwell.
Light joys on twinkling feet before her dance
With playful nod, and momentary glance ;            100
Behind, attendant on the pansied plain,
Young Psyche treads with  Cupid in her train.

  III. "  In these lone births no tender mothers blend
Their genial powers to nourish or defend;
No nutrient streams from Beauty's orbs improve
These orphan babes of solitarv love ;
Birth after birth the line unchanging runs,
And fathers live transmitted in their  sons ;
Each passing year beholds the  unvarying kinds,
The same their manners, and the same their minds.   110
Till,  as ere long successive buds decay,
And insect-shoals successive pass away,
Medusa; and as it adheres to its calcareous cavity, and thence cannot
travel to its neighbours,  is probably without sex.   I  observed great
masses of the limestone in Shropshire, which is brought to Newport,
to consist of the cells of these animals.
  And heaven-born Storge, 1. 92.  See Additional Note IX. 
46             ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.      Canto 2.

Increasing wants the pregnant parents vex
With the fond wish to form a softer sex;
Whose milky rills with pure ambrosial food
Might charm and  cherish their expected brood.
The potent wish, in the productive hour,
Calls to its aid Imagination's power,
O'er embryon throngs with  mystic charm presides,
And sex from sex the nascent world divides,          120
With  soft affections warms the callow trains,
And gives to laughing Love his nymphs and swains;
   A softer sex, 1. 114.  The first buds of trees raised from seed die an-
nually, and are succeeded by new buds, by solitary reproduction; which
are larger or more perfect for several successive  years,  and  then  they
produce sexual, flowers, which are succeeded by seminal reproduction.
The same occurs in bulbous rooted  plants raised from seed; they die an-
nually, and produce others rather more perfect than the parent for several
years, and then produce sexual flowers.  The Aphis is in a similar man-
ner hatched from an egg in the vernal months, and produces a viviparous
offspring, without sexual intercourse, for nine or ten successive generations;
and then the progeny is both male and female, which cohabit,  and from
these new females are produced eggs, which endure the winter.  The same
process probably occurs in many other insects.
  Imagination's power,  1.118.   The manner in which the similarity of
the progeny to the parent, and the  sex of it, are produced by the power
of imagination, is treated of in Zoonomia, Sect. XXXIX. 6.3. It is not to
be understood, that the first living fibres which are to form an animal,
are produced by imagination, with any similarity of form to the future
animal;  but  with  appetencies or propensities, which  shall produce by
accretion of parts the similarity of  form and feature, or  of sex,  corres-
ponding with the imagination of the father.
  His nyonphs and swains, 1. 122.   The arguments which have been ad-
duced to show that mankind and quadrupeds were formerly in an herma-
phrodite state, are first deduced from the present existence of breasts and
nipples in all the males; which latter swell on titillation like those of the
females, and which are said to contain a milky fluid at their birth; and
jt is affirmed, that some men have given milk to their children in desert 
 Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.          47

 Whose mingling virtues interweave at length

 The  mother's beauty with the father's strength.


    " So tulip-bulbs, emerging from the seed,

 Year after year, unknown to sex, proceed;

 Erewhile the stamens and the styles display

 Their  petal-curtains,  and  adorn the day;

 The  beaux and beauties in each blossom glow

 With wedded joy,  or amatorial woe.                  130


 countries, where the mother  has perished; as the male pigeon is said to
 give a kind of milk from his  stomach along with the regurgitated food,
 to the  young doves, as mentioned in Additional Note IX. on Storge.
   Secondly,  from the apparent progress of many animals to greater per-
 fection, as in some insects, as the flies with two wings, termed Diptera,
 which have  rudiments of  two other wings,  called halteres, or poisers;
 and in many flowers which  have rudiments of new stamina, or fila-
 ments  without anthers on them.  See Botanic Garden, Vol.  II. Curcu-
 ma, Note; and the Note on 1. 204 of Canto I. of  this  work.
   It has been supposed by some, that  mankind were formerly quadru-
 peds as well as hermaphrodites; and that some parts of the body are  not
 yet so convenient to an erect attitude as  to a horizontal one; as tne fun-
 dus of  the bladder in an erect  posture is  not exactly over the insertion of
 the urethra; whence it is seldom completely evacuated, and thus renders
 mankind more subject to the stone than if he had preserved his hori-
 zontally. These philosophers, with Buffon and Helvetius, seem to ima-
 gine that mankind arose from one family of monkeys, on the banks of
 the Mediterranean; who accidentally had learned to use  the adductor
 policis, or that strong muscle which constitutes the ball of the thumb,
 and draws the point of it to meet the points of the fingers,  which com-
 mon monkeys do not; and that this muscle gradually increased in size,
 strength, and activity, in successive generations;  and by this improved
 use of  the sense  of touch,  that monkeys acquired clear ideas,  and gra-
dually -became men.
  Perhaps all the productions of nature are in their progress to greater
perfection!  an idea countenanced by modern discoveries and deductions
concerning the progressive formation of the solid parts of the terraqueous
globe, and consonant to the dignity of the Creator of all things. 
48           ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 2.
Unmarried Aphides prolific prove
For nine successions uninform'd of love ;
New sexes next with softer passions spring,          /
Breathe the fond vow, and woo with quivering wing.

  " So erst in Paradise creation's Lord,
As the first leaves of holy  writ record,
From Adam's rib,  who press'd the flowery grove,
And dreamt delighted of untasted love,
To cheer and charm his solitary mind,
Form'd a new sex, the Mother of Mankind.     140
—Buoy'd on light step the Beauty seem'd to swim,
And stretch'd alternate every pliant limb;
Pleased on Euphrates' velvet margin stood,
And view'd her playful image  in the flood;
Own'd the fine flame of love, as  life began,
And smiled enchantment on adoring Man.
Down her white neck  and  o'er her bosom roll'd,
Flow'd in sweet negligence her locks of gold;
Round her fine form the dim transparence play'd,
And show'd the beauties that it seem'd to shade.    150
—Enamour'd Adam gaz'd with fond surprise,
And drank delicious passion from her eyes;
Felt the new thrill of young  Desire, and press'd
The graceful Virgin to his glowing breast.—
The mother of mankind, 1. 140.  See Additional Note X. 
 Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.        43
 The conscious Fair betrays her soft alarms,
 Sinks with warm blush into his closing arms,
 Yields to his fond caress with wanton play,
 And sweet, reluctant, amorous,  delay.

   IV. " Where no new Sex with glands nutritious feeds,
 Nurs'd in her womb, the solitary breeds;            160
 No  Mother's care their early steps directs,
 Warms in her bosom, with her wings protects;
 The clime unkind,  or noxious food instills
 To embryon nerves hereditary ills;
 The feeble births acquired  diseases chase,
 Till Death extinguish the degenerate race.

   " So grafted trees with shadowy summits rise,
 Spread their fair Wossoms,  and perfume  the skies;
 Till canker taints the vegetable blood,
 Mines round the bark,  and feeds upon the wood.     170
 So,  years successive, from perennial roots
 The wire or bulb with lessen'd vigour shoots;


  Acquit'd diseases, 1. 165.  See Additional Note XI.
  So grafed trees, 1.167.  Mr. Knight first observed that those apple and
 pear trees, which had been propagated for above a century by engraft-
 ment, were now so unhealthy as not to be worth cultivation.  I have sus-
pected the diseases of potatoes attended with  the curled leaf,  and of
straw berry plants attended with  barren  flowers, to be owing to  their
having been too long raised from roots, or by solitary reproduction, and
not from seeds, or sexual reproduction, and to have thence acquired those
hereditary diseases.
<3 
50            ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 2,
Till curled leaves,  or barren flowers, betray
A waning lineage,  verging to decay;
Or till, amended by connubial powers,
Rise seedling progenies from sexual flowers.

  " E'en where unmix'd the breed, in sexual tribes
Parental  taints the  nascent babe imbibes;
Eternal war the Gout and Mania wage
With fierce uncheck'd hereditary rage;              180>
Sad Beauty*s form foul Scrofula surrounds
With bones distorted, and putrescent wounds;
And, fell Consumption! thy unerring dart
Wets its  broad wing in Youth's reluctant heart.

  " With pausing step, at night's refulgent noon,
Beneath  the sparkling stars,  and lucid moon,
Plung'd  in the shade of some religious tower,
The slow bell counting the departed hour,
O'er gaping tombs where shed umbrageous Yews
On mouldering bones their cold unwholesome dews;  190
While low aerial voices whisper round,
And moon-drawn spectres dance upon the ground;
Poetic Melancholy loves to tread,
And bend in silence o'er the countless Dead;
Marks with loud sobs infantine  Sorrows rave,
And wring their pale hands o'er their Mother's grave;
  And, fell Consumption, 1. 183.
     ..........Hxret lateri lethalis arundo.      Virgil. 
Canto 2.  REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.        51
Hears on the new-turn'd sod, with gestures wild,
The kneeling Beauty call her buried child ;
Upbraid with timorous accents Heaven's decrees,
And with sad sighs augment the passing breeze.     200
1  Stern Time,' she cries, 4 receives from Nature's womb
Her beauteous births, and bears them to the tomb;
Calls all her sons from earth's remotest bourn,
And from the closing portals none return!"

  V. Urania paused,—upturn'd her streaming eyes,
And her white bosom heaved with silent sighs;
With her the Muse laments the sum of things,
And hides her sorrows with her meeting wings;
Long o'er the wrecks of lovely Life thev weep,
Then pleased reflect, " to die is but to sleep ;"       210
From Nature's coffins to her cradles turn,
Smile with young joy,  with new affection bum.

  And now the Muse, with mortal woes impress'd,
Thus the fair Hierophant again address'd:
—" Ah me !  celestial Guide, thy words impart
Ills undeserved,  that rend the nascent heart!
O, Goddess,  say, if brighter scenes improve
Air-breathing tribes, and births of sexual love?"—
The smiling Fair obeys the inquiring  Muse,
And in sweet tones her grateful task pursues.         220 
52            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 1.
  " Now on broad pinions from the realms above
Descending Cupid seeks the Cyprian grove ;
To his wide arms enamour'd Psyche springs,
And clasps her lover with aurelian wings.
A purple sash across His  shoulder bends,
And fringed with gold the quiver'd shafts suspends;
The bending bow obeys the silken string,
And as he steps, the silver arrows ring.
Thin folds of gauze with dim transparence flow
O'er Her fair forehead, and her neck of snow;      23Q
The winding woof her graceful limbs surrounds,
Swells in the breeze, and  sweeps the velvet grounds;
As hand in hand along the flowery meads
His blushing bride the quiver'd hero leads ;
Charm'd round their heads pursuing Zephyrs throng,
And scatter roses as they move along;
Bright beams of Spring in soft effusion play,
And halcyon Hours invite them on their way,

  " Delighted Hymen hears their whisper'd vows,
And binds his chaplets round their polish'd brows,     240

  Enamour'd Psyche, 1. 223.   A butterfly was the  ancient emblemof
the soul after death, as rising from the tomb of its former state, and be-
coming a winged inhabitant of air from an insect creeping upon earth.
At length the wings only were given to  a beautiful nymph under the
name of Psyche, which is the Greek word for the soul, and also became
afterwards'to signify a butterfly, probably from the popularity of this alle-
gory.  Many allegorical designs of Cupid or Love warming a butterfly
or the Soul with his torch may be seen in Spence's Polymetis, and a
beautiful one of their marriage in Bryant's  Mythology; from which this
description is in part taken. 
Canto 2.  REPRODUCTION OF LIF*E.        53
Guides to his altar, ties the flowery bands,
And as they kneel, unites their willing hands.
'  Behold,' he cries, ' Earth! Ocean ! Air above,
'  And  hail the Deities of Sexual Love !
4  All forms of Life shall this fond Pair delight,
1  And  sex to sex the willing world unite ;
'  Shed their sweet smiles in Earth's unsocial bowers,
*  F"an with soft gales,  and gild with brighter hours ;
4  Fill Pleasure's chalice, unalloy'd with pain,
'  And  give Society his golden chain.'              250

  " Now young Desires, on purple pinions borne,
Mount the warm gales of Manhood's rising morn;
With softer fires through virgin bosoms dart,
Flush the pale cheek, and goad the tender heart.
Ere the weak powers of transient Life  decay.
And Heaven's ethereal  image melts away ;
Lovi: with nice touch renews the organic frame,
Forms a voung Ens,  another and the same ;
Gives from his rosy lips the vital breath,
And parries with his hand the shafts of death;       260
While Beauty broods, with  angel wings unfurl'd,
O'er nascent life, and saves the sinking world.
While Beauty broods, 1. 261.
   Alma Venus !  per te quoniam genus omne animantum
   poncipitur, visitque  exortum lumina cceli.         Lucret. 
54             ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 2.

   " Hence on green leaves the sexual Pleasures dwell,

And Loves and Beauties  crowd the blossom's bell;

The wakeful Anther, in his silken bed,

O'er the pleased Stigma bows his waxen head ;

With meeting lips and mingling smiles they sup

Ambrosial dew-drops from the nectar'd cup;

Or biioy'd in air the  plumy Lover springs,

And seeks his panting bride on Hymen-wings.        2/0


   44 The  Stamen males, with appetencies just,

Produce a formative  prolific dust;


  From the nectar'd cup, 1.268.  The anthers and stigmas of flowers are
probably nourished by the  honey, which is secreted by the honey-gland,
called by Linnseus the nectary; and possess greater sensibility or anima-
tion  than other parts of the plant.  The corol of the flower appears to
be a respiratory organ belonging to these anthers and stigmas, for the pur-
pose of further oxygenating the vegetable blood for the production of the
anther dust and of this honey, which is also exposed to the air in its re-
ceptacle or honey-cup;  which I suppose to be necessary for its further
oxygenation,  as in many flowers so complicate an apparatus is formed
for its  protection from  insects,  as in aconitum, delphinium, larkspur,
lonicera, woodbine; and because the corol and nectary fall along with the
anthers and stigmas, when the pericarp is impregnated.
  Dr. B. S.Barton,  in the American Transactions, has lately shown, that
the honey collected from some plants is intoxicating and poisonous to men,
as from rhododendron,  azalea, and datura ; and from some other plants
that it is hurtful to the bees which collect it; and that from some flowers
it is so injurious or disagreeable, that they do not collect it,  as from the
fritillaria, or crown imperial of this country.
  With appetencies just,  1. 271.  As in the productions by chemical affi-
nity one set of particles must possess the power of attraction, and the other
the aptitude to be attracted, as when iron approaches a magnet; so when
animal particles unite, whether in digestion or reproduction, some of them
must possess an appetite to unite, and others a propensity to be united.
The former of these are secreted by the anthers from the vegetable blood,
and the latte'r by the styles or  pericarp.  See the Additional Note VIII.
on Reproduction. 
 Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.         55

 With apt propensities, the Styles recluse

 Secrete a formative prolific juice ;

 These in the pericarp erewhile arrive,

 Rush to  each other and  embrace alive.

 —Form'd by new powers progressive parts succeed,

 Join in one  whole, and swell into a seed.


   44  So in fond swarms the living Anthers shine

 Of bright Vallisner on the wavy Rhine ;             280

 Break  from their stems,  and on the liquid glass

 Surround the admiring stigmas as they pass;

 The love-sick Beauties lift their essenced  brows.

 Sigh to the  Cyprian queen their secret vows,

 Like watchful Hero feel  their soft alarms,

 And clasp their floating lovers in their arms.


   44  Hence  the  male Ants their gauzy wings unfold,

 And young Lampyris waves his plumes of gold;



  Of bright Vallisner, 1. 280.   Vallisneria, of the class of dioecia.  The
 flowers of the  male plant are produced under water,  and as soon as their
 farina or dust is mature, they detach themselves from the plant, rise to
 the surface, and continue to flourish, and are wafted  by the air, or borne
 by the current, to the female flowers. In this they resemble those tribes
 of insects where the males, at certain seasons, acquire wings, but not the
 females, as ants, coccus, lampyris, phalama, brumata, lichanella. Bo-
 tanic Garden,  Vol.  II. Note on Vallisneria.
  And young Lampyris, 1. 288.   The fire-fly is at some seasons so lumin-
 ous, that I\ I. Merian says, that by putting two of them under a  glass, she
 was able to draw her figures of  them by night.   Whether  the light  of
Litis and of other insects be caused by their amatorial passion, and thus
assists them to find  each other ; or is caused by respiration, which is  so 
 56             ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 2.

 The Glow-Worm sparkles with impassion'd light

 On each green bank, and charms the eye of night;   290

 While new desires the painted Snail perplex,

 And twofold love  unites the double sex.


   44 Hence, when the Morus in Italia's lands

 To spring's warm beam its timid leaf expands;

 The Silk-Worm broods in coundess tribes above,

 Crop the green treasure,  uninform'd of love;

 Erewhile the changeful worm, with circling head,

 Weaves the nice curtains of his silken bed ;

 Web within web involves his larva form,

 Alike secured from sunshine and from storm ;         300

 For twelve long days He dreams of blossom'd groves,

 Untasted honey,  and ideal loves;


 analogous to combustion; or to a tendency to putridity, as in dead fish
 and rotten wood, is still to be investigated. See Botanic Garden, Vol. I.
 Additional Note IX.
   Untasted honey, 1. 302. The numerous moths and butterflies seem to
 pass from  a reptile leaf-eating state, and to acquire wings to flit in air,
 with a proboscis to gain honey for their food along with their organs of
 reproduction, solely for the purpose of propagating their species by sex-
 ual intercourse, as they die when that is completed.  By the use of their
 wings they have access to each other on different branches, or on different
 vegetables, and by living upon honey probably acquire a higher degree of
 animation, and thus seem to resemble the anthers of flowers, which pro-
 bably are supported by honey only, and thence acquire greater sensibi-
 lity.  See Note on Vallisneria, 1. 280 of this Canto.
  A naturalist, who had studied this subject, thought it not impossible
 that the first insects were the anthers and stigmas of flowers, which had
 by some means loosened themselves from their parent plant, like the male
 flowers of Vallisneria, and that other insects,  in process'of time, had been
formed from these'; some acquiring wings, others fins, and others claws,
 from their ceaseless efforts to procure food, or to secure themselves from in- 
Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.         57
Wakes from his trance, alarm'd with young Desire,
Finds  his new sex, and feels ecstatic fire;
From  flower to flower, with honey'd lip, he springs,
And seeks his velvet loves on silver wings.

   VI. " The Demon,  Jealousy, with Gorgon frown,
Blasts the sweet flowers of  Pleasure not his own,
Rolls his wild eyes,  and through the shuddering grove
Pursues  the steps of unsuspecting Love ;             310
Or drives o'er rattling plains his iron car,
Flings his red torch, and lights the flames of war.

   u Here Cocks heroic bum with rival rage,
And Quails with Quails in doubtful fight engage;
Of armed heels and bristling plumage proud,
They  sound the insulting clarion shrill and loud,
With rustling pinions meet, and  swelling chests,
And seize with closing beaks their bleeding crests ;
Rise on  quick wing above the struggling foe,
And aim in air the death-devoting blow.              320
There the hoarse stag  his croaking rival scorns,
And butts and parries with his branching horns;

jury.  He contends that none of these changes are mqre incomprehensi-
ble than the transformation  of caterpillars into butterflies. See Botanic
Garden, Vol.  I. Additional Note XXXIX.
   There the hoarse stag, 1. 321. 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,
as the verv thick shield-like horny skin on the shoulder of the boar is a de-.
fence only against animals of his own species, who strike obliquely upwards;
                            H 
 58             ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 2,

 Contending  Boars with tusk enamell'd strike,

 And guard with shoulder-shield the blow oblique;

 While female bands attend in mute surprise,

 And view the victor with admiring eyes.


   44 So Knight on Knight, recorded in romance,

 Urged the proud steed, and couch'd the extended lance;

 He,  whose dread prowess with resisdess force,

 O'erthrew the opposing warrior and his horse,         330

 Bless'd as the golden guerdon of his toils,

 Bow'd to the Beauty, and receiv'd her smiles.


   44 So when fair Helen, with ill-fated charms,

 By Paris wooed, provoked the world to arms,

 Left her vindictive Lord to sigh  in  vain

 For broken vows,  lost love,  and cold disdain;

 Fired at his wrongs,  associate to destory

 The realms unjust of proud adulterous Troy,



 nor are his tushes for other purposes, except to defend himself, as he is
not naturally a carnivorous animal.  So the horns of the stag are sharp to
 offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or re-
ceiving 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 times of chivalry, to
attend the car of the victor.
  The birds which do not carry food to their young, and do not therefore
marry, are armed with spurs, for the purpose of fighting for the exclusive
possession of the females, as  cocks and quails.  It is certain that these
weapons are not provided for their defence against other adversaries, be-
cause the females of these species  are without this armour.  Zoonomia,
Sect. XXXIX. 4. 8. 
 Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.         59

 Unnumber'd Heroes braved the dubious fight,

 And sunk lamented to the shades of night.             340


   44 Now vows connubial chain the plighted pair,

 And join paternal with maternal care ;

 The married birds with nice selection cull

 Soft thistle-down,  gray moss, and scattered wool,

 Line the secluded nest with feathery rings,

 Meet with fond bills,  and woo with fluttering wings.

Week after week,  regardless of her food,

 The incumbent Linnet warms her future brood;

 Each spotted egg with ivory lips she turns,

 Day after day with fond expectance burns,            356

 Hears the young prisoner chirping in his cell,

 And breaks in hemispheres the obdurate shell.

 Loud trills sweet Philomel hjs tender strain,

 Charms his fond bride, and wakes his infant train;


  The incumbent Linnet, 1. 348. The affection of the unexperienced and
 untaught bird to its egg, which induces it to sit days and weeks upon it
 to warm the enclosed embryon, is a matter of great difficulty to explain.
 See Additional Note IX. on Storge. Concerning the fabrication of their
 nests, see Zoonomia,  Sect. XVI.  13. on instinct.
  Hears the young prisoner,  1.351.   The air-vessel at the broad end of an
incubated egg gradually extends its edges along the sides of the shell, as
the chick enlarges, but is, at the same time, applied closer to the internal
surface of the shell; when the time of hatching approaches, the chick is
liable to break this air-bag with its beak, and thence begin to breathe
and to chirp; at this time  the edges of the enlarged air-bag extend so as
to cover internally one hemisphere of the egg; and as one half of the
external shell is thus moist, and the other half dry,  as soon as the mother
hearing the chiek chirp, or the chick itself, wanting respirabie air, strikes
the egg, about its equatorial line, it breaks into two hemispheres, and li-
berates the prisoner. 
60            ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 2,
Perch'd on the circling moss, the listening throng
Wave their young wings, and whisper to the song.

  44 The Lion-King forgets his savage pride,
And courts with playful paws his tawny bride j
The listening Tiger hears,  with kindling flame,
The love-lorn night-call of his brinded dame.         36Q
Despotic Love dissolves the bestial war,
Bends their proud necks,  and joins them to his car;
Shakes o'er the obedient pairs his silken  thong,
And goads the humble, or restrains the strong.—
Slow roll the silver wheels,—in beauty's  pride
Celestial Psyche blushing by his side.—
The lordly Bull behind, and warrior  Horse,
With voice of thunder shake the echoing course,
Chain'd to the car with herds domestic move,
And swell the triumph  of despotic Love.             370

  44 Pleased as they pass along the breezy shore
In twinkling shoals the  scaly realms adore,
Move on quick fin with undulating train,
Or lift their slimy foreheads from the main.
  And whisper to the song, 1. 356.  A curious circumstance is mentioned
by Kircherus de Musurgia,  in his Chapter de Lusciniis, " That the
young nightingales that are hatched under other birds never sing till they
are instructed by the company of other nightingales."  And Johnson af-
firms, that the nightingales that visit Scotland have not the same har-
mony as those of Italy (Pennant's Zoology, octavo,  p. 255), which
would lead us to suspect, that the singing of birds, like human music, is
jn artificial language rather than a natural expression of passion.
  With undulating train, 1. 373,  The side fins of fish seem to be chiefly 
Canto 2.   REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.          61

High o'er their heads on pinions broad display'd

The feather'd nations shed a floating shade;


used  to poise  them, as they turn upon their backs immediately when
killed: the air-bladder assists them perhaps to rise or descend, by its
possessing the power to condense the air in it by muscular contraction;
and it is possible, that at great depths in the ocean the air in this recep-
tacle may, by the great pressure of the incumbent water, become condensed
into so small a space, as to cease to be useful to the animal, which  was
possibly the cause of the death of Mr. Day in his diving ship.   See note
on Ulva,  Botanic Garden, Vol. II.
  The progressive motion of fish beneath the water is produced princi-
pally by the undulation of their tails.  One oblique plain of a part of the tail
on the right side of the fish strikes the water at the same time that another
oblique plain strikes it on the left side; hence, in respect to moving to the
right or left, these percussions of the water counteract each other, but they
coincide in respect to the progression of the fish:  this power seems to be
better applied to push forwards a body in water,  than the oars of boats,
as the particles of water recede from the  stroke of the oar; whence the
comparative power acquired is but as the difference of velocity between the
striking oar and the receding water.  So a ship  moves swifter with an
oblique wind  than  with a wind of the same velocity exactly behind it;
and the common wind-mill sail placed obliquely to the wind is more power-
ful than one which  directly recedes from it.   Might not some machinery
resembling the tails of fish be placed behind a boat, so as to be moved with
greater effect than common oars, by the force of wind or steam, or perhaps
by hand ?
  On pinions broad display'd, 1. 375.  The progressive motion of birds in
the air is principally performed by the movement of their wings, and not
by that of their tails, as in fish.  The bird is supported in an element so
much lighter than itself by the resistance of the air as it moves horizon-
tally  against the oblique plain made by  its breast, expanded tail and wings,
when they are at rest: the change of this obliquity also assists it to rise,
and even directs its descent,  though this is owing principally to  its spe-
cific gravity; but it is in all situations kept upright  or balanced by its
wings.
  As the support of the bird in the air, as well as its progression, is per-
formed by the motion of the wings, these require strong muscles, as are
seen on the breasts of patridges.  Whence all attempts of men to fly by
wings applied to the weak muscles of their arms have been ineffectual;
but it  is not certain whether light machinery so contrived as to be moved
by their feet, might not enable them to fly a little way, though not so as
to answer any useful purpose. 
 62           ORIGIN OF SOCIETY,     Canto 2.
 Pair after pair enamour'd shoot along,
 And trill in air the gay impassion'd song.
 With busy hum, in playful swarms around,
 Emerging insects leave the peopled ground,         380
 Rise in dark clouds,  and borne in airy rings,
 Sport round the car, and wave their golden wings.
 Admiring Fawns pursue on dancing hoof,
 And bashful Dryads peep from shades aloof;
 Emerging Nereids rise from coral cells,
 Enamour'd Tritons sound their twisted shells ;
 From sparkling founts enchanted Naiads move,
 And swell the triumph of despotic Love.

   44 Delighted Flora, gazing from afar,
 Greets with mute homage the triumphal car;        390
 On silvery slippers steps with bosom bare,
 Bends her white knee, and bows her auburn hair;
 Calls to her purple heaths, and blushing bowers,
 Bursts her green gems, and opens all her  flowers ;
 O'er the bright Pair a shower of roses sheds,
 And crowns with wreathes of hyacinth  their heads__.
—Slow roll the silver wheels with snowdrops deck'd,
 And primrose bands the cedar spokes connect;
 Round the fine pole the twisting woodbine clings,
 And knots of jasmine clasp the bending springs;     400
 Bright daisy links the velvet harness chain,
 And rings of violets join each silken rein; 
Canto 2.  REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.        63
Festoon'd behind, the snow-white lilies bend,
And tulip-tassels on each side depend.
—Slow rolls the car,—the enamour'd Flowers exhale
Their  treasured sweets, and whisper to the gale ;
Their ravelled buds, and wrinkled cups unfold,
Nod their green stems, and wave their bells of gold;
Breathe their soft sighs from each enchanted grove,
And hail The Deities  of Sexual  Love.          410

  44 Onward with march sublime, in saffron robe,
Young Hymen steps, and traverses the globe ;
O'er burning sands, and snow-clad mountains, treads,
Blue fields of air, and Ocean's briny beds ;
Flings from his radiant torch celestial light
O'er Dav's wide concave, and illumes the Night.
With dulcet eloquence his tuneful tongue
Convokes and  captivates the Fair and Young;
His golden lamp with ray ethereal dyes
The blushing cheek, and lights the laughing eyes ;   420
With secret flames the virgin's bosom warms,
And lights the impatient bridegroom to her arms;
With lovely life all natures frame inspires,
And, as  they sink,  rekindles  all  her fires."

  VII.  Now paused the beauteous Teacher, and awhile
Gazed on her train  with sympathetic smile.
4 Beware of Love!'  she  cried, 4 ye Nymphs, and hear
w His twanging bowstring with alanned ear; 
64               ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 2.

'  Fly the first whisper of the distant dart,

4  Or shield with adamant the fluttering heart;          430

4  To secret shades,  ye Virgin trains,  retire,

4  And in your bosoms  guard the vestal fire.'

—The obedient Beauties hear her words,  advised,

And bow with laugh repress'd,  and smile chastised.


   Now at her nod the Nymphs attending bring

Translucent water from the bubbling spring;

In crystal cups the waves salubrious shine,

Unstain'd,  untainted with  immodest wine.

Next, where emerging from its ancient roots,

Its widening boughs the Tree of Knowledge shoots;   440


   With laugh repress'd, 1.434. The cause of the violent actions of laughter,
 and of the difficulty of restraining them, is a curious subject of inquiry.
 When pain afflicts us, which we cannot avoid, we learn  to relieve it by
 great voluntary exertions, as in grinning, holding the breath, or screaming;
 now the pleasurable sensation, which excites laughter,  arises for a time
 so  high as to change its name, and become a painful one; and we excite
 the convulsive motions of the respiratory muscles to relieve this pain.
 We are however unwilling to lose the pleasure, and presently put a stop
 to  this exertion; and  immediately  the pleasure recurs,  and again aa
 instantly rises into pain.  Which is further explained in Zoonomia, Sect.
 XXXIV. 1.4.  When this pleasurable sensation rises into a painful one,
 and the customs of society will not permit us to laugh aloud, some other
 violent voluntary exertion is used instead of it to alleviate the pain.
   And smile chastised,  1. 434.  The origin of the smile has generally
 been ascribed to inexplicable instinct, but may be deduced from our early
 associations of actions and ideas. In the act of sucking, the lips of the
  infant are closed round the nipple of its mother, till it has filled its stomach,
 and the pleasure of digesting this  grateful food succeeds; then the sphinc-
 ter of the rnouth, fatigued by the continued action of sucking, is relaxed;
 and the antagonist muscles of the face gently acting, produce the smile
  of pleasure, which is thus during our lives associated with gentle pleasure,
  which is further explained in Zoonomia, Sect.  XVI. 8. 4. 
Canto 2.  REPRODUCTION OF LIFE.
Pluck'd with nice choice before the Muse they placed
The now no longer interdicted taste.
Awhile they sit,  from higher cares released,
And pleased partake the intellectual feast.
Of good and ill they spoke, effect and cause,
Celestial agencies, and Nature's laws.

   So when angelic Forms, to Syria sent,
Sat in the cedar shade by Abraham's tent,
A spacious bowl  the admiring Patriarch fills
With dulcet water from the scanty rills;
Sweet fruits and  kernels gathers from his hoard,
With milk and butter piles the plenteous board;
While on the heated hearth his Consort bakes
Fine flour well kneeded in unleaven'd cakes.
The Guests ethereal quaff the lucid flood,
Smile on their hosts,  and taste terrestrial food;
And while from  seraph-lips sweet converse springs,
Lave their fair feet and close  their silver wings.
END OF CANTO II.
l 
 
  ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.




       CANTO III.




PROGRESS OF THE MIND. 
CONTENTS.
I. Urania  and .the Muse converse, 1.  Progress of the Mind, 42.  II.
  The four Sensorial Powers of Irritation, Sensation, Volition, and Asr
  sociation, 55.  Some finer Senses given to Brutes, 93.  And Armour,
  108. Finer Organ of Touch given to Man, 121.  Whence clear Ideas
  of Form, 125.  Vision is the Language of the Touch, 131.  Magic-
  lantern,  139.  Surprise,  Novelty, Curiosity,  145.  Passions, Vices,
  149. Philanthropy, 159.   Shrine of Virtue, 160.  III. Ideal Beauty
  from the Female Bosom, 163.  Eros the God of Sentimental Love,
  177. Young Dione idolized by Eros, 186.  Third Chain of Society,
  206. IV.  Ideal Beauty from curved Lines, 207.   Taste for the Beau-
  tiful, 222.   Taste for the Sublime, 223.  For Poetic Melancholy, 231.
  For Tragedy, 241.  For artless Nature, 247.   The Genius of Taste,
  259. V. The Senses  easily form and  repeat Ideas, 269.   Imitation
  from clear Ideas, 279.  The Senses imitate each other, 293.  In Danc-
  ing, 295.  In Drawing naked Nymphs, 297.   In Architecture, as at
  St. Peter's at Rome, 303.   Mimickry, 319.  VI.  Natural Language
  from Imitation, 335:  Language  of Quails, Cocks, Lions, Boxers, 343.
  Pantomime  Action, 357.   Verbal Language from Imitation and  As-
  sociation, 363.  Symbols of Ideas, 371.   Gigantic Form of Time, 385.
  Wings of Hermes,  391,   VII.  Recollection  from clear  Ideas, 395.
  Reason and Volition, 401.  Arts of the Wasp, Bee, Spider, Wren,
  Silk-Worm, 411.  Volition concerned  about Means or Causes, 435.
  Man distinguished by Language, by using Tools, labouring for Money,
  praying  to the Deity, 438.  The Tree of Knowledge of Good  and
  Evil, 445.  VIII.  Emotions from Imitation, 461.  The Seraph; Sym-
  pathy, 467.  Christian Morality the great Bond of Society, 483—496. 
CANTO  III.
         PROGRESS OF THE  MIND.


I.  NOW rose, adorn'd with Beauty's brightest hues,
The graceful Hierophant, and winged Muse ;
Onward they step around the stately piles,
O'er porcelain floors,  through laqueated aisles,
Eve Nature's lofty and her lowly seats,
Her gorgeous palaces,  and green retreats,
Pervade her lab'rinths with unerring tread,
And leave for future guests a guiding thread.

   First with fond gaze blue fields of air they sweep,
Or pierce the briny chambers of  the deep;             10
Earth's burning line, and  icy poles explore,
Her fertile surface, and her caves of ore ;
Or mark how Oxygen, with Azote-Gas,
Plays round the globe  in one aerial mass;

  How Oxygen, 1. 13.   The atmosphere which surrounds us is composed
of twenty-seven parts of oxygen gas, and seventy-three of azote or nitro-
gen gas, which are simply diffused together; but which, when combined,
become nitrous acid.   Water consists of eighty.six parts oxygen, and 
TO            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 3.

Or fused with Hydrogen, in ceaseless flow,
Forms the wide waves which  foam and roll below.


   Next with illumined hands through prisms bright
Pleased they untwist the sevenfold threads of light;
Or, bent in pencils by the lens, convey
To one bright point the  silver hairs of  Day.            20
Then mark how two electric streams conspire
To form the resinous and vitreous fire ;
Beneath the waves the fierce Gymnotus arm,
And give Torpedo his benumbing charm;
Or, through Galvanic chain-work as they pass,
Convert the kindling water into gas.
fourteen parts of hydrogen or inflammable air, in a state of combination.
It is also probable that much oxygen enters the composition of glass; as
those materials which promote vitrification contain so much of it, as mi-
nium and manganese ; and that glass is hence a solid acid in the temper
rature of our atmosphere, as water is a fluid one.
  Two electric streams, 1.21. It is the opinion of some philosophers that
the electric ether consists of two kinds of fluids diffused together or com-
bined, which are commonly known by the terms of positive and nega-
tive electricity, but are by these electricians called vitreous and resinous
electricity.   The electric shocks given by the torpedo,  and by the gym-
notus, are supposed  to be similar to those of the Galvainc pile, as they
are produced in water; which water is decomposed by the Galvanic pile,
and converted into oxygen and hydrogen gas. See Additional Note XII.
  The magnetic ether may also be supposed to consist of two fluids; one
of which attracts the needle, and the other repels it; and, perhaps, che-
mical affinities,  and gravitation itself,  may consist of two kinds of ether
surrounding the particles of bodies,  and may thence attract at one dis-
tance and repel  at another; as appears when two insulated electerised
balls are approached to each other, or when two small globules of mer-
cury -are pressed together. 
Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.        71
  How at the poles opposing Ethers dwell,
Attract the quivering needle,  or repel;
How Gravitation, by immortal laws,
Surrounding matter to a centre draws;               30
How Heat, pervading oceans,  airs,  and lands,
With force uncheck'd, the mighty mass expands;
And last,  how born in elemental strife
Beam'd the first spark, and lighten'd into Life.

  Now in sweet tones he inquiring Muse express'd
Her ardent wish,  and thus the Fair address'd:
44 Priestess of Nature ! whose exploring sight
Pierces the realms of Chaos and of  Night;
Of space unmeasured marks the first and last,
Of endless time the present,  future,  past.           40
Immortal Guide !  O, now with accents kind
Give to my ear the Progress of the  Mind;
How loves,  and tastes, and sympathies commence
From evanescent notices of sense ;
How from the yielding touch and rolling eyes
The piles immense of human science rise!—
With mind gigantic steps the puny Elf,
And weighs and measures all things but himself!"

  The indulgent Beauty hears the grateful Muse,
Smiles on her pupil, and her task renews.             50
Attentive  Nymphs in sparkling squadrons throng,
And choral Virgins listen to the song; 
72
ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.      Canto 3.
Pleased Fawns and Naiads crowd in silent rings,
And hovering Cupids stretch their purple wings.

   II.  44 First the new actions of the excited sense,
Urged by appulses from without, commence ;
With these exertions pain or pleasure springs,
And forms perceptions of  external things.
Thus,  when illumined by the solar beams,
Yon waving woods, green  lawns, and sparkling streams,
In one bright point by rays converging lie              61
Plann'd on the moving tablet of the eye ;
The mind obeys the  silver goads of light,
And Irritation moves the nerves of sight.

   44 These  acts repeated rise from joys or pains,
And swell Imagination's flowing trains ;
 So in dread dreams, amid the silent night,
Grim spectre-forms the shuddering sense affright;
Or Beauty's idol-image, as it moves,
Charms the closed eye with graces, smiles, and loves:   70

   And Irritation moves, 1.64. Irritation is. an exertion or change of some
 extreme part of the sensorium residing in the muscles or organs of sense,
 in consequence of the appulses of external  bodies.  The word percep-  *
 tion includes both the action of the organ of sense in consequence of the
 impact of external objects, and our attention to that action; that is, it ex-
 presses both the motion of the organ of sense, or idea, and the pain or
 pleasure that succeeds or accompanies it. Irritative ideas are those which
 are preceded by irritation, which is excited by objects external to the or-
 gans of sense; as the idea of that tree, which either I attend to, or which
 I shun in walking near  it without attention.  In the former  case it is
 termed perception, in the latter it is termed simply an irritative idea. 
Canto  3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         7J

Each passing form the pausing heart delights,
And young Sensation every nerve excites.


   44 Oft from sensation quick  Volition springs,
When pleasure thrills us, or when anguish stings;
Hence Recollection calls with voice sublime
Immersed ideas from the wrecks of Time,
With potent charm in lucid trains displays
Eventful stories of forgotten days.
Hence Reason's efforts good with ill contrast,
Compare the present,  future,  and the past;            80
   And young Sensation, 1. 72.   Sensation is an exertion or change of the
 central parts of the sensorium, or of the whole of it, beginning at some
 of those extreme parts of it which reside in the musck-s  or organs of
 sense.  Sensitive ideas are those which are preceded by the sensation of
 pleasure or pain,  are termed Imagination, and constitute our dreams and
 reveries.
   £>ttick Volition springs, 1. 73.  Volition is an exertion or change of the
 central parts of the sensorium, or of the whole of it, terminating in some
 of those extreme parts of it which reside in the muscles and organs of
 sense.  The vulgar use of the word memory is too unlimited for our pur-
 pose: those ideas which  we voluntarily recall are here termed ideas of
 recollection, as  when we  will to repeat the alphabet backwards.  And
 those ideas which are suggested to us by preceding ideas are here termed
 ideas of suggestion,  as whilst we repeat the alphabet in the usual order;
when, by habits previously acquired, B is suggested by A,  and C by B,
without any effort of deliberation.  Reasoning is that operation of the
sensorium by which we excite two or many tribes of ideas,  and then re-
excite the ideas in which they differ or correspond.  If we determine this
difference,  it is called judgment; if we in vain endeavour to determine it,
it is called doubting.
  If we re-excite the ideas in which they differ, it is called distinguishing.
If we re-excite those in which they correspond,  it is called comparing.
K 
74            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 3-

Each passing moment,  unobserved, restrain

The wild discordancies of Fancy's train;

But leave uncheck'd the Night's ideal streams,

Or, sacred Muses!  your meridian dreams.


   44 And last Suggestion's mystic power describes

Ideal hosts arranged in trains or tribes.

So when the Nymph with volant finger rings

Her dulcet harp, and shakes the sounding strings j

As with soft voice she trills the enamour'd song,

Successive notes, unwill'd, the strain prolong;         90

The transient trains Association steers,

And  sweet vibrations charm the astonish'd ears.


   44 On rapid feet,  o'er hills,  and plains,  and rocks,

Speed the scared leveret and rapacious  fox j



  Each passing moment, 1. 81.  During, our waking hours, we perpetu-
ally compare the passing trains of our ideas with the known system of
nature,  and reject those which are incongruous with it; this is explained
in Zoonomia, Sect.  XVII. 3. 7. and is there termed Intuitive Analogy.
When we sleep, the faculty of volition ceases to act, and, in consequence,
the uncompared trains of ideas become incongruous, and form the farrago
of our dreams; in which we  never experience any surprise, or sense of
novelty.
  Association steers, 1. 91.  Association is an exertion or change of some
extreme part of the sensorium residing in the  muscles and organs of
sense in consequence of some antecedent or attendant fibrous contrac-
tions.  Associate ideas, therefore, are those which  are preceded by
other ideas or muscular motions, without the  intervention of irritation,
sensation, or volition between them;  these are also termed ideas of sug-
gestion. 
 Canto 3.  PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         75
 On rapid pinions cleave the fields above,
 The hawk descending, and escaping dove;
 With nicer nostril track the tainted ground,
 The hungry vulture,  and the prowling hound;
 Converge reflected light with nicer eye,
 The midnight owl, and microscopic fly;             100
 With finer ear pursue their nightly course,
 The listening lion, and the alarmed horse.

   44 The branching forehead, with diverging horns,
 Crests the bold bull, the jealous stag adorns ;
 Fierce rival boars with side-long fury wield
 The pointed tusk, and guard with shoulder-shield;
 Bounds the dread tiger o'er the affrighted heath,
 Arm'd with sharp talons, and resistless teeth ;
 The pouncing eagle bears, in clinched claws,
 The struggling lamb,  and rends with ivory jaws;     110
 The tropic eel,  electric in his ire,
 Alarms the waves with unextinguish'd fire;
 The fly of night illumes his airy way,
 And seeks with lucid lamp his sleeping prey;


  The branching forehead,  1. 103.  The peculiarities of the shapes of
 animals which distinguish  them from each other, are enumerated in
 Zoonomia, Sect. XXXIX. 4. 8. on Generation, and are believed to have
 been gradually formed from similar living fibres, and are varied by re-
 production.  Many of these parts of animals are tliere shown to have
arisen from their three great desires of lust, hunger, and security.
  The tropic eel, 1.  111. Gymnotus electricus.
  The fiy of night, 1. 113.   Lampyris noctiluca.  Fire-fly. 
76             ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 3.

Fierce on his foe the poisoning serpent springs,

And insect armies dart their venom'd stings.


   44 Proud Man alone in wailing weakness born,

No horns protect him, and no plumes adorn;

No finer powers of nostril, ear, or  eye,

Teach the young Reasoner to  pursue or fly.—         120

Nerved with fine touch above  the bestial throngs,

The hand, first gift of Heaven!  to  man belongs ;

Untipt with  claws the circling fingers close,

With rival points the bending thumbs oppose,

Trace the nice lines of form with sense refined,

And clear ideas charm the thinking mind.


   The hand, first gift of Heaven, 1.122.  The human species, in some of
their  sensations, are  much inferior to animals ;  yet the accuracy of the
sense of touch, which they possess in so eminent a degree, gives them
a great superiority of understanding; as is  well observed by the inge-
nious Mr. Buffon.  The extremities of other animals terminate in horns,
and hoofs, and claws, very unfit for the sensation of touch;  whilst the
human hand is finely adapted to encompass its object with this organ of
sense.  Those  animals who have clavicles or collar-bones, and thence
use their fore-feet like hands, as cats, squirrels, monkeys, are more in-
genious than other  quadrupeds,  except the  elephant, who has a fine
sense at the extremity of his proboscis;  and many insects, from the pos-
sessing finer organs of touch, have greater ingenuity,  as spiders, bees,
wasps.
   Trace the nice lines of form, 1.  125.  When the idea of solidity is ex-
cited, a part of the extensive organ of touch is compressed by some ex-
ternal body, and this part of the sensorium so compressed  exactly re-
sembles in figure the figure of the body that compressed it. Hence, when
we acquire the idea of solidity, we acquire, at the same time, the idea of
figure; and this idea of figure, or motion of a part of the organ of touch,
exactly resembles in its figure the figure of the body that occasions it;
and thus exactly acquaints us with this property of the external world.
   Now, as the  whole universe, with all is parts, possesses a certain form 
 Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         77

 Whence the fine organs of the touch impart

 Ideal figure, source of every art;

 Time, motion,  number, sunshine or the storm,

 But mark varieties in Nature's form.                 130


   44 Slow could the tangent organ wander o'er

 The rock-built mountain,  and the winding shore;

 No apt ideas could the pigmy mite,

 Or embryon emmet to the touch excite;

 But as each mass the solar ray reflects,

 The eye's clear glass the transient beams collects;

 Bends to their focal point the rays that swerve,

 And paints the living image  on the nerve.

 So in some  village-barn,  or festive hall,

 The spheric lens illumes the whiten'd wall;          140

 O'er the bright field successive figures  fleet,

 And motley shadows dance  along the sheet.—

 Symbol of solid forms is colour'd light,

 And the mute language of the touch is sight.


 or figure, if any part of it moves,  that  form or figure of the whole is
 varied.  Hence, as motion is no other  than a perpetual variation of
 figure,  our idea of motion is also a  real resemblance of the motion that
 produced it.
  Hence arises the certainty of the mathematical sciences, as they ex-
plain these properties of bodies, which are exactly resembled by our ideas
of them, whilst we are obliged to collect almost all our other knowledge
from experiment; that is, by observing the  effects exerted by one body
upon another.
  The mute language of the touch, 1. 144.  Our eyes observe a difference
of colour, or of shade, in the prominences and depressions of objects,
and that those shades uniformly vary when the sense of touch observes 
 78             ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 3.

    44  Hence in Life's  portico starts young Surprise

 With step retreating,  and expanded eyes;


 any variation,   Hence, when the retina becomes stimulated by colours or
 ehades of light in a certain form, as in a circular spot, we know by experi-
 ence that this is a sign that a tangible body is before us, and that its figure
 is  resembled by the miniature figure  of the part of the organ of vision
 that is thus stimulated.
   Here, whilst the stimulated part of  the retina resembles exactly  the
 visible figure of the whole in miniature, the various kinds of stimuli from
 different colours mark the visible figures of the minuter  parts; and by
 habit we instandy recall the tangible figures.
   So that though our visible ideas  resemble in miniature  the outline of
 the figure  of coloured bodies, in other respects they serve only as a lan-
 guage, which, by acquired associations, introduce the tangible ideas of
 bodies.  Hence it is that this sense is  so readily deceived by the art of
 the painter to our amusement and instruction. The reader will find much
 very curious knowledge on this subject in Bishop  Berkeley's Essay on
 Vision, a  work of great ingenuity.
   Starts young Surprise, 1. 145.   Surprise is occasioned by  the sudden
 interruption of the usual trains of our ideas by any violent stimulus from
 external objects, as from  the unexpected discharge  of a  pistol,  and
 hence does not exist in our dreams, because our external senses are closed
 or inirritable.   The fetus in the womb must experience many sensations,
 as of resistance, figure, fluidity, warmth, motion, rest,  exertion, taste;
 and must consequently possess trains both of waking and sleeping ideas.
 Surprise must therefore be strongly excited at its nativity, as those trains
 of  ideas must instantly be dissevered by the sudden and  violent sensa-
 tions occasioned by  the dry and  cold atmosphere, the hardness of ex-
 ternal bodies, light, sound,  and odours; which are accompanied with
 pleasure or pain according to their quantity or intensity.
  As some of these sensations become  familiar by  repetition, other ob-
jects not previously attended to present themselves, and produce the idea
of novelty, which is a less degree of surprise,  and  like that is not per-
ceived in  our dreams, though for another reason;  because in sleep  we
possess no  voluntary power to compare  our trains of ideas with our pre-
vious knowledge of nature, and do not therefore perceive their difference
by  intuitive analogy from what usually occurs.
  As the novelty of our ideas is generally attended with pleasurable sen-
 sation, from this arises Curiosity,  or a  desire of examining a variety of
 objects, hoping to find novelty, and the pleasure consequent to this de^
 gree of surprise.  See Additional Note  VIL 3. 
 Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.        79
 The virgin, Novelty,  whose radiant train
 Soars o'er the clouds,  or sinks beneath the  main,
 With sweetly-mutable  seductive charms
 Thrills the young sense, the tender heart alarms.     150
 Then Curiosity, with  tracing hands
 And meeting lips, the  lines of form demands,
 Buoy'd on light step, o'er ocean, earth, and sky,
 Rolls the bright mirror of her restless eye.
 While in wild groups tumultuous passions stand,
 And Lust and  Hunger head the  Motley band;
 Then Love and Rage  succeed, and  Hope  and Fear;
 And nameless Vices close the gloomy rear;
 Or young Philanthropy, with voice divine,
 Convokes the  adoring  Youth to Virtue's shrine ;      160
 Who with raised eye and pointing finger leads
 To truths celestial,  and immortal deeds.

   III.  " As the pure language of the Sight commands
 The clear ideas furnish'd by the hands;
 Beauty's fine forms  attract our wondering eyes,
 And soft alarms the pausing heart surprise,


  And meeting lips, 1. 152.  Young children put small bodies into their
 mouths, when they are  satiated with food, as well as  when they are
 hungry, not with design to taste them, but use their lips as an organ of
 touch to distinguish the shape of them.  Puppies,  whose toes are termi-
 nated with nails, and who  do not much use their fore-feet as hands,
seem to have no other means of acquiring a knowledge of the forms of
external bodies, and are therefore perpetually playing with things, by
taking them between their lips. 
80            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 3.

Warm from its cell the tender infant bom

Feels the cold chill of Life's aerial morn ;

Seeks with spread hands the bosoms velvet orbs,

With closing lips the milky fount absorbs ;             170

And, as compress'd the dulcet streams distil,

Drinks warmth and fragrance  from the living rill;

Eyes with mute rapture every waving line,

Prints with adoring kiss the Paphian shrine,

And learns ere long, the perfect form confess'd,

Ideal Beauty from its Mother's breast.


   44 Now on swift wheels, descending like a star,

Alights young  Eros from his radiant car;


  Seeks with spread hands, 1. 169.  These eight beautiful lines are copied
from Mr. Bilsborrow's Address prefixed to Zoonomia, and are translated
from that work, Sect. XVI. 6.
  Ideal Beauty, 1. 176.  Sentimental Love, as  distinguished from the
animal passion  of that name, with which it is frequently accompanied,
consists in the desire or sensation of beholding, embracing, and salut-
ing a beautiful object.
  The characteristic of beauty therefore is, that it is the object of love;
and though many other objects are, in common language, called beautiful,
yet they are only called so metaphorically, and ought to be termed agree-
able.  A Grecian temple may give us the pleasurable idea of sublimity,
a Gothic  temple may give us the pleasurable idea of variety, and a mo-
dern house the pleasurable idea of utility; music and poetry may inspire
our love by association of ideas; but none of these, except metaphori-
cally, can be termed beautiful, as we have no wish to embrace  or salute
them.
  Our perception of beauty consists in our recognition, by the sense*of
vision, of those objects, first, which have before inspired our love, by the
pleasure which  they have afforded to many of our senses; as to our
sense of warmth, of touch, of smell,  of taste, hunger and thirst; and,
secondly, which bear any analogy of  form to such objects.
  Alights young Eros, 1. 178.   There  were  two deities of Love belong- 
 Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         81
 On angel-wings attendant Graces move,
 And hail the God of Sentimental Love.           180
 Earth at his feet extends her flowery bed,
 And bends her silver blossoms round his head;
 Dark clouds dissolve,  the warring winds subside,
 And smiling ocean calms his tossing tide,
 O'er the bright morn meridian lustres play,
 And Heaven salutes him with a flood of day.

   44 Warm as the sun-beam, pure as driven snows,
 The enamour'd God for young Dione glows;
 Drops the still tear, with sweet attention sighs,
 And woos the Goddess with adoring eyes;            190
 Marks  her white neck beneath the gauze's fold,
 Her ivory shoulders, and her locks  of gold;
 Drinks with mute ecstacy the transient glow,
 Which warms and tints her bosom's rising snow ;
 With holy kisses wanders o'er  her charms,
 And clasps the Beauty in Platonic arms:

 ing to the heathen mythology,  the one said to be celestial, and the other
 terrestrial.  Aristophanes says, " Sable-winged Night produced an egg,
 from which  sprung up  like a blossom Eros, the  lovely, the desirable,
with his glossy golden wings." See Botanic Garden, Canto I.  1. 412.
Note. The other deity of Love, Cupido, seems of much later date,
as he is not mentioned in the works  of Homer, where there were so
many apt situations to have introduced him. •
  Earth at hisfeet, 1. 181.
         Te, Dea, te fugiunt venti,  te nubila coeli,
         Adventumque tuum; tibi suaves dxdala tellus
         Submittit Hores; tibi rident squora ponti;-
         Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine coslum.   Lucret.
L 
82              ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 3<

Or if the dewy hands of  Sleep, unbid,

O'er her blue eye-balls close the lovely lid,

Watches each nascent smile, and fleeting grace,

That plays in day-dreams o'er  her blushing face;      200

Counts the fine mazes of  the curls that break

Round her fair ear, and shade her damask cheek;

Drinks the pure fragrance of her breath,  and sips

With tenderest touch the roses of her lips;—

O'er female hearts with chaste seduction reigns,

And binds Society in silken chains.-


   IV. 44 If the wide eye the wavy lawns explores,

The bending woodlands,  or the winding shores,


  The wavy lawns, 1. 207.  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 of thirst afford pleasure by
the possession of their objects,  and by the subsequent digestion of the
aliment; and, lastly,  the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and
smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happi-
ness.
  All these various kinds of pleasure at length become associated with
the form of the mother's breast; which the  infant embraces with its
hands, presses  with its lips, and watches with its eyes; and thus ac-
quires  more accurate  ideas of the form of its mother's bosom, than of
the odour and flavour'or warmth,  which it perceives by its other senses.
And hence, at our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented
to us, which by its waving or spiral lines bears any similitude to the
form of the female bosom,  whether it be found in a landscape with soft
gradations of rising and descending surface, or in the forms of some an-
tique vases, or  in other works of the pencil or the chisel, we feel a ge-
neral glow of delight, which seems to influence all our senses;  and if
the object be not too large, we experience an attraction to embrace it
with our arms, and to salute it  with our lips, as we did in our early in- 
 Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         83
 Hills, whose green sides with soft protuberance rise,
 Or the blue concave of the vaulted skies ;—          210
 Or scans with nicer gaze the pearly swell
 Of spiral volutes round the twisted shell;
 Or undulating sweep, whose graceful turns
 Bound the smooth surface of Etrurian urns,
 When on fine forms the waving lines impress'd
 Give the nice curves which swell the female breast;
 The  countless joys the  tender mother pours
 Round the  soft cradle of our infant hours,
 In lively trains of unextinct delight
 Rise  in our bosoms, recognized by sight;            220
 Fond Fancy's eye recalls the form divine,
 And Taste sits smiling upon Beauty's  shrine.

   44 Where  Egypt's pyramids gigantic stand,
 And  stretch their shadows o'er the shuddering sand;
 Or where high rocks o'er ocean's dashing floods
 Wave high in air their panoply of woods ;
 Admiring Taste delights to stray beneath,
 With eye uplifted, and  forgets to breathe ;
 Or, as aloft  his daring footsteps climb,
 Crests their high  summits with his arm sublime.     230

 fancy the bosom of our mother.   And  thus we find, according to the
ingenious idea of Hogarth, that the waving lines  of beauty were origi-
nally taken from the temple of Venus.
  With his arm sublime, 1. 230.   Objects of  taste have been generally
divided into the beautiful, the sublime, and the new; and lately to these
have been added  the picturesque. The beautiful, so well explained in 
84             ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.      Canto 3.

  44 Where mouldering columns mark the lingering wreck

Of Thebes,  Palmyra, Babylon, Balbec;

The prostrate obelisk, or shatter'd dome,

Up-rooted pedestal,  and yawning tomb,

On loitering steps reflective Taste surveys

With folded arms and sympathetic gaze ;

Charm'd with poetic Melancholy treads

O'er ruin'd towns and desolated meads;

Or rides sublime on Time's expanded wings,

And views the fate of ever-changing things.           240


  44 When Beauty's streaming eyes her woes express,

Or Virtue braves unmerited distress ;

Love sighs in sympathy, with pain combined,

And new-born Pity charms the kindred mind;


Hogarth's analysis of beauty,  consists of curved lines and smooth sur-
faces, as expressed in the preceding note: any object larger than usual,
as a very large temple or a very large mountain, gives us the idea of sub-
limity; with which is often confounded the terrific and the melancho-
lic : what is now termed picturesque, includes objects which are princi-
pally neither sublime nor beautiful, but which, by their variety and intri-
cacy, joined with a due degree of regularity or uniformity, convey to the
mind an agreeable sentiment  of novelty.  Many other agreeable senti-
ments may be excited by visible objects; thus to the sublime and beautiful
may be added the terrific, tragic, melancholic, artless, &c. while novelty
superinduces a charm upon them all. See Additional Note XIII.
  Poetic melancholy  treads, 1.  237. The pleasure arising  from the con-
templation of the ruins of ancient grandeur or of ancient happiness, and
here termed poetic melancholy, arises from a combination of the pain-
ful  idea of sorrow with  the pleasurable idea of  the grandeur or happi-
ness of past times; and becomes very interesting to us by fixing our at-
tention more strongly on that  grandeur and happiness; as the passion of
Pity mentioned in the succeeding note is a combination of the painful
idea of sorrow with the pleasurable one of beauty, or of virtue. 
Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         85

The  enamour'd Sorrow every cheek bedews,

And Taste impassion'd woos the tragic Muse.


   44 The rush-thatch'd cottage  on the purple moor,

Where ruddy children frolic round the door,

The  moss-grown antlers of the aged oak,

The  shaggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke,        250

The  bearded goat, with nimble eyes,  that glare

Through the long tissue of his hoary hair;

As with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall,

And crops the ivy  which  prevents its fall;—

With rural charms the tranquil mind delight,

And form a picture to the  admiring sight.

While Taste with pleasure bends his eye surprised

In modern days at Nature unchastised.

   The tragic Muse, 1. 246.   Why we are delighted with the scenical re-
presentations of Tragedy,  which draw  tears from our eyes, has been
variousl) explained by different writers.   The same distressful circum-
stance attending an ugly or wicked person affects us with grief or dis-
gust ;  but when distress occurs  to a beauteous or  virtuous person, the
pleasurable idea of beauty or of virtue becomes mixed with the painful
one of sorrow, and the passion of Pity is produced, which is a combi-
nation of love or esteem with sorrow; and becomes highly interesting
to us by fixing our attention more intensely on the beauteous or virtuous
person.
   Other distressful scenes  have  been supposed to give pleasure to the
spectator from exciting a  comparative idea of his own happiness, as
when a shipwreck is viewed by  a person  safe on  shore, as mentioned
by Lucretius, L. 3.  But these dreadful  situations  belong rather to the
terrible,  or the horrid, than to the tragic;  and may be objects of curio-
sity from their novelty, but not of Taste, and must suggest much more
pain than pleasure.
   Nature unchastised, 1. 258.  In cities, or their vicinity, and even in the
cultivated parts of the country,  we rarely see undisguised nature; the 
86             ORIGIN  OF SOCIETY.      Canto 3.

  44 The Genius-Form,  on silver slippers born,

With fairer dew-drops gems the rising morn;        260

Sheds o'er meridian skies a softer light,

And decks with brighter pearls the brow  of night;

With finer blush the vernal blossom glows,

With sweeter breath enamour'd Zephyr blows;

The limpid streams with gentler murmurs pass,

And gayer colours tinge  the watery glass:

Charm'd round his steps, along the enchanted groves

Flit the fine forms of Beauties,  Graces, Loves.


  V.  44 Alive,  each moment of the transient  hour,

When Rest accumulates  sensorial power,              270



fields are ploughed,  the meadows mown, the shrubs planted in rows for
hedges, the trees deprived of their lower branches, and the animals, as
horses, dogs, and sheep, are mutilated in respect to their tails or ears;
such is the useful or ill-employed activity of mankind !  all which altera-
tions add to the formality of the soil, plants, trees, or animals;  whence,
when natural objects are occasionally presented to us, as an uncultivated
forest and its wild inhabitants,  we are not only amused with greater va-
riety of form, but are at the same time enchanted by the charm of no-
velty, which is a less degree of surprise,  already spoken of in note on
1. 145 of this Canto.
  When rest accumulates, 1. 270.  The accumulation  of the spirit of ani-
mation, when  those parts of the system rest which are usually in mo-
tion, produces a disagreeable sensation. Whence the  pain of cold and
of hunger, and the irksomeness of a continued attitude, and of an in-
dolent life: and  hence the  propensity to action in those confined ani-
mals which have been accustomed to activity, as is  seen in the motions
of a squirrel in a cage; which uses perpetual exertion  to exhaust a part
of its accumulated sensorial power.   This is one source  of our general
propensity to action: another perhaps arises from our curiosity or ex-
pectation of novelty mentioned in the note on 1,145 of this Canto.
  But the immediate cause of  our propensity tp imitation above that of 
 Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         87
 The impatient Senses, goaded to contract,
 Forge  new ideas, changing as they act;
 And, in long streams dissever'd, or concrete,
 In countless tribes, the fleeting forms repeat,
 Which rise excited in Volition's trains,
 Or link the sparkling rings of Fancy's chains;
 Or, as the} flow from each translucent source,
 Pursue Association's endless course.

   44 Hence, when the inquiring hands, with contact fine,
 Trace  on hard forms the circumscribing line,         280
 Which then the language of the rolling eyes
 From distant scenes of earth and heaven supplies ;
 Those  clear ideas of  the touch and sight
 Rouse  the quick sense to anguish or delight;
 Whence the fine power of  Imitation springs,
 And apes the outlines of external things;
 With ceaseless action to the world imparts
 All moral virtues, languages, and arts.
 First the charm'd Mind mechanic powers collects,
 Means  for some end,  and causes of  effects;          290


 other animals  arises from the greater facility with which, by the sense
 of touch, we acquire the ideas of the outlines of objects, and afterwards
 in consequence by the sense of sight: this seems to have been observed
 by Aristotle, who  calls man,  " the imitative animal."  See Zoonomia,
Vol. I. Sect. XXII.
  All moral virtues, 1. 288. See the sequel of this Canto, 1. 453, on sym-
pathy ; and 1. 331,  on language; and the subsequent lines on the arts of
painting and architecture. 
88            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 3.

Then learns from other Minds their joys and fears,

Contagious smiles and sympathetic tears.


  44 What one fine stimulated Sense discerns,

Another Sense by Imitation learns.—

So  in the graceful dance  the step sublime

Learns from the ear the  concordance of time.

So, when the pen of some young artist prints

Recumbent Nymphs in Titian's living tints ;

The glowing limb, fair  cheek,  and flowing hair,

Respiring bosom,  and seductive air,                  300

He justly copies with enamour'd sigh

From Beauty's image pictured on his eye.


   44 Thus when great Angelo, in wondering Rome,

Fix'd the vast pillars of  St. Peter's dome,


  Another sense, 1. 294.  As the part of the organs of touch or of sight,
which is stimulated into action by a tangible or  visible object, must re-
semble in figure at least the figure of that object, as it thus constitutes
an  idea, it may be said to imitate the figure of that object; and thus
imitation  may be esteemed coeval with the existence both of man and
other animals: but this would confound perception with imitation; which
latter is better defined from the actions of one sense copying those of
another.
  Thus when great Angelo, 1. 303. The origin of this propensity to imi-
tation has not been deduced from any known principle; when any ac-
tion presents itself to the view  of a child, as  of whetting a knife, or
threading a needle, the parts of this action, in respect of time, motion,
figure, are imitated by parts of the retina of his eye: to perform this
action therefore with his  hands is easier to him than to invent any new
action; because it consists in repeating  with another set of fibres, viz.
with the moving muscles, what he had just performed by some parts
of  the  retina; just as in dancing we transfer the times of the motions 
Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         89
Rear'd rocks on rocks sublime,  and hung on high
A new Pantheon in the affrighted sky.
Each massy pier, how join'd and now  aloof,
The figured  architraves, and vaulted roof;
Aisles,  whose broad  curves gigantic ribs sustain,
Where holy echoes chant the adoring strain;         310
The central altar, sacred to the Lord,
Admired by  Sages, and by  Saints ador'd,
Whose brazen canopy ascends sublime
On  spiral columns, unafraid of Time,
Where first by Fancy, in ethereal dyes,
Plann'd on the rolling tablets of his  eyes ;
And his true hand with  imitation fine
Traced from his Retina the grand design^

   44 The Muse of Mimicry,  in every  age,
With  silent language, charms the attentive stage  ;    320

from the actions of the auditory nerves  to the muscles of the limbs.
Imitation, therefore, consists of repetition, which is the easiest kind of
animal  action; as the ideas or motions become presently associated to-
gether ; which adds to the facility of their production; as  shown in
Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXII. 2.
  It should be added, that as our ideas, when we perceive external ob-
jects, are believed to consist in the actions of the immediate  organs of
sense, inconsequence of the stimulus of those objects; so, when we think
of external objects,  our ideas are believed to consist  in the repetitions of
the actions of the immediate organs of sense, excited by the other  sen-
sorial powers of volition, sensation, or association.
  The Muse of Mimicry, 1. 319.  Much of  the  pleasure received from
the drawings of flowers finely finished, or of portraits, is derived from
their imitation or resemblance of the objects or persons which they re-
present.   The same occurs in  the pleasure we  receive from mimicrr
M 
90            ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.      Canto 3.

The Monarch's stately step, and tragic pause,

The Hero bleeding in his country's cause,

O'er her fond child the  dying Mother's tears,

The Lover's ardour, and the Virgin's fears;

The titt'ring Nymph, that  tries her comic  task,

Bounds on the scene, and peeps behind her mask;

The Punch and Harlequin,  and graver throng

That shake the theatre with dance and song,

With endless trains of Angers, Loves,  ^nd Mirths,

Owe to the Muse of Mimicry their births.           330


   44 Hence to clear images  of form belong

The sculptor's statue and the poet's song,

The painter's landscape, and the builder's plan,

And Imitation marks the mind of man.


   VI.  44 When strong desires or soft sensations move

The astonish'd Intellect to rage or love,


on the stage; we are surprised at the accuracy of its enacted resemblance.
Some part of the pleasure received from architecture,  as when we con-
template the internal structure of Gothic  temples, as  of King's College
Chapel,  in Cambridge, or of Lincoln Cathedral, may arise also from
their imitation or resemblance of  those superb avenues of large trees,
which were formerly appropriated to religious ceremonies.
  Imitation marks, 1. 334.  Many other curious instances of one part
of the animal system imitating another part of it, as in some contagious
diseases, and also of some animals imitating each other,  are given in
Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXII. 3.  To which may be added,  that this
propensity to imitation not only appears in the actions of children, but
in all the customs and fashions of the world; many thousands tread in
the beaten paths of others,  who precede or accompany them, for one
who traverses regions of his own discovery. 
 Canto 3.  PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         91

 Associate tribes of  fibrous motions rise,

 Flush the red cheek,  or light the laughing eyes.

 Whence ever-active Imitation finds

 The ideal trains that pass in kindred minds;          340

 Her mimic arts associate thoughts excite,

 And the  first Language enters at the sight.


   " Thus jealous  quails  or village-cocks  inspect

 Each other's necks with  stiffen'd plumes erect;

 Smit with the wordless eloquence, they know

 The rival passion of the  threatening foe.

 So when the famish'd wolves at midnight howl,

 Fell Serpents hiss, or fierce  Hyenas growl;

 Indignant Lions rear their bristling mail,

 And lash their sides with undulating tail.             350


   And the first Language, 1. 342.  There are two ways by which we be-
 come acquainted with the passions  of others: first, by having observed
 the effects of them, as of fear or anger, on our own bodies, we know
 at sight when others are under  the influence of these affections. So chil-
 dren, long before they can speak, or understand the language of their
 parents, may be frightened by an  angry countenance,  or soothed by
 smiles and blandishments.
   Secondly, when we  put ourselves into the attitude that  any passion
 naturally occasions, we soon,  in some degree,  acquire that passion:
 hence,  when those that scold indulge themselves in loud oaths and vio-
 lent actions  of the arms, they increase their anger by the mode of ex-
 pressing themselves; and,"on  the  contrary,  the counterfeited smile of
pleasure, in disagreeable  company,  soon brings along with it a portion
of the reality, as is well illustrated by Mr. Burke.  (Essay on the Sublime
 and Beautiful.)
  These are natural signs, by which we understand each other,  and on
this slender basis is built all human language.   For without some natural
signs no artificial ones could have'been invented or understood, as is very
ingeniously observed by Dr. Reid. (Inquiry into the  Human Mind.) 
&2            ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 3.
Or when the Savage-Man, with clenched fist,
Parades,  the scowling champion of the list;
With brandish'd arms, and eyes that roll to know
Where first to fix the meditated blow;
Association's mystic power combines
Internal passions with external signs.

  44 From these dumb gestures first the exchange began
Of viewless thought in bird,  and beast, and man;
And still the stage by mimic art displays
Historic pantomime in modem days;                360
And hence the enthusiast orator affords
Force to the feebler eloquence of words.

  44 Thus the first L angua ge, when we frown'd or smil'd,
Rose from the cradle,  Imitation's child;
Next to each thought associate  sound accords,
And forms the dulcet symphony of words;
The tongue,  the lips articulate; the throat
With soft vibration  modulates the note;
Love, pity,  war, the shout, the song, the prayer,
Form quick concussions of elastic air.                 370

  44 Hence the first accents bear in airy rings
The vocal symbols of ideal things,

  Hence the first accents, 1. 371. Words were originally  the s^gns or
names of individual ideas; but in all known languages many of them,
by changing their terminations, express more than one idea, as in the 
Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         93

Name each nice change appulsive powers supply

To the quick sense of touch, or ear or eye.

Or in fine traits abstracted forms suggest

Of Beauty,  Wisdom,  Number,  Motion,  Rest;

Or,  as within reflex ideas move,

Trace the light steps of Reason,  Rage, or Love.

The next new sounds adjunctive thoughts recite,

As hard,  odorous, tuneful,  sweet,  or  white.         380

The next the fleeting  images select

Of action, suffering, causes and  effect;

Or mark existence,  with the march sublime,

O'er earth and ocean, of  recording  Time.


cases of nouns, and the moods and tenses of verbs.  Thus a whip sug-
gests a single idea of that instrument; but " to  whip"  suggests an idea
of action, joined with that of the instrument, and is then called a verb;
and " to be whipped"  suggests an idea of being  acted upon or suffering.
Thus in most languages two ideas are suggested  by one word, by chang-
ing its termination; as amor, love; amare, to love; amari, to be loved.
  Nouns are the names of the ideas of things, first as they are received
by the stimulus of  objects^ or as they are afterwards repeated; secondly,
they  are names of more abstracted ideas, which do not suggest at the
same time the external  objects by which they were originally excited;
or, thirdly, of the operations of our minds, which are termed reflex ideas
by metaphysical writers; or, lastly, they are the names of our ideas of
parts or properties of objects;  and are termed  by grammarians nouns
adjective.
  Verbs are also in reality names of our ideas of things, or nouns, with
the addition  of another idea to them, as of acting  or suffering; or  of
more than one other  annexed idea, as of time, and also of existence.
These, with the numerous abbreviations, so well  illustrated by Mr. Home
Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, make up the general theory of lan-
guage,  which consists of the symbols of ideas  represented by vocal or
written words; or by parts of those words, as their terminations;  or by
their disposition in respect to their order or succession; as further ex-
plained in Additional Note XIV 
 94             ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 3.

   44  The Giant Form on Nature's centre stands,

 And waves in ether his unnumber'd hands;

 Whirls the bright planets in their silver spheres,

 And the vast sun round other systems steers;

 Till  the last trump,  amid the thunder's roar,

 Sound the dread Sentence, 4 Time shall be no mqre !'


   44 Last steps Abbreviation, bold and strong,        391

 And leads the volant trains of  words  along;

 With sweet loquacity to Hermes springs,

 And decks his forehead and his feet with wings.


   VII. 44 As  the soft lips and pliant tongue are taught

 With other minds to interchange the thought;

 And sound, the symbol of the sense, explains,

 In parted links, the long ideal trains;

 From clear conceptions of external things

 The  facile power of Recollection springs.             400



  In parted links,  1. 398.  As our ideas consist of successive trains of the
 motions, or changes of figure, of the extremities of the nerves of one or
 more of our senses, as of the optic or  auditory nerves;  these successive
trains  of motion, or configuration, are in common life divided into many
 links,  to each of which a word or name is given, and it is  called an
idea.  This chain of ideas may be broken into more or fewer links, or
divided in different parts of it, by the  customs  of  different  people.
 Whence the meanings of the words of one language cannot always be
exactly expressed by those of another; and hence the acquirement of
different languages in their  infancy may affect the modes of thinking
and reasoning of whole  nations, or of different classes of society; as
the words of them do not accurately suggest the same ideas, ox parts of
 ideal trains; a circumstance which has not been sufficiently analysed, 
Canto 3.    PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         95

   44 Whence Reason's empire o'er the world presides,
And man from brute,  and man from man divides;
Compares and measures by imagined lines
Ellipses,  circles, tangents,  angles, sines;
Repeats with nice libration,  and decrees
In what each differs, and in what agrees;
With quick Volitions unfatigued,  selects
Means for some end, and causes of effects ;
All human science worth the name imparts,
And builds on Nature's base the works of Arts.      410


   44  The Wasp, fine architect,  surrounds his domes
With paper foliage,  and suspends  his combs;
   Whence Reason's empire, 1. 401.  The facility of the use of the volun-
tary power, which is owing to the possession of the clear ideas acquired
by our superior sense of touch, and afterwards of vision, distinguishes
man from brutes, and has given him the empire of the world, with the
power of improving nature by the exertions of art.
  Reasoning is that operation of the sensorium by which we excite two
or many tribes of ideas, and then re-excite the ideas in which they differ
or correspond.   If we determine this difference, it is called judgment;
if we in vain endeavour to determine it, it is called doubting.
  If we re-excite the ideas in which they differ, it is called distinguishing.
If we  re-excite those in which they correspond, it is called comparing.
  The Wasp, fine architect, 1. 411. Those animals which possess a better
sense  of touch  are,  in general,' more  ingenious than others.  Those
which have claviculx, or  collar-bones, and thence use the  fore-feet as
hands, as the monkey, squirrel, rat, are more ingenious in seizing their
prey or escaping from danger.  And the ingenuity of the elephant ap-
pears  to arise from the sense of touch at the extremity of his probos-
cis, which has a prominence on one side of  its cavity like a thumb, to
close against the other side of it, by which I have seen him  readily
pick up a shilling which was thrown amongst the straw he  stood upon. 
96            ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.    Canto 3.
Secured from frost the Bee industrious dwells,
And fills for winter all her waxen cells ;
The cunning Spider with adhesive line
Weaves his firm net immeasurably fine ;
The Wren, when embryon eggs her cares engross,
Seeks the soft down, and lines the cradling moss ;
Conscious of change the Silkworm-Nymphs begin,
Attach'd to leaves, their gluten-threads to spin;       420
Then round and round they weave with circling heads
Sphere within Sphere,  and form their  silken beds.
—Say, did these fine volitions first commence
From clear ideas of the tangent sense;
From sires to sons by imitation caught,
Or in dumb language by tradition taught ?
Or did they rise in some primeval site
Of larva-gnat, or microscopic mite ;
And with instructive foresight still await
On each vicissitude of insect-state ?—                430
Wise to the present, nor to future blind,
They link the reasoning reptile to mankind!
—Stoop, selfish Pride! survey thy kindred forms,
Thy brother Emmets,  and thy sister Worms!

Hence the excellence of the sense of touch  in many insects seems to
have given them wonderful ingenuity, so as to equal or even excel man-
kind in some of their arts and discoveries;  many of which may have
been acquired in situations previous to their present ones, as the great
globe itself, and all that it inhabit, appear to be in a perpetual state of"
mutation and improvement.  See Additional Note IX. 
 Cahto 3.   PROGRESS  OF THE MIND.          97

   44  Thy potent acts,  Volition, still attend

 The means of pleasure to  secure the end;

 To express his wishes and his wants design'd,

 Language,  the means, distinguishes Mankind;

 For  future works in Art's ingenious schools

 His hands unwearied form and finish tools;          440

 He toils for money future bliss to share,

 And shouts to Heaven his mercenary prayer.

 Sweet Hope delights him,  frowning Fear alarms,

 And Vice and Virtue court him to their  arms.


   44 Unenvied eminence,  in Nature's plan

 Rise the reflective faculties of Man!

 Labour to rest the thinking few prefer!

 Know but to  mourn!  and reason but to err!


   Thy potent acts, Volition, 1. 435.  It was before observed, how much
 the superior accuracy of our sense of touch  contributes to increase our
 knowledge; but  it is the greater energy and activity  of the power of
 volition that marks mankind, and has  given them the empire of the
 world.               <
   There is a criterion by which we may distinguish our voluntary acts
 or thoughts from those that are excited by our sensations: " The for-
 mer are always employed about the means to acquire pleasurable objects,
 or to avoid painful ones ;  while the latter are employed about the posses-
 sion of those that are already in our power."
   The ideas and actions of brutes, like those of  children,  are almost
 perpetually produced by their present  pleasures or  their present pains;
 and they seldom busy themselves about the vieans of  procuring future
 bliss,  or of avoiding future misery.
   Whilst the acquiring of languages,  the making of tools, and the la-
bouring for money, which are all only the means of procuring pleasure;
and the pra\ ing  to the Deity, as another means to procure  happiness,
 are characteristic of human nature.
N 
98             ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 3.
In Eden's groves, the cradle of the world,
Bloom'd a fair tree with mystic flowers unfurl'dj     450
On bending branches, as aloft it sprung,
Forbid to taste,  the fruit of Knowledge hung;
Flow'd with sweet Innocence the tranquil hours,
And Love  and Beauty warm'd the blissful bowers.
Till our deluded parents pluck'd, ere long,
The tempting fruit,  and gather'd Right and Wrong j
Whence Good and Evil,  as in trains  they pass,
Reflection imaged on her polish'd  glass ;
And Conscience felt, for blood by Hunger spilt,
The pains of shame, of sympathy, and guilt I        460

  VIII.  " Last, as observant Imitation stands,
Turns her quick glance, and brandishes her hands,
With mimic acts associate thoughts excites,
And storms the soul with sorrows  or  delights;
Life's  shadowy scenes are brighten'd and refin'd,
And soft emotions mark the feeling mind.

  And gather'd Right and Wrong,  1. 456.  Some philosophers have be-
lieved that the acquisition of knowledge  diminishes the happiness of
the possessor; an opinion which seems to  have been inculcated by the
history of our first parents, who are said to have become miserable  from
eating of the tree of knowledge.  But as the foresight and the power
of mankind are  much increased by their voluntary exertions in the ac-
quirement of knowledge, they may undoubtedly avoid many sources of
evil, and procure many sources of good; and  yet possess the pleasures
of sense, or of imagination, as extensively as the brute or the savage.
  And soft emotions, 1.466. From our aptitude to imitation arises what
is generally understood by the word sympathy, so well explained by
Dr. Smith, of Glasgow.  Thus  the appearance of a cheerful counte- 
 Canto 3.   PROGRESS OF THE MIND.         99
   " The Seraph, Sympathy, from Heaven descends,
 And bright o'er earth his beamy forehead bends;
 On Man's cold heart celestial ardour flings,
 And showers affection from his sparkling wings;      470
 Rolls o'er the world his mild benignant eye,
 Hears the lone murmur, drinks the whisper'd sigh;
 Lifts  the closed latch of pale Misfortune's door,
 Opes  the clench'd hand of Avarice to the poor;
 Unbars the prison,  liberates the slave,
 Sheds his soft sorrows o'er the untimely grave ;
 Points with uplifted hand to  realms above,
 And charms the  world with universal love.

   44 O'er the thrill'd frame his words assuasive steal,
 And teach the selfish heart what others feel;          480
 With sacred truth  each erring thought controul,
 Bind sex to sex,  and mingle soul  with soul;
 From heaven,  he cried,  descends the moral plan,
 And gives Society to savage man.

 nance gives us pleasure, and of a melancholy one makes us sorrowful.
 Yawning, and sometimes vomiting, are thus propagated by sympathy 5
 and some people of delicate fibres, at the presence of a spectacle of
 misery, have felt pain in the same parts of their bodies that were diseased
 or mangled in the object they saw.
  The effect of this powerful agent in the moral world is the founda-
 tion of  all our intellectual sympathies with the pains  and pleasures of
 others,  and is, in consequence,  the source of all our virtues.  For in
 what consists our sympathy with the miseries or with th; joys of our
 fellow creatures, but in an involuntary excitation of ideas in  some mea-
sure similar or imitative of those which we believe to exist in the minds
of the persons whom we commiserate or congratulate! 
100          ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.      Canto  3.

  44 High on yon scroll, inscribed o'er Nature's shrine,

Live in bright characters the words divine:

4  In Life's disast'rous scenes to others do

What you would wish by others  done to you.'

—Winds! wide o'er earth the sacred law convey,

Ye nations,  hear it! and ye Kings obey!             490


  44 Unbreathing wonder hush'd the adoring throng,

Froze the broad eye, and chain'd the silent tongue;

Mute was the wail of  Want, and Misery's cry,

And grateful Pity wiped her lucid eye;

Peace with sweet voice the  Seraph-form address'd,

And virtue clasp'd him to her throbbing breast."



  High on yon scroll, 1. 485.   The  famous sentence of Socrates, " Knot*
thyself," so celebrated by writers of antiquity,  and said by them to have
descended from Heaven, however wise it may be, seems to be rather of a
selfish nature; and the author of it might have added, "Know also other
people."  But the sacred maxims of the author of Christianity, " Do as
you would be done by," and " Love your neighbour as yourself," include
all our duties of benevolence and morality; and, if sincerely obeyed by
all nations, would a thousand-fold multiply the present happiness  of
mankind.
END OF CANTO III. 
 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.




      CANTO IV.




OF GOOD AND EVIL. 
CONTENTS.
I. Few affected by Sympathy, 1.  Cruelty of War,  11.  Of brute ani-
  mals, Wolf, Eagle, Lamb, Dove, Owl, Nightingale,  17.   Of insects,
  Oestrus,  Ichneumon,  Libellula, 29.  Wars of Vegetables, 41.  Of
  fish, the Shark,  Crocodile, Whale,  55.  The  World a Slaughter-
  house,  66.  Pains  from Defect and from Excess of Stimulus,  71.
  Ebriety and Superstition, 77-  Mania,  89.   Association, 93.   Ava-
  rice, Imposture, Ambition, Envy, Jealousy,  97.   Floods, Volcanoes,
  Earthquakes, Famine, 109.  Pestilence, 117.  Pains  from Sympa-
  thy, 123.   II.  Good  out-balances Evil, 135.  Life  combines  inani-
  mate Matter, and produces Happiness by Irritation, 145.   As in view-
  ing a Landscape, 159.  In hearing Music, 171.  By Sensation or Fancy
  in Dreams,  183.  The Patriot  and the Nun, 197.  Howard, Moira,
  Burdett, 205.  By Volition, 223.  Newton, Herschell, 233. Archi-
  medes, Savery, 241.  Isis, Arkwright, 253.  Letters and Printing,
  265. Freedom  of the Press, 273.  By  Association, 291.  Ideas of
  Contiguity, Resemblance,  and of Cause and Effect, 299.   Antinous,
  319. Cecelia, 329.  III. Life  soon ceases, Births and Deaths alter-
  nate, 337.   Acorns, Poppy-seeds, Aphises,  Snails,  Worms,   Tad-
  poles, Herrings,  innumerable, 347.   So Mankind, 369.   All Nature
  teems  with  Life, 375.  Dead  Organic  Matter  soon revives,  383.
  Death is but a change  of Form, 393.  Exclamation of St. Paul, 403.
  Happiness of the World increases, 405.  The Phoenix, 411.  System
 of  Pythagoras,  417.   Rocks and Mountains produced by Organic
  Life, 429.  Are  Monuments of past  Felicity, 447.  Munificence of
 the Deity,  455.  IV. Procession of Virgins, 469.  Hymn  to Heaven,
 481.  Of Chaos, 489.  Of Celestial Love, 499.  Offering of Urania,
 517—524. 
CANTO  IV.
OF GOOD AND EVIL.
 I. 4C  ITOW few," the Muse in plantive accents cries,
 And  mingles with her words pathetic sighs.—
 44 How few, alas!  in  Nature's wide domains
 The sacred charm of  Sympathy restrains !
 Uncheck'd desires from appetite commence,
 And  pure reflection yields to selfish sense!
—Blest is the Sage, who, learn'd in Nature's laws,
 With nice distinction  marks effect and cause;
Who  views the insatiate Grave with eye  sedate,
Nor fears thy voice, inexorable Fate!                 10

  44 When War, the  Demon, lifts his banner high,
And  loud artillery rends die affrighted sky;
Swords clash with swords, on horses horses rush,
Man tramples man, and nations nations crush;
  Blest is the Sage, 1. 7.
       Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas;
       Qiiique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum,
       Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis  avari.
                                    Virg. Georg. II. 490 
104           ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
Death his vast sithe with sweep enormous wields,
And shuddering Pity quits the sanguine fields.

   44 The wolf,  escorted by his milk-drawn dam,
Unknown to mercy, tears the guiltless lamb;
The towering eagle, darting from above,
Unfeeling rends the inoffensive  dove;                  20
The lamb and dove on living nature feed,
Crop the young herb, or  crush the  embryon seed.
Nor spares the loud owl in her  dusky flight,
Smit with sweet notes,  the  minstrel of  the night;
Nor spares, enamour'd  of his radiant form,
The hungry nightingale the glowing worm;
Who with bright lamp alarms the midnight hour,
Climbs the green stem,  and slays  the sleeping flower.

   44 Fell Oestrus buries in her rapid course
Her countless brood in  stag, or bull, or horse;        30

   The towering eagle 1. 19.
        Torva leama lupum sequitur, lupus  ipse capellam,
        Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella.          Virg.
   Fell Oestrus buries, 1. 29.  The gad-fly, bot-fly, or sheep-fly: the larva
 lives in the bodies of cattle throughout  the whole winter; it  is extracted
 from their backs by an African bird called Buphaga.  Adhering to the
 anus, it artfully introduces itself into the intestines of horses, and be-
 comes so numerous in their stomachs,  as sometimes to destroy them:  it
 climbs into the nostrils of sheep and calves, and  producing a nest  of
 young in a transparent hydatide in the frontal sinus, occasions the vertigo
 or turn of those animals.  In Lapland it so attacks the rein-deer that
 the natives annually travel with the herds from the woods to the moun-
 tains.   Lin. Syst. Nat 
Canto 4.      OF GOOD  AND  EVIL.            105

Whose hungry larva eats its living way,
Hatch'd by the warmth, and issues into day.
The wing'd Ichneumon for  her embryon young
Gores  with sharp horn the caterpillar throng.
The cruel larva mines its silky course,
And tears the vitals of its fostering nurse.
While fierce Libellula, with jaws of steel,
Ingulfs an insect-province at a meal;
Contending bee-swarms rise on rustling wings,
And slay their thousands with envenom'd stings.       40
  The wing'd Ichneumon, 1. 33.   Linnaeus describes seventy-seven  spe-
cies of the ichneumon fly, some of which have a sting as long, and some
twice as long as their bodies.  Many of them insert their eggs into vari-
ous caterpillars, which, when they are hatched, seem for a time to prey on
the reservoir of silk in the backs of those animals, designed for their own
use, to spin a cord to support them, or a bag to contain them, while  they
change from their larva form to a butterfly, as I have seen in above  fifty
cabbage-caterpillars.  The ichneumon  larva then makes its  way out
of the caterpillar, and spins itself a small cocoon like a silk-worm.  These
cocoons are about the size of a small pin's head, and I have seen about
ten of them on each cabbage-caterpillar,  which soon dies after their ex-
clusion.
  Other species of ichneumon  insert their eggs into the aphis,  and into
the ldrva of the aphidivorous fly; others into the bedeguar of rose-trees,
and the gall-nuts of oaks;  whence those excrescences seem to be  pro-
duced, as well as the hydatides in the frontal sinus of sheep and calves,
by the stimulus of the larvae deposited in them.
  While fierce Libellula, 1.37.  The  Libellula or Dragon-fly is said to
be a most voracious animal; Linnaeus says in their perfect state they are
the hawks to naked winged flies; in their larva state they  run beneath
the water, and are the cruel crocodiles of aquatic  insects.   Svst. Nat.
  Contending bee-swarms, 1. 39.  Stronger bee-swarms frequently attack
weak hives, and in two or three days destroy them and carry away their
honey.  This I  once  prevented by removing the attacked hive after the
first day's battle to a distinct part of the garden.   See Phytologia, Sect.
XIV. 3. 7.
O 
 106          ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
   44 Yes! smiling Flora drives her armed car
 Through the thick ranks of vegetable war;
 Herb,  shrub,  and tree,  with strong emotions rise
 For light and  air, #and battle in the skies;
 Whose roots,  diverging with opposing toil,
 Contend below for moisture and for soil;
 Round^the tall Elm the  flattering Ivies bend,
 And strangle, as they clasp, their struggling friend;
 Envenom'd dews from  Mancinella flow,
 And scald with caustic touch the tribes below;        50
•Dense shadowy leaves, on stems aspiring borne,
 With blight and  mildew thin the realms of corn;
 And insect hordes, with restless tooth, devour
 The unfolded bud,  and pierce the ravelPd flower.

   44 In ocean's pearly haunts,  the waves beneath,
 Sits the grim monarch of insatiate Death ;
 The shark rapacious, with descending blow,
 Darts on the scaly brood that swims below;
 The crawling  crocodiles, beneath that move,
 Arrest with rising jaw the tribes  above j               60
   The shark rapacious, 1. 57.  The shark has three rows of sharp teeth
 within each other, which he can bend downwards internally to admit
 larger prey, and raise to prevent its return : his snout hangs so far over
 his mouth, that he is necessitated to turn upon his back when he takes
 fish  that swim over  him, and hence seems peculiarly formed to catch
 those that swim under him.
   The crawling crocodiles, 1. 59.  As this animal lives chiefly at the bot-
 tom  of the rivers which he frequents, he has the power of opening the
 upper jaw as well  as the under one, and thus with greater facility catches
 the fish or water-fowl which swim over him. 
Canto 4.      OF GOOD  AND EVIL.            107

With monstrous gape sepulchral whales devour
Shoals at a gulph,  a million in an hour.
—Air, earth, and ocean, to astonish'd day,
One scene of blood, one mighty tomb display!
From  Hunger's  arm the shafts of Death are hurl'd,
And one great Slaughter-house the warring world!


   44 The brow of Man erect,  with thought elate,
Ducks to the mandate of resistless fate;
Nor Love retains him,  nor can Virtue save
Her sages, saints,  or heroes from the grave.            70
  One great Slaughter-house, 1.66.  As vegetables are  an inferior order
of animals  fixed to the soil; and as the locomotive animals prey upon
them, or upon each other; the world may indeed be said to be one great
slaughter-house.  As the digested food of vegetables consists principally
of sugar, and from this  is produced again their mucilage, starch, and
oil; and since animals are sustained by these vegetable productions, it
would seem that the sugar-making process carried on in vegetable vessels
was the great source of life to all organized beings: and  that if our im-
proved chemistry should ever discover the art of making sugar from fos-
sile or aerial matter, without  the assistance of vegetation, food for ani-
mals would then become as plentiful as water,  and they might live upon
the earth, without preying on each other, as thick as blades of grass,
with no restraint to their numbers but the want of local room.
  It  would seem that  roots fixed in the earth, and leaves innumerable
waving  in the air,  were necessary for the decomposition of water and
air, and  the conversion of them into  saccharine matter, which would have
been not only cumbrous, but totally incompatible with the  locomotion
of animal bodies.  For how  could a  man  or quadruped have carried
on his head or back a forest of Jeaves,  or have had long branching lac--
teal or absorbent  vessels  terminating in the earth ?  Animals, therefore,
subsist on vegetables; that is, they take the matter so prepared, and have
organs to prepare it further for  the purposes  of higher animation and
greater sensibility. 
    108            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 4.

    While cold and hunger by defect oppress,

    Repletion,  heat,  and labour by excess,

    The whip,  the sting, the  spur, the fiery brand,

    And, cursed Slavery !  thy iron hand;

    And led by-Luxury, Disease's trains

    Load human life with unextinguish'd pains.


      44 Here laughs Ebriety more fell than arms,

    And thins the nations with  her fatal charms,

    With Gout, and Hydrops groaning in her train,

    And cold Debility, and grinning Pain;                  80

    With harlot's smiles deluded man salutes,

    Revenging  all his cruelties to brutes !

    There the curst spells of  Superstition blind,

    And fix her fetters on the tortured mind;



      While cold and hunger, 1. 71.  Those parts  of our system which  are
    in health, excited into perpetual action, give us pain when they are not
    excited into action: thus, when the hands are for a time immersed in
    snow, an inaction of the cutaneous capillaries is induced, as is seen from
    the paleness of the skin, which is attended with the pain of coldness.
    So the pain of hunger is probably produced by the inaction of the mus-
    cular fibres of the stomach from the want of the stimulus of food.
\      Thus those  who have used much  voluntary exertion in their early
    years, and have continued to do so till the decline of life commences,
    if they then lay aside their employment, 'whether that of a  minister of
    state, a general of an army,  or a merchant, or manufacturer, they cease
    to have their  faculties excited into their usual activity,  and become  un-
    happy, I suppose, from the too great accumulation of the sensorial power
    of volition, which wants the accustomed stimulus or motive to cause its
    expenditure.
      Here laughs Ebriety, 1. 77.
                               Sjevior armis
         Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem.      Hob. 
Canto 4.      OF  GOOD  AND  EVIL.            109

She  bids in dreams tormenting shapes appear,

With shrieks that shock Imagination's ear;

E'en o'er the grave a deeper shadow flings,

And maddening Conscience darts a thousand stings.


   44 There writhing Mania sits  on Reason's throne,

Or Melancholy marks it for her own,                    90

Sheds o'er the scene  a voluntary gloom,

Requests oblivion and demands the tomb.

And last Association's trains suggest

Ideal ills, that  harrow up the breast,


   E'en over the grave, 1. 87. Many theatric preachers among the Metho-
dists successfully  inculcate the fear of death and of hell,  and live lux-
uriously on the folly of their hearers: those  who  suffer under this in-
sanity are generally most innocent and harmless people, who are then
liable to accuse themselves of the greatest imaginary crimes;  and have
so much intellectual cowardice, that they dare not reason about those
things which they are directed by their priests to believe.  Where this
intellectual cowardice is great, the voice of reason is ineffectual; but that
of ridicule may save many from these mad-making  doctors, as the farces
of Mr. Foot; though it is too weak to cure those who are already halluci-
nated.
   And last Association, 1. 93.  The miseries and the felicities of life may
be divided into those which arise in consequence of irritation, sensation,
volition,  and association; and consist in the actions of the extremities
of the nerves of  sense, which constitute our ideas; if they are  much
more exerted than usual,  or much less exerted than usual, they occasion
pain; as when the finger is burnt in a candle; or when we go into  a cold
bath: while their natural degree of exertion produces the pleasure  of life
or existence.  This pleasure is nevertheless increased, when the system
is stimulated into  rather stronger action than usual, as  after a copious
dinner, and at the beginning of intoxication;  and diminished, when it is
only excited into somewhat less activity than usual, which is termed ennui,
or irksomeness of  life.
   Ideal ills,  1. 94.   The tooth-edge is an instance  of bodily pain occa-
sioned by association of ideas.  Every one in his childhood has repeat- 
110          ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
Call for the dead from Time's o'erwhelming main,
And bid departed Sorrow live again.

  44 Here ragged Avarice guards with bolted door
His useless treasures from the starving poor;
Loads the lorn hours with misery and care,
And lives a beggar to enrich his heir.                100
Unthinking crowds  thy forms, Imposture,  gull,
A Saint in sackcloth, or a Wolf in wool.
While mad with foolish fame, or drunk with power,
Ambition slays his thousands in an hour ;
Demoniac Envy scowls with haggard mien,
And blights the bloom of other's joys unseen;
Or wrathful Jealousy invades the grove,
And turns to night  meridian beams of Love!

  44 Here wide o'er earth impetuous waters sweep,
And fields and forests  rush into the deep;            110
Or dread Volcano, with explosion dire*
Involves the mountains in a flood of fire;

edly bit a part of the glass or earthen vessel in which his food has been
given him, and has thence had a disagreeable sensation in his teeth, at-
tended at  the same  time with a jarring sound: and ever after, when
such a sound is accidentally produced, the disagreeable sensation of the
teeth follows by association of ideas. This is further elucidated in Zoo-
nomia, Vol I. Sect. XVI. 10.
  Enrich his heir, 1.100.
     Cum furor haud dubius, cum sit manifesta phrenitis,
     Ut locuples moriaris, egenti vivere fato.          Juvenal
  A  Wolf in wool, 1.102. A wolf in sheep's clothing. 
 Canto 4.     OF GOOD AND  EVIL.           Ill
 Or yawning Earth with closing jaws inhumes
 Unwarned nations,  living in their tombs;
 Or Famine seizes with her tiger-paw,
 And swallows millions with unsated maw.

   44 There livid Pestilence, in league with Dearth,
 Walks forth malignant o'er the shuddering earth ;
 Her rapid shafts with airs volcanic wings,
 Or steeps in putrid vaults her venom'd stings ;        120
 Arrests the young in Beauty's vernal bloom,
 And bears the innocuous strangers to the tomb!    '

   44 And now, e'en I, whose  verse  reluctant sings
 The changeful state of sublunary things,
 Bend o'er Mortality with silent sighs,
 And wipe the secret tear-drops from my eyes;
 Hear through the night one universal groan,
 And mourn unseen for evils not  my own;
 With restless limbs' and throbbing heart complain,
 Stretch'd on the rack of sentimental pain!             130

  With airs volcanic, 1. 119.  Those epidemic complaints which are ge-
 nerally termed influenza, are believed to  arise from vapours thrown out
 from earthquakes in such abundance as to affect large regions of the at-
 mosphere, (see Botanic Garden, vol. i. canto iv. 1. 65)  while the diseases
properly termed contagious originate from the putrid effluvia of decom-
posing animal or vegetable matter.
  Sentimental pain, 1.130.  Children should be taught, in their early edu-
cation, to feel for all the remediable evils which they observe in others;
but they should at the same time be taught sufficient firmness of mind not
entirely to destroy their own happiness by their sympathizing with too 
112          ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
—Ah!. where can Sympathy, reflecting, find.
One bright idea to console the mind ?
One ray of light in this terrene abode
To prove to Man the goodness of his God ?'*

   II.  " Hear, O ye Sons of Time !" the Nymph replies,
Quick indignation darting from her eyes;
44 When in soft tones the Muse lamenting sings,
And weighs with tremulous hand the sum of things;
She loads the scale in melancholy mood,
Presents the evil,  but forgets  the good.               140
But if the beam some firmer  hand  suspends,
And good and evil load the adverse ends,
With strong libration,  where the good abides,
Quick nods the beam, the ponderous gold subsides.

   44 Hear, O ye Sons of Time ! the powers of Life
Arrest the elements,  and stay their strife;


great sensibility with the numerous irremediable evils which exist in the
present system of the  world: as by indulging that kind of melancholy
they decrease the sum total of public happiness;  which is so far rather
reprehensible than commendable.  See Plan for Female Education by Dr.
Darwin. Johnson. London. Sect. XVII.
  This has been carried to great excess in the East, by the disciples of
Confucius:  the Gentoos, during a famine  in India,  refused to eat the
flesh of cows and  of other animals  to satisfy their hunger,  and save
themselves from death.  And at  other times they have been said to
permit fleas and musquitoes to feed upon them from this erroneous
sympathy. 
Canto 4.     OF GOOD  AND  EVIL.           113

From wandering atoms, ethers, airs, and gas,

By combination form the organic mass!

And,—as they seize, digest, secrete,—dispense

The bliss of Being to the vital Ens.                  150

Hence in bright groups from Irritation rise

Young Pleasure's trains, and roll their azure eyes.


   44 With fond delight we feel the potent charm,

When Zephyrs cool us, or when sun-beams warm;

With fond delight inhale the fragrant flowers,

Taste the sweet fruits which bend the blushing bowers,

Admire  the music of the vernal grove,

Or drink the  raptures of delirious love.


   44 So with long gaze admiring eyes behold

The varied landscape all its lights unfold;              160


   From wandering atoms, 1. 147.  Had those ancient philosophers who
contended that the  world was formed from atoms ascribed their combi-
nations to certain immutable properties received from the hand of the
Creator, such as general gravitation, chemical affinity, or animal appe-
tency, instead of ascribing them to a blind chance; the doctrine of atoms,
as constituting or composing the  material world by the variety of their
combinations, so far from leading the mind to atheism, would strengthen
the demonstration of the existence of a Deity, as the first cause of all
things; because the  analogy resulting from our perpetual experience of
cause  and effect would have thus been exemplified through universal
nature.
   The varied landscape, 1. 160.  The pleasure we feel  on examining a
fine landscape is derived from various sources; as, 1.  The excitement
of the retina of the eye into certain quantities of action; which, when
 there  is  in the  optic  nerve any  accumulation of  sensorial power, is
 always agreeable.  2. When it is excited into such successive actions
as relieve,  each other; as when a limb has been long exerted in one di-
P 
114          ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 4.

Huge rocks opposing, o'er the stream project

Their naked bosoms,  and the beams reflect;

Wave high in air their fringed crests of wood,

And checker'd shadows dance upon the flood;

Green sloping lawns construct the sidelong scene,

And guide the sparkling rill that winds between;

Conduct on  murmuring wings the pausing gale,

And rural echoes talk along the  vale;

Dim hills behind in pomp aerial rise,

Lift their blue tops, and melt into the skies.           170


   44 So when, by Handel tuned to measured sounds,

The trumpet vibrates, or the drum rebounds;

Alarm'd  we listen with ecstatic  wonder

To mimic battles,  or imagined  thunder.

When the soft lute in sweet impassion'd strains

Of cruel nymphs or broken vows complains;

As on the breeze the fine vibration floats,

We drink delighted the melodious notes.



rection by stretching it in another; as described in Zoonomia, Sect. XL.
6. on ocular spectra.  3. And lastly, by  the associations of its parts with
some agreeable sentiments or tastes, as of sublimity, beauty, utility, no-
velty ; and  the objects  suggesting other sentiments, which have lately
been termed picturesque, as mentioned in the note to Canto III. 1.230, of
this work.  The two former of these sources of pleasure arise from irri-
tation, the  last from association.
   We drink delighted, 1.  178.  The pleasure  we experience from music
is,  like that from viewing a landscape, derived from various sources i
as, 1. From the excitement of the auditory nerve into certain quantities
of action, when there exists  any accumulation of sensorial power.  2.
When the auditory nerve is exerted in such successive actions as relieve 
Canto 4.     OF GOOD AND EVIL.           115
But when young Beauty, on the realms above,
Bends her bright eye,  and trills the tones of love ;    180
Seraphic sounds enchant this nether sphere,
And listening angels lean from Heaven to hear.

   44 Next by Sensation led,  new joys commence
From the fine movements of the excited sense;
In swarms ideal urge their airy flight,
Adorn the day-scenes, and illume the night.
Her spells o'er all the hand of Fancy flings,
Gives form and substance to unreal things;
With fruits and foliage decks the barren waste,
And brightens Life with sentiment and taste;         190
Pleased o'er the level and the  rule presides,
The painter's brush, the sculptor's chisel guides,
With rav ethereal lights the poet's fire,
Tunes the rude pipe, or strings the heroic lyre:
Charm'd round the nymph, on frolic footsteps  move
The angelic forms of Beauty,  Grace,  and Love.

each ot..er, like stretching or yawning, as described in Botanic  Garden,
Vol. II. Interlude the third, these successions of sound are termed me-
lody, and their combinations  harmony.  3. From the repetition of
sounds at certain intervals of time;  as we hear them with greater fa-
cility and accuracy when we expect them; because they are then excit-
ed bv volition, as well as by irritation, or at least the tympanum is then
better adapted to assist their production; hence the two musical times or
bars; and hence the rhimes in poetry give pleasure, as well as the mea-
sure of the verse: and, lastly, the pleasure we receive from music arises
from the associations of agreeable sentiments with certain proportions,
or repetitions,  or quantities, or times of sounds which have been pre-
viously acquired; as explained in Zoonomia,  Vol. I. Sect. XVI. 10. and
Sect. XXII. 2. 
116          ORIGIN OF SOCIETY,    Canto 4,
  44 So dreams the Patriot, who indignant draws
The sword of vengeance in his Country's cause;
Bright for his brows unfading honours bloom,
Or kneeling Virgins weep around his tomb.          200
So holy transports in the cloister's shade
Play round thy toilet, visionary maid!
Charm'd o'er thy bed celestial voices sing,
And Seraphs hover on enamour'd wing.

  44 So Howard,  Moira, Burdett, sought the cells
Where want, or woe, or guilt in  darkness dwells;
With Pity's torch illumed the dread domains,
Wiped the wet eye, and eased the galling chains ;
With Hope's bright blushes warm'd the midnight air,
And drove from earth the  Demon of Despair.        210
Erewhile, emerging from the caves of night,
The Friends of Man ascended into light;
With soft assuasive eloquence address'd
The ear of Power to stay his stern behest;
At Mercy's call to stretch his arm and save
His tottering victims  from the gaping grave.
These with sweet smiles Imagination greets,
For these she opens all her treasured sweets,
Strews round their couch, by Pity's hand combined,
Bright flowers of joy, the sunshine of the mind;     220
While Fame's loud trump with sounds applausive breathes,
And Virtue crowns them with immortal wreathes. 
Canto 4.    OF GOOD  AND  EVIL.           117
  44 Thy acts, Volition,  to the world impart
The plans of Science with the works of art;
Give to proud Reason her comparing power,
Warm every clime,  and brighten every hour.
In Life's first cradle, ere the dawn began
Of young Society to polish man;
The staff that propp'd him, and the bow that arm'd,
The boat that bore him,  and the shed that warm'd,   230
Fire,  raiment, food, the ploughshare, and the sword,
Arose, Volition,  at thy plastic word.

  44 By thee instructed,  Newton's eye sublime
Mark'd the  bright periods of revolving time ;
Explored in Nature's scenes the effect and cause,
And, charm'd, unravell'd all her latent laws.
Delighted Herschel, with reflected light,
Pursues his radiant journey through the night;
Detects new guards, that roll their orbs afar
In lucid ringlets round the Georgian star.            240

  44 Inspired by thee, with scientific wand
Pleased Archimedes mark'd the  figur'd sand;
Seized with mechanic grasp the approaching decks,
And shook  the assailants from the  inverted wrecks.

  Mark'd the figur'd sand, 1. 242. The ancient orators seem i» have
ppoken disrespectfully of the mechanic philosophers. Cicero, mentioning
Archimedes, calls him Homunculus e pulvere et radio,  alluding to the
custom of drawing problems on the sand with a staff. 
 118          ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.      Canto 4.
 i—Then cried the Sage, with grand effects elate,
 And proud to save the  Syracusian state;
 While crowds, exulting, shout their noisy mirth,
 4 Give where to stand and I will move the earth.'
 So S avery guided his  explosive  steam
 In iron cells to raise the balanced beam ;             250
 The Giant-form its ponderous mass uprears,
 Descending nods, and seems to shake the spheres.

   44 Led by Volition  on  the banks of Nile
 Where blo'om'd the waving flax on Delta's isle,
 Pleased Isis taught the  fibrous stems to bind,
 And part with hammers from the adhesive rind;
 With locks of flax to deck  the distaff-pole,
 And whirl with graceful bend the dancing spool.
 In level lines the length of woof to spread,
 And dart the shuttle through the parting thread.     260
 So Arkwright taught from Cotton-pods to cull,
 And stretch in lines the vegetable wool;
With teeth of steel its fibre-knots unfurl'd,
 And with the silver tissue  clothed the world.

  So Savery guided, 1. 249.  Captain Savery first applied the pressure of
the atmosphere to raise water in consequence of a vacuum previously
produced by the condensation of steam, though the Marquis of Wor-
cester had before proposed to use for this purpose the expansive power
of steam.   See Botanic Garden,  Vol. I. Canto I. 1. 253, Note.
  The waving flax, 1. 254.   Flax is said to have been first discovered
on themanks of the Nile, and Isis to have been the inventress of spin-
 ning and weaving.
  So Arkwright taught, 1. 261.  See Botanic Garden, Vol. II. Conto II.
 1. 87, Note. 
 Canto 4.     OF  GOOD  AND  EVIL.           119

    44 Ages remote by thee, Volition, taught,

 Chain'd down in characters the winged thought;

 With silent language mark'd the letter'd ground,

 And gave to sight the evanescent sound.

 Now, happier lot! enlighten'd realms possess

 The learned lalxmrs of the immortal Press ;           270

 Nursed on whose lap the births of science thrive,

 And rising Arts the wrecks of Time survive.


   44 Ye patriot heroes!  in the  glorious cause

 Of Justice, Mercy, Liberty, and Laws,

 Who call to Virtue's shrine the British youth,

 And shake the senate with the voice of Truth;

 Rouse the dull ear, the hoodwink'd eye unbind,

 And give to energy the public  mind;

 While rival realms with blood  unsated wage

 Wide-wasting war with fell demoniac rage ;          280



   The immortal Press, 1. 270.   The discovery of the art of printing has
 had  so great influence on human affairs,  that from thence may be dated
 a new aera in the history of mankind. As  by the diffusion of general
 knowledge,  both of  the arts of taste and of useful sciences, the public
 mind has become improved to so great a degree, that though new impo-
 sitions have been perpetually produced, the arts of detecting them have
 improved with greater rapidity.   Hence, since the introduction of print-
 ing,  superstition has been much lessened by the reformation of religion;
 and  necromancy,  astrology,  chiromancy, witchcraft, and vampyrism,
have vanished from all classes of society; though some are still so weak,
 in  the present enlightened times, as to believe in the prodigies of animal
magnetism, and of metallic tractors. By this general diffusion of know-
ledge, if the liberty of the press be preserved, mankind will not be lia-
ble in this part of the world to sink into such abject slavery as exists at
this day in China. 
 120        .  ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
 In every clime, while army army meets,
 And oceans groan beneath  contending fleets ;
 Oh save !  oh save !  in this eventful hour,
 The tree of knowledge from the axe of power;
 With fostering peace the suffering nations bless,
 And guard the freedom of the immortal Press !
 So shall your  deathless fame from age to age
 Survive, recorded in the historic page;
 And future bards, with voice inspired, prolong
 Your sacred names immortalized in song.            290

   44 Thy power, Association, next affords
 Ideal trains annex'd to volant words,
 Conveys to listening ears the thought superb,
 And gives to  Language her expressive verb;
Which in one changeful sound suggests the fact
At once to be, to suffer, or to act;
And marks, on rapid wing, o'er every clime,
The viewless  flight of evanescent Time.

  44 Call'd by  thy voice, contiguous thoughts embrace,
In endless streams arranged by Time or Place;      300
  Her expressive verb, 1. 294.  The verb, or the word, has been so called
from its being the most expressive term in all languages; as it suggests
the ideas of existence, action or suffering, and  of time.  See the Note
on Canto III. 1. 371, of this work.
  Call'd by thy voice, 1. 299.  The numerous trains of associated ideas
are divided by Mr. Hume into three classes, which he has termed con-
tiguity, causation, and resemblance.  Nor  should we wonder to find 
Canto 4.      OF  GOOD  AND  EVIL.            121

The Muse historic hence  in every age
Gives to the world her interesting page;
While  in bright landscape from her  moving pen
Rise the fine tints of manners and of  men.
   44  Call'd by thy voice Resemblance next describes

Her  sister thoughts in lucid trains or tribes;

Whence pleased Imagination oft combines

By loose analogies her fair designs ;

Each winning grace of polish'd wit bestows

To deck the Nymphs of Poetry  and Prose.           310


them thus connected together, since it is  the business of our lives to dis-
pose them into these three classes; and we become valuable to ourselves
and our friends as we succeed in it.   Those who have combined an ex-
tensive class of ideas by the contiguity of time or place, are men learned
in the history of mankind, and of the  sciences they have cultivated.
Those who  have connected a great class of ideas of resemblances, pos-
sess the  source of the ornaments of poetry and oratory,  and of all ra-
tional analogy.  While those  who have connected great classes of ideas
of causation, are furnished with the powers of producing effects.  These
are the men of active wisdom, who lead armies to victory, and kingdoms
to prosperity, or discover and improve the sciences, which  meliorate and
adorn the condition of humanity.
   Polish'd wit bestows, 1. 309.  Mr. Locke defines  wit to  consist of an
assemblage of ideas, brought together with quickness and variety, where-
in can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up plea-
sant pictures and agreeable visions in the  fancy.  To which Mr. Addison
adds,  that these must occasion surprise as well as delight. (Spectator,
Vol. I. No. LXII.  See Note on Canto III. 1. 145,  and Additional Note
VII. 3)  Perhaps wit, in the extended use of the word,  may mean to
express all kinds of fine writing, as the word taste is applied to all agree-
able visible objects; and thus wit may mean descriptive sublimity, beauty,
the pathetic, or ridiculous; but when  used in the confined sense, as by
Mr. Locke and Mr. Addison as above, it may probably be  better defined
a  combination of iaeas with agreeable novelty, as this may  be effected by
.pposition as well as by resemblance.
<i 
122          ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
  44 Last, at thy potent nod,  Effect and Cause
Walk hand in hand accordant to thy laws;
Rise at Volition's call, in groups combin'd,
Amuse, delight, instruct, and serve Mankind;
Bid raised in air the ponderous structure stand,
Or pour obedient rivers through the land;
With cars unnumber'd crowd the living streets,
Or people oceans with triumphant fleets.

   44 Thy magic touch imagined forms supplies
From colour'd light, the language of the eyes ;       320
On Memory's page departed hours inscribes,
Sweet scenes of youth, and Pleasure's vanish'd tribes.
By thee Antinous leads the  dance sublime
On wavy step, and moves in measured time ;
Charm'd round the Youth successive Graces throng,
And Ease conducts him, as he moves along;
Unbreathing crowds the floating form admire,
And Vestal bosoms feel forbidden fire.

   44 When rapp'd Cecilia breathes her matin vow,
And lifts to Heaven her fair  adoring brow j          330
From her sweet lips, and rising bosom part
Impassion'd notes, that thrill the melting heart;
Tuned by thy hand the dulcet harp she rings,
And sounds responsive echo  from the strings;
Bright scenes of bliss in trains suggested move,
And charm the world with melody and love. 
Canto 4.      OF  GOOD  AND  EVIL.           123
   III. " Soon the fair forms with vital being bless'd,
Time's feeble  children lose the boon possess'd;
The goaded fibre ceases to obey,
And sense deserts the uncontractile clay ;             340
While births unnumber'd ere the parents die,
The hourly waste of lovely life supply;
And thus,  alternating with death,  fulfil
The silent  mandates of the Almighty Will;
Whose hand unseen the works  of  nature dooms
By laws unknown—who gives, and who resumes.

   44 Each pregnant Oak ten  thousand acorns forms,
Profusely scatter'd by autumnal storms ;
Ten thousand  seeds each pregnant poppy sheds,
Profusely scatter'd from its waving heads;             350
The countless  Aphides, prolific tribe,
With  greedy trunks  the honey'd sap imbibe ;

  The goaded fibre, I. 339.  Old age consists in the inaptitude to motion
from the inirritability of the system, aftd the consequent want of fibrous
contraction.  See Additional Note VII.
  Ten thousand seeds, 1. 349.  The  fertility of plants in respect to seeds
is often remarkable; from one root in one summer the seeds of zea,
maize,  amount to  2,000;  of inula, elecampane, to 3,000; of helianthus,
sunflower, to 4,000;  of papaver, poppy, 32,000; of  nicotiana, tobacco,
to 40,320: to this must be added the perennial roots, and the buds.  Buds,
which are so many herbs,  in one tree, the  trunk of which does not ex-
ceed a span in thickness, frequently amount to 10,000.   Lin. Phil. Bot.
p. 86.
  The countless Aphides, 1. 351.  The aphises, pucerons, or vine-fre.ters,
are hatched from  an egg in the early spring, and are all called females,
as they produce a  living offspring about once in  a fortnight to the ninth
generation, which are also all of them females;  then males are also pro- 
124            ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 4.

Swarm on each leaf with eggs or embryons big,
And pendent nations tenant every twig.
Amorous with double sex, the snail and worm,
Scoop'd in the  soil, their cradling caverns form;
Heap their white eggs,  secure from frost  and floods,
And crowd their nurseries with uncounted broods.
Ere yet with wavy tail the tadpole swims,
Breathes with new lungs, or tries his nascent limbs;   360
duced, and by their intercourse the females become oviparous, and depo-
sit their eggs on the branches, or in the bark, to be hatched in the ensu-
ing spring.
  This  double mode of reproduction, so exactly resembling  the buds
and  seeds of trees, accounts for  the wonderful increase of this insect,
which, according  to Dr. Richardson,  consists  of ten generations, and
of fifty at an average in each generation; so that the sum of  fifty mul-
tiplied by fifty, and that product again multiplied  by fifty-nine times,
would give the product of one egg only in countless  millions; to which
must be added the innumerable eggs laid by the tenth generation for the
renovation of their progeny in the ensuing spring.
  The honey'd sap, 1. 352.  The aphis  punctures with its fine  proboscis
the sap-vessels of vegetables, without any visible wound, and thus drinks
the sap-juise, or vegetable chyle,  as it ascends.  Hence, on the twigs of
trees they stand with their heads downwards, as I have observed, to ac-
quire this ascending  sap-juice with greater facility.  The honey-dew on
the upper surface of leaves is evacuated by these insects,  as they hang
on the under-side of the leaves above;  when they take too much of this
saccharine juice during the vernal or midsummer sap-flow of most vege-
tables; the black powder on leaves is also their excrement at other times-
The vegetable world seems to have escaped  total destruction from this
insect, by the number of flies which, in  their larva state, prey upon them,
and by the ichneumon fly, which deposits its eggs in them.  Some vege-
tables put forth stiff bristles, with  points round their young shoots, as the
moss-rose, apparently to prevent  the depredation of these insects, so in-
jurious to them, by robbing them  of their chyle or nourishment.
  The tadpole swims, 1. 359.   The progress of a tadpole from a fish to a
quadruped, by his gradually putting forth his limbs, and at length leaving
the water, and breathing  the dry air,  is a subject of great  curiosity, as, 
 Canto 4.     OF  GOOD  AND EVIL.          125
 Her countless shoals the amphibious frog forsakes,
 And living islands float upon the lakes.
 The migrant herring steers her myriad bands
 From seas of ice to visit warmer strands;
 Unfathom'd depths and climes unknown explores,
 And covers with her spawn unmeasured shores.
 —All these,  increasing  by successive birth,
 Would each o'erpeople ocean,  air, and earth.

   44 So human progenies,  if unrestrain'd,
 By climate friended, and by food sustain'd,          370
 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.
 Thus while new forms reviving tribes acquire
 Each passing moment, as  the old expire ;
 Like insects swarming in the noontide bower,
 Rise into being,  and exist an hour;
 The births and deaths contend with equal strife,
 And every pore  of  Nature teems with Life ;         380
 Which buds or breathes from Indus to the Poles,
 And Earth's vast surface kindles as it rolls!

 it resembles so much the incipient state of all other quadrupeds, and
men, who are aquatic animals in the uterus, and become  aerial  ones at
their birth.
  Which buds  or breathes, 1. 381.  Organic bodies, besides the carbon,
hydrogen, azote, and the oxygen and heat, which are combined with
them, require to be also immersed in loose heat and loose oxygen to pre- 
126          ORIGIN  OF SOCIETY.     Canto 4.

   44 Hence, when a Monarch or a mushroom dies,

Awhile extinct the organic matter lies;

But,  as a few short hours or years revolve,

Alchemic powers the changing mass dissolve ;

Born to new life unnumber'd insects pant,

New buds surround the microscopic plant;

Whose embryon senses,  and unwearied frames,

Feel finer goads, and blush with purer flames ;       390

Renascent joys from irritation spring,

Stretch the long root,  or wave the aurelian wing.


   44 When thus a squadron or an army yields,

And festering carnage loads the  waves or fields ;

When few from famines  or from plagues survive,

Or earthquakes swallow half a realm alive ;—

While Nature sinks in  Time's destructive storms,

The wrecks of Death are but a change of forms;

Emerging matter from the grave returns,

Feels new desires, with new sensations burns ;       400


serve their mutable existence; and  hence life only exists on or near the
surface of the earth.  (See Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Canto IV.  1. 419.)
L'organization, le sentiment, le movement spontane, la vie, n'existent
qu'a la surface de la terre, et dans les lieux exposes a la lumiere.   Traite
de Chimie par M. Lavoisier, Tom. I. p. 202.
  Born to new life, 1. 387.  From the innumerable births of the larger
insects, and the spontaneous productions of the microscopic ones, every
part of organic matter, from the recrements of dead vegetable or animal
bodies, on or near the surface of the earth,  becomes again presently re-
animated; which, by increasing the number and quantity of living organ-
izations, though many of them exist but for a short time, adds to the
Sum total of terrestrial happiness. 
Canto 4.     OF GOOD  AND EVIL.            127

With youth's first bloom a finer sense acquires,
And Loves and Pleasures fan the rising fires.—
Thus sainted Paul, 4 O Death!'  exulting cries,
4  Where is thy sting ?   O Grave! thy victories:'


   44 Immortal  Happiness, from realms deceased,
Wakes,  as from sleep, unlessen'd or increased;
Calls to the wise in accents loud and clear,
Sooths with  sweet tones the sympathetic ear;
Informs and fires the revivescent clay,
And lights the dawn of Life's returning day.         410


   44 So when Arabia's Bird, by age oppress'd,
Consumes, delighted, on his spicy nest;
A filial Phcenix from his ashes springs,
Crown'd with a star, on renovated wings;
  Thus sainted Paul, 1. 403.  The doctrine of St. Paul teaches the re-
surrection of the body in an incorruptible and glorified state, with con-
sciousness of its previous existence; he therefore justly exults over the
sting of death,  and the victory of the grave.
  And lights the dawn, 1. 410.  The sum total of the happiness of organ-
ized  nature is probably increased rather than diminished, when one
large old animal dies, and is converted into many thousand young onesj
which are produced or supported, with their numerous progeny, by the
same organic matter.  Linnxus  asserts, that  three of the flies  called
musca vomitoria, will consume the body of a dead horse as soon as a
lion can.  Syst. Nat.
  So when Arabia's Bird, 1.411.  The story of the Phcenix rising from its
own ashes with a star upon its head seems to have been an hieroglyphic
emblem of the destruction and resuscitation of all things.   See Botanic
Garden, Vol. I.  Canto IV. 1. 389. 
 128            ORIGIN  OF  SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
 Ascends exulting from his funeral flame,
 And soars and shines, another and the same.

   44 So erst the Sage with scientific truth
 In Grecian Temples taught the attentive youth;
 With ceaseless change, how restless  atoms pass
 From life to life,  a transmigrating mass ;             420
 How the same organs which to-day compose
 The poisonous henbane, or the fragrant rose,
 May with to-morrow's sun new forms compile,
 Frown in the Hero, in the Beauty smile.
 Whence drew the enlighten'd Sage the moral plan,
 That man should ever be the friend  of man ;
 Should eye with tenderness all living forms,
 His brother  emmets, and his sister worms.

   44 Hear, O ye Sons of Time !  your final doom,
 And read the characters that mark your tomb:       430
 The marble  mountain, and the sparry steep,
 Were built by myriad nations of the deep,—

   5b erst the Sage, 1. 417.  It is probable that  the perpetual transmigra-
 tion of matter from one body to another, of all vegetables and animals,
 during their lives, as well as after their  deaths, was observed by Pytha-
 goras ; which he afterwards applied to the soul, or  spirit of animation,
 and taught, that it passed from one animal to another, as a punishment
 for evil deeds, though without consciousness  of its previous existence;
^ and from this doctrine he inculcated a system of morality and benevo-
 lence, as all creatures thus became related to each other.
   The marble mountain, 1. 431.   From the increased knowledge in Geo-
 logy during the present century, owing to the greater attention of phi-
 losophers to the situations of the different materials which compose the 
 Canto 4.     OF  GOOD AND  EVIL.           129
 Age after age, who form'd their spiral shells,
 Their sea-fan gardens and their coral cells ;
 Till central fires, with unextinguished sway,
 Raised the primeval islands into day;—
 The sand-fill'd strata stretch'd from pole to pole;
 Unmeasured beds of clay, and marl, and coal,
 Black ore of manganese,  the zinky stone,
 And dusky steel on his magnetic throne,              440
 In deep morass, or eminence superb,
 Rose  from the wrecks of animal or herb;
 These from their elements by Life  combined,
 Form'd by digestion,  and in glands refined,
 Gave, by their just excitement of the sense,
 The bliss of being to the vital Ens.

   44 Thus the tall mountains, that emboss the lands,
 Huge isles of rock, and continents of sands,
 Whose dim extent eludes the inquiring sight,
 Are mighty  Monuments of past Delight;     450

 strata of the earth, as well as to their chemical properties,  it seems
 clearly to appear, that the nucleus of the globe beneath the ocean con-
 sisted of granite; and that on  this the great beds  of limestone were
 formed from the shells of marine  animals during the innumerable pri-
 meval ages of the world; and that whatever strata lie on these beds of
 limestone, or on the granite, where the limestone  does not  cover  it,
 were formed, after the elevation of islands and continents  above the sur-
 face of the sea, by the recrements of vegetables and of terrestrial animals.
 See on this subject Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Additional Note XXIV.
  Are mighty Monuments, 1. 450.  The reader is referred to a few pages
on this subject in Phytologia, Sect. XIX. 7.  1. where the  felicity of or-
ganic life is considered more at large ; but it is probable  that the most
R 
 130            ORIGIN OF  SOCIETY.      Canto 4.

Shout round the globe,  how Reproduction strives

With vanquish'd Death,—and Happiness  survives ;

How Life increasing peoples every clime,

And young renascent Nature conquers Time ;

—And high in golden characters record

The  immense  munificence of Nature's  Lord !—

certain way to estimate the happiness and misery of organic beings, as
it depends on the actions of the organs of sense, which constitute ideas,
or of the muscular fibres, which perform locomotion, would be to consider
 those actions as they are produced or excited by the four sensorial  pow-
 ers of irritation,  sensation, volition,  and  association.  A small volume
 on this subject, by some ingenious writer, might not only amuse,  as an
 object of curiosity, but,  by showing the world the immediate sources of
 their  pains and pleasures, might teach the means to avoid the one and to
procure the other, and thus contribute both ways to increase the  sum
total of organic happiness.
  How Life increasing, 1. 453.   Not only the vast calcareous provinces,
which form so great a part of the terraqueous globe, and also whatever
rests  upon them, as clay, marl, sand, and coal, were formed from the
fluid elements of heat, oxygen, azote, and hydrogen along with carbon,
phosphorus, and perhaps a few other substances, which the science of
chemistry has not yet decomposed, and gave the pleasure of life to the
animals and vegetables which formed them; and thus constitute monu-
ments of the past happiness of those organized beings.   But as those
remains of former life are not again totally decomposed, or converted
into their original elements, they supply more copious food to the succes-
sion of new animal or  vegetable beings on their surface; which consists
of materials convertible into nutriment with less labour or activity of the
digestive powers; and hence the  quantity or number of organized bo-
dies,  and their improvement in size, as well as their happiness, has
been continually increasing, along with the solid parts of the globe; and
will probably continue to increase till the whole terraqueous  sphere,  and
all that inhabit it, shall dissolve by a general conflagration, and be again
reduced to their elements.
  Thus all the suns,  and the  planets which circle round them,  may
again sink into one central chaos; and may again, by explosions, produce
a new world; which,  in process of time, may resemble the present one,
and at length again undergo the same catastrophe!  These great events
may be the result of the immutable laws impressed on matter by the
Great Cause of Causes, Parent of Parents, Ens Entium! 
Canto 4.     OF GOOD  AND  EVIL.          131
  44 He gives and guides the sun's attractive force,
And steers the planets in their silver course;
With heat and light revives  the golden day,
And breathes his spirit on organic clay;             460
With hand unseen directs the general cause
By firm immutable immortal laws."

  Charm'd with her words the Muse astonish'd stands,
The  Nymphs enraptured clasp their velvet hands;
Applausive thunder from the fane recoils,
And holy echoes peal along  the aisles;
O'er Nature's  shrine celestial lustres glow,
And lambent glories  circle round her brow.

  IV. Now sinks the golden sun,—the vesper song
Demands the tribute of Urania's tongue;          470
Onward she steps, her fair associates calls
From leaf-wove  avenues, and vaulted halls.
Fair virgin trains in bright procession move,
Trail their long robes,  and whiten all the grove ;
Pair after pair to Nature's temple sweep,
Tread the broad arch,  ascend the winding steep ;
Through brazen gates along susurrant aisles
Stream round their Goddess the  successive files;
Curve above curve to golden seats retire,
And star with beauty the refulgent quire.            480 
132          ORIGIN  OF SOCIETY.     Canto 4.
  And first to Heaven the consecrated throng
With chant alternate pour the adoring song,
Swell the full hymn, now high, and now profound,
With sweet responsive symphony of sound.
Seen through their wiry harps, below,  above,
Nods the fair brow,  the  twinkling fingers move ;
Soft-warbling flutes the ruby lip commands,
And cymbals ring with high uplifted hands.

  To Chaos next the notes melodious pass,
How suns exploded from the kindling mass,         490
Waved o'er the vast inane their tresses bright,
And charm'd young Nature's opening eyes with light,
Next from each sun how spheres reluctant burst,
And second planets issued from the first.
And then to Earth descends the moral strain,
How isles, emerging from the shoreless main,
With sparkling streams and fruitful groves began,
And form'd a Paradise for mortal man.

  Sublimer notes record Celestial Love,
And high rewards in brighter climes above;         500

  To Chaos next, 1. 489.
     Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta
     Semina terrarumque, animseque, marisque fuissent;
     Et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis
     Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis.
                                     Virg. Ec. VI. 1. 31. 
Canto 4.     OF GOOD AND EVIL.           133
How Virtue's beams with mental charm engage
Youth's raptured eye, and warm the frost of age,
Gild with soft lustre  Death's tremendous gloom,
And light the dreary chambers of the tomb,
How fell Remorse shall strike with venom'd dart,
Though mail'd in adamant, the guilt)- heart;
Fierce furies drag to pains and realms unknown
The blood-stain'd tyrant from his tottering throne.

  By hands unseen are struck aerial wires,
And Angel-tongues are heard amid the quires;       510
From aisle to aisle the trembling concord floats,
And the wide roof returns the mingled notes,
Through each fine nerve the keen vibrations dart,
Pierce the charm'd ear,  and thrill the echoing heart.

  Mute the sweet voice, and still the  quivering strings,
Now silence hovers on unmoving wings.—
—Slow to the altar fair Urania bends
Her graceful march,  the sacred steps  ascends,
High in the midst with blazing censer stands,
And scatters incense  with illumined hands:           520
Thrice to the Goddess bows with solemn pause,
With trembling awe the mystic veil withdraws,
And, meekly kneeling on the gorgeous shrine,
Lifts her ecstatic eyes to Truth Divixe !
END OF CANTO IV. 
 
CONTENTS  OF  THE  NOTES.
CANTO  I.
Line.
 36 Origin of European Nations.
 76 Early use of  Painting and
     Hieroglyphics.
 83 Proteus represents Time.
126 Cave of Trophonius.
137 Eleusinian Mysteries.
176 Antiquity of Statuary, casting
     Figures, and Carving.
224 Infancy of the present World.
235 Of Heat.
239 Of Attraction.
245 Of Contraction.
259 Arteries not  Conical.
262 Venous Absorption.
  1  Shortness of Life.
  3  Old Age surprising.
 39  Organic and chemical Proper-
     ties.
 43  Immortality of Matter.
 47  Adonis emblem of  Life.
 71  The Truffle, Lycoperdon.
 83  Volvox.
 85  Polypus.
 tS7  Tamia.
 89  Oxsters.
 90  Coral-Insect.
114  Female Sex produced.
118  Power of Imagination.
122 Mankind were  formerly Her-
     maphrodites and Quadrupeds.
Line.
268 Decrease of the Ocean.
270 Sensation and Volition.
283 Mucor, Vibrio.
295 Animals are first aquatic.
315 Sea, originally was not Salt.
327 Animals from the Sea.
335 Aquatic Plants.
343 Frogs.
363 Rainbow in Northern Lati-
      tudes.
372 Venus rising from the Sea.
392 The Fetus in the Womb.
417 Animals from the Mud of the
      Nile.
167 Hereditary Diseases of Vege-
      tables.
223 Psyche and Cupid.
268 Some Honey poisonous.
271 Appetency and Propensity.
280 Vallisneria.
288 Lampyris.
302 Insects from Anthers and Stig-
      mas.
321 Horns of  Stags, and Tusks
      of Boars, Spurs of Cocks.
351 Chick in the Egg.
356 Songs of  Birds.
373 How Fish swim.
375 How Birds fly.
■134 Of Smiles, and of Laughter.
ro  ii. 
136
CONTENTS  OF THE  NOTES.
CANTO III.
Line.
 13 Oxygen, and Hydrogen, and
      Azote.
 21 Two electric Ethers.
 64 Irritation.
 72 Sensation.
 73 Volition, Memory.
 81 Intuitive Analogy.
 91 Association.
103 Armour of Brutes.
122 Of the Human Hand.
125 Perception of Figure.
144 Sight the Language  of  the
      Touch.
145 Surprise, Novelty, Curiosity.
152 The Lips an Organ of Touch.
176 Ideal Beauty.
178 Two Deities of Love.
207 Idea of Beauty from the Fe-
      male Bosom.
230 Taste for Sublimity.
237 Poetic Melancholy.
246 Taste for Tragedy.
Line.
258 Taste for uncultivated Nature.
270 Accumulation   of   sensorial
      Power.
294 Imitation described.
303 Imitation  of  one  Sense by
      another.
319 Mimickry or Resemblance.
334 The Parts of the System imi-
      tate each other.
342 External Signs of Passions.
371 Theory of Language.
398 Ideas so called are parts of  a
      train of Actions.
401 Of Reason.
411 Reasoning of Insects.
435 Volition distinguishes  Man-
      kind.
456 If Knowledge produces Hap-
      piness.
466 Sympathy the  source of Vir-
      tue.
485 Maxim of Socrates.
CANTO IV.
 29 Oestrus or Gad-fly.
 33 Ichneumon fly.
 37 Libellula.
 39 Bees.
 57 Shark.
 59 Crocodile.
 66 Animals prey on Vegetables.
 71 Defect of Stimulus.
 87 Theatric Preachers.
 93 Pleasure of Life,  Ennui.
 94 Of Tooth-edge.
119 Epidemic Complaints.
130 Compassion may be too great.
147 Doctrine of Atoms.
160 Pleasure of viewing  a Land-
     scape.
178 Pleasure from Music.
242 Ancient Orators spoke disre-
     spectfully of the mechanic
     Philosophers.
270 Influence of Printing.
299 Associated ideas of three Clas-

309 Wit defined.
349 Surprising number of Seeds.
351 Of the Aphis, its numbers.
352 Aphis drinks the Sap-juice.
359 The Mutation of the Tadpole.
387 Animation near the Surface
      of the Earth.
387 All dead animal and vegetable
      Bodies become animated.
403 Doctrine of St. Paul.
411 Happiness increased.
417 Doctrine of Pythagoras.
431 Geology.
450 Method  of  investigation  of
      Organic Happiness.
453 Organic Life increases. 
ADDITIONAL NOTES.
s
tf. 
 
ADDITIONAL  NOTES.
    SPONTANEOUS VITALITY OF MICROSCOPIC
                        ANIMALS.

         Hence without parent by spontaneous birth
         Rise the first specks of animated earth.     J.A J
                                    Canto I. 1. 227.

              Prejudices against this Doctrine,

I. r ROM the misconception of the ignorant or superstitious, it
has been thought somewhat profane to speak in favour of spon-
taneous vital production, as if it contradicted holy writ;  which
says, that  God created animals and vegetables.  They do not
recollect that God  created all things which exist, and that these
have  been from the  beginning in a perpetual state of improve-
ment ; which appears from the globe itself, as well as from the
animals and vegetables which possess it.  And, lastly, that there
is more dignity in our idea of the supreme Author of all things,
when we conceive  him to be the cause of causes, than the cause
simply  of the events which  we see;  if there can be any dif-
ference in infinity of power!
  Another prejudice which has prevailed  against  the sponta-
neous  production of vitality seems to have arisen from the mis-
representation  of  this doctrine, as if the  larger animals  had
been thus produced;  as Ovid supposes after the deluge of Deu-
calion, that lions were seen rising out of the mud of the Nile, and
struggling to disentangle dieir hinder parts.  It was not  consi-
dered, that  animals  and vegetables have been perpetually im-
proving by reproduction; and that spontaneous vitality was only
to be looked for in  the simplest organic beings, as in the smallest
microscopic animalcules; which perpetually, perhaps hourly,
enlarge themselves by reproduction, like the roots of tulips from
seed,  or the buds of  seedling trees, which die annually, leaving 
140
Additional Notes.
others by solitary reproduction rather more perfect than them-
selves, for many successive years, till at length  they acquire
sexual organs or flowers.
  A third prejudice  against the existence of spontaneous vital
productions, has been the supposed want of analogy.  This has
also arisen from the expectation, that the larger or more com-
plicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired
their present perfection by successive generations during an un-
counted series  of ages.  Add to this, that the want of analogy
opposes tjie credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic
needle, ana1 coated electric jar, and Galvanic pile; which should
therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated be-
fore distinct credence is given  them; but then  the want of ana-
logy must at length yield to repeated ocular demonstration.


                 Preliminary Observations.

  II. Concerning the spontaneous production of the smallest mi-
croscopic animals, it should be first observed, that the power of
reproduction distinguishes organic being,  whether vegetable or
animal,  from inanimate nature.  The circulation of fluids in
vessels may exist in hydraulic machines; but the power of re-
production belongs alone to life.  This reproduction of plants
and of animals is of two kinds, which may be termed solitary
and sexual.  The former of these, as in the reproduction of the
buds of trees, and of the  bulbs  of tulips, and of the polypus,
and aphis,  appears to be the first or most simple mode of gene-
ration, as  many  of  these  organic beings  afterwards acquire
sexual organs,  as the flowers of seedling trees, and of seedling
tulips, and the autumnal progeny of the aphis.  See Phytologia.
  Secondly, it should be observed,  that by reproduction organic
beings are gradually enlarged and improved;  which  may per-
haps more rapidly and uniformly occur in the simplest modes of
animated being; but occasionally also in the more  complicated
and perfect kinds.  Thus  the  buds of a seedling tree, or  the
bulbs of seedling  tulips, become larger and stronger  in the se-
cond  year  than the  first,  and thus improve till they acquire
flowers or sexes; and the aphis, I believe, increases in bulk to 
         Sjwn/ancoua Vitality tf Microti o/tic Animals.    141

the eighth or ninth generation, and then produces a sexual pro-
geny .  Hence the existence of spontaneous vitality is only to be
expected to be found in the simplest modes of animation, as the
complex ones have been  formed by many  successive reproduc-
tions.

                    Hx/ierimental Pacts.

   III. By the experiments of Buflbn, Reaumur, Ellis, Ingenhouz,
and others, microscopic animals  are  produced in three or four
days, according to the warmth of the season, in the infusions of
all vegetable or animal matter.  One or more of these gentle-
men put some boiling veal broth into a phial  previously heated
in the fire, and sealing it  up hermetically, or with melted wax,
observed it to be replete with animalcules in three or four days.
   These microscopic animals are believed to possess a  power of
generating others like themselves, by solitary reproduction,  with-
out sex ; and these gradually enlarging and improving  for innu-
merable successive generations.   Mr. Ellis,  in Phil. Transact.
Vol. LIX.  gives drawings of six kinds of animalcula infusoria,
which increase by dividing across the middle into two distinct
animals.  Thus in paste  composed of flour and water,  which
has been suffered to become acescent, the animalcules  called
eels,  vibrio anguillula, are seen in great abundance; their mo-
tions are rapid and strong; they are viviparous, and produce at
intervals a numerous progeny:  animals  similar to these are also
found in vinegar. (Naturalist's  Miscellany by Shaw and Nodder,
Vol. 11.)   These eels were probably at first as minute  as  other
microscopic animalcules;  but by frequent, perhaps hourly repro-
duction, have gradually  become  the large animals above de-
scribed,  possessing wonderful strength and activity.
   To suppose  the eggs of the former  microscopic  animals to
float in the atmosphere, and pass  through the scaled glass phial,
is so  contrary to apparent nature, as to be  totally incredible!
and as the latter arc viviparous,  it is equally absurd to suppose
that their parents float universally in the atmosphere to lay their
young in paste or vinegar!
  Not only microscopic animals appear to be produced by a
spontaneous vital process, and then quickly improve by solitary 
142
Additional Notes.
generation, like the buds of trees, or like the polypus and aphis;
but there is one vegetable body, which  appears to be produced
by a spontaneous vital process, and is believed to be propagated
and enlarged in so short a time by solitary generation as to be-
come visible to the naked eye; I mean the green matter first
attended to by  Dr. Priestley,  and called by him conferva fonti-
nalis.  The proofs that this material is  a vegetable, are from
its giving up so much oxygen, when exposed to the sunshine, as
it grows in water, and from its green colour.
  Dr. Ingentiouz asserts, that by filling  a bottle with well-water,
and inverting  it immediately into a basin of well-water, this
green vegetable  is formed in great quantity; and he believes
that the water  itself, or some  substance contained in the water,
is converted into this kind of vegetation, which then quickly
propagates itself.
   M. Girtanner asserts that this green vegetable matter is  not
produced by water and heat alone, but requires the sun's light
for this purpose, as he observed by many experiments, and thinks
it arises from decomposing water deprived of a part of its oxy-
gen,  and laughs at Dr. Priestley for believing that the seeds of
this conferva, and the parents of microscopic animals, exist uni-
versally in the  atmosphere, and penetrate the sides of glass jars.
Phil. Mag. for  May, 1800.
  Besides this green vegetable matter of Dr. Priestley, there is
another vegetable, the minute beginnings of the growth of which
Mr. Ellis observed, by his microscope,  near the surface of all
putrefying vegetable or animal matter, which is the mucor or
mouldiness;  the vegetation of which was amazingly quick, so as
to be almost seen, and soon became  so large as to be visible to
the naked eye.   It is difficult  to conceive how the seeds of this
mucor can float so universally in the atmosphere as to fix itself
on all putrid matter in all places.


               Theory of Spontaneous  Vitality.

  IV. In  animal nutrition the organic  matter of the  bodies of
dead animals, or vegetables, is taken into the stomach, and there
suffers decompositions and new  combinations,  by a chemical 
         Spontaneous Vitality of Microscopic Animals.     143

 process.  Some parts of it are, however, absorbed by the lac-
 teals as fast as they are produced by this process of digestion; in
 which circumstance this process differs from common chemical
 operations.
  In vegetable nutrition the organic matter of dead animals, or
vegetables, undergoes chemical decompositions and new combi-
nations on or beneath the surface of the earth; and parts of it,
 as they are  produced, are perpetually absorbed by the roots of
the  plants in contact with it; in which this also differs from
common chemical processes.
  Hence the particles which are produced  from dead organic
matter by chemical decompositions or new consequent combina-
tions, are found proper  for the purposes of the nutrition of liv-
ing vegetable and animal bodies,  whether these decompositions
and new combinations are performed in die stomach or beneatii
 the soil.
  For the purposes  of nutrition these digested or decomposed
recrements of dead animal or vegetable matter are absorbed by
the lacteals of the stomachs of animals or of the roots of vege-
tables, and carried into  the circulation of their blood, and these
compose new organic parts to replace others which are de-
stroyed, or to increase the growth of  the plant or animal.
  It is probable, that as in inanimate or chemical combinations,
one of the composing materials must possess a power of attrac-
tion, and the  other  an  aptitude to be  attracted;  so in organic
or animated compositions there must be  particles with appe-
tencies to unite,  and other  particles with  propensities  to  be
united with them.
  Thus in the generation of the buds of trees, it is probable that
two kinds of vegetable matter, as they are separated  from the
solid system, and float in the circulation, become arrested by
two  kinds of  vegetable  glands, and are then deposited beneath
the cuticle  of the tree,  and there join together, forming a new
vegetable, the caudex of which extends from the plumula at the
summit to the radicles beneath the soil, and  constitutes a single
finre of the bark.
  These particles appear to be of two kinds; one of them pos-
sessing  an appetency to  unite with the other, and the latter a
propensity to be  united with the former; and they are probably 
144
Additional Notes.
separated from the vegetable blood by two kinds of glands, orte*
representing those of the anthers, and the others those of the
stigmas,  in the sexual organs of vegetables; which is spoken of
at large in Phytologia, Sect. VII. and in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect.
XXXIX. 8. of the third edition, in octavo j where it is likewise
shown, that none of these parts which are deposited beneath
the cuticle of the tree, is in itself a complete vegetable embryon,
but that they form one by their reciprocal conjunction.
  So in the sexual reproduction of animals, certain parts sepa-
rated from the living organs,  and floating in the blood, are ar-
rested by the sexual glands of the female, and others by those
of the male.  Of these none  are complete embryon animals,
but form an embryon by their reciprocal conjunction.
  There hence appears  to be  an analogy between generation
and nutrition,  as one is the production of new organization, and
the other the restoration of that which previously existed; and
which may therefore be supposed to require materials somewhat
similar.  Now the food taken up by animal lacteals is previously
prepared by the chemical process of digestion  in the stomach;
but that which is taken up by vegetable lacteals, is prepared by
chemical dissolution of organic matter beneath the surface of the
earth.  Thus  the particles which form generated animal em-
bryons, are prepared from dead organic matter by the chemico-
animal processes of sanguification and of secretion;  while those
which form spontaneous microscopic animals,  or microscopic
vegetables, are  prepared by chemical dissolutions and  new
combinations of organic  matter in watery fluids with sufficient
warmth.
  It may be here added, that the production and properties of
some kinds of  inanimate matter  are almost as difficult to com-
prehend  as those  of  the simplest degrees  of animation.   Thus
the elastic gum, or caoutchouc, and some fossile bitumens, when
drawn out to a great length, contract themselves by their elasti-
city, like an  animal fibre by stimulus.  The laws of action of
these, and all  other elastic bodies, are not yet  understood;  as
the laws of the attraction of cohesion,  to produce these effects,
must be very different from those of general attraction, since the
further the particles of elastic bodies are drawn from each other
till they separate, the stronger they seem to attract; and the 
          Spontaneous Vitality of Microscopic Animals,     145

 nearer they are pressed together, the more they seem to repel;
 as in bending a spring, or in extending a piece of elastic gum;
 which is the reverse to what occurs in the attractions of disunit-
 ed bodies; and much wants further investigation.  So the spon-
 taneous  production of alcohol or of vinegar,  by the  vinous and
 acetous  fermentations,  as well as  the production of a mucus by
 putrefaction which will contract when extended, seems almost
 as difficult to understandas the spontaneous production of a  fibre
 from decomposing animal or vegetable substances,  which will
 contract when  stimulated, and thus constitutes the primordium
 of life.
   Some  of the microscopic animals are said to remain dead for
 many days or  weeks, when  the fluid  in  which they  existed is
 dried up, and quickly to recover life and motion by the fresh ad-
 dition of water and warmth.  Thus the chaos redivivum of  Lin-
 naeus dwells  in vinegar and in bookbinders' paste: it  revives by
 water after having been dried for years,  and is both oviparous
 and viviparous. (Syst. Nat.)  Thus the vorticella or wheel animal
 which is found in rain-water that has stood some days in leaden
 gutters,  or in hollows of lead on the tops of houses,  or in the
 slime or sediment left by such water, though it discovers no  sign
 of life except when in the water,  yet it is capable of continuing
 alive for many months, though kept in a dry state.  In this state
 it is of a globulous shape, exceeds not the bigness of a grain of
 sand, and no signs  of life appear: but being put into  water, in
 the space of  half an hour a languid motion begins, the globule
 turns itself about, lengthens itself by slow degrees, assumes the
 form of a lively maggot, and most commonly in a'few minutes
 afterwards puts out its wheels, swimming vigorously through the
 water as  if in search of food; or else, fixing itself by the  tail,
 works the wheels in  such a  manner as to bring its food to its
 mouth.   English Encyclopxdia, Art. Animalcule.
   Thus some shell-snails in the cabinets of the curious have been
 kept in a dry state for ten years or longer, and have revived on
being moistened with warmish water.  (Philos. Trans.) So eggs
 and  seeds, after many months torpor, are revived by warmth
and moisture. Hence it maybe concluded,that even the organic
particles of dead animals may, when exposed to a due degree of
 warmdi and moisture,  regain some degree of vitality,  since this
                             x 
146
Additional Notes.
is done by more complicate animal organs in the instances above
mentioned.
  The hydra of Linnseus, which dwells in  the rivers of Europe
under aquatic plants, has been  observed by  the curious of the
present time, to revive after it has been dried, to be restored af-
ter being mutilated, to multiply by being  divided, to be propa-
gated from small portions, to live after being inverted;  all which
would be best explained  by the doctrine of  spontaneous repro-
duction from organic particles not yet completely decomposed.
  To this should be added, that these microscopic animals are
found in all solutions of vegetable or  animal matter in water;
as black pepper steeped in water, hay suffered to become putrid
in water, and the water  of dunghills, afford animalcules in as-
tonishing numbers.  (See Mr. Ellis's curious  account of Animal-
cules produced  from an infusion of Potatoes   and  Hempseed,
Phil. Transact. Vol. LIX.)  From  all which  it would appear,
that organic  particles  of dead vegetables and animals during
their usual chemical changes into putridity or acidity, do not
lose all their organization or vitality, but retain so much of it as
to unite with the parts of living animals in the  process of nutri-
tion, or  unite  and produce new complicate  animals by secretion,
as in generation, or produce very  simple microscopic animals
or microscopic vegetables, by their new combinations in warmth
and moisture.
  And,  finally, that these microscopic  organic bodies are multi-
plied and enlarged by solitary reproduction, without sexual in-
tercourse till they acquire greater perfection  or new properties.
Lewenhoek observed in rain-water which had stood a few days,
the smallest scarcely visible microscopic  animalcules, and in a
few more days he observed  others eight times as large. English
Encyclop. Art. Animalcule.


                        Conclusion.

  There is therefore no absurdity  in believing that the most
simple animals and vegetables may be  produced by the congress
of the parts of decomposing organic matter, without what can
properly be termed generation, as the genus did not previously 
        Spontaneous Vitality of Microscopic Animals.     147

exist;  which accounts for the endless varieties, as well as for
the immense numbers of microscopic animals.
  The green vegetable matter of Dr. Priestley, which is univer-
sally produced  in stagnant water, and the mucor, or mouldi-
ness, which is seen on the surface of all putrid vegetable and
animal matter, have probably no parents, but a spontaneous ori-
gin from the congress of the decomposing organic particles, and
afterwards propagate themselves. Some other fungi, as  those
growing in close wine-vaults, or others which arise from decay-
ing trees  or rotten timber, may perhaps be owing  to a similar
spontaneous production, and not previously exist as perfect or-
ganic beings in  the juices of the wood, as some have supposed.
In the same manner  it would seem, that the common esculent
mushroom is produced from horse dung at any time and in any
place, as is the common practice of many gardiners.  Kennedy
on Gardening.

                        Appendix.

  The knowledge of microscopic  animals is still in its infancy:
those already known are  arranged by Mr. Muller,  into the fol-
lowing classes; but it  is probable that  many more classes, as
well as innumerable individuals, may be discovered by improve-
ments  of  the microscope,  as Mr. Herschell has discovered so
many thousand stars, which were before  invisible, by improve-
ments of the telescope.
    Mr. Muller's classes consist of

            I.  Such as have no external Organs.

      1. Monas: Punctiformis. A mere point.
     2. Proteus: Mutabilis.   Mutable.
     3. Volvox : Sphxricum.  Spherical.
     •1. Enchelis: Cylindracea.   Cylindrical.
     5. Vibrio : Elongatum.  Long.
                     * Membranaceous.
     (">. Cyclidium:  Ovale.  Oval.
     7. Paramecium: Oblongum.  Oblong,
     S. Kolpoda : Sinuaturn.  Sinuous. 
148
Additional Notes.
     9. Gonium:  Angulatum.   With angles.
    10. Bursaria.   Hollow like a purse.

            II. Those that have external Organs.

             * Naked, or not enclosed in a shell.
     1. Cercaria: Caudatum.   With a tail.
     2. Tricoda :  Crinitum.  Hairy.
     3. Kerona:  Corniculatum.  With horns.
     4. Himantopus: Cirratum.  Cirrated.
     5. Leucophra: Ciliatum undique.   Every part ciliated.
     6. Vorticella:  Ciliatum apice.  The apex ciliated.
                  * Covered with a shell.
     7. Brachionus: Ciliatum apice.  The apex ciliated.

  1. These animalcules are discovered in two or three days in
all decompositions  of organic matter, whether vegetable or ani-
mal, in moderate degrees of warmth with sufficient moisture.
  2. They  appear to enlarge  in a few days,  and  some to
change their form ;  which  are probably converted from more
simple into more complicate animalcules by repeated reproduc-
tions.  See Note VIII.
  3. In their  early state they seem to multiply by viviparous
solitary reproduction, either by external division, as the smaller
ones, or by an internal progeny, as the eels in paste or vinegar;
and, lastly, in  their more mature state,  the larger ones are said
to appear to have sexual connection.  Engl.  Encyclop.
  4. Those animalcules discovered in pustules of the itch, in the
feces of dysenteric patients, and in semine masculino, I suppose
to be produced by the  stagnation and incipient decomposition
of those materials  in their receptacles, and not to exist in the
living blood or recent secretions;  as none, I believe, have been
discovered in blood when first drawn from the arm, or in fluids
newly  secreted from the  glands,  which have  not  previously
stagnated in their reservoirs.
  5. They are observed to move in  all directions with  ease and
rapidity,  and to avoid obstacles,  and not  to  interfere with each
other in their motions.  When the water  is in part evaporated,
they are  seen to flock towards the  remaining part, and show 
               The Faculties of the Sen'orium.           149

preat agitation.   They sustain a great degree of cold,  as  some
insects, and perish  in much the same degree of heat as destroys
insects ; all which evince that they are living animals.
  And it is probable, that other or similar animalcules may be
produced in the air, or  near  the surface of the earth,  but it is
not so easy to view them as in water; which, as it is transparent,
the creatures  produced in it can easily be observed by  applying
a drop to a microscope.  I  hope that microscopic researches
may again excite the attention of philosophers, as unforeseen
advantages may probably be  derived from them, like the disco-
very of a new world.





              ADDITIONAL  NOTE II.

        THE  FACULTIES  OF THE SENSORIUM.

         Next the long nerves  unite their silver train,
         And young Sensation permeates the brain.
                                     Canto 1.1. 270.

  I. Thk fibres, which constitute the muscles and organs  of
sense,  possess a power  of contraction.   The circumstances at-
tending the exertion of this power of contraction constitute the
laws of animal motion, as the circumstances  attending the ex-
ertion of the power of attraction constitute the laws of motion of
inanimate matter.
  II.  The spirit of animation is the immediate cause of the con-
traction of animal fibres; it resides in the brain and nerves, and
is liable to general  or partial diminution or accumulation.
  III.  The  stimulus  of bodies external  to the moving  organ is
the remote cause of the original contractions of animal fibres.
  IV.  A certain quantity of  stimulus produces irritation, which
is an exertion of the spirit of animation exciting the fibres into
contraction.
  V.  A certain  quantity of contraction of animal fibres, if it be
perceived at :;11. produces •pleasure; a greater or less  quantity 
150
Additional Notes.
 of contraction, if it be perceived at all, produces pain;  these
 constitute sensation.
   VI.  A certain  quantity of sensation produces  desire or aver-
 sion; these constitute volition.
   VII. All animal  motions which have  occurred  at the  same
 time, or in immediate succession, become  so connected, that
 when one of them  is reproduced, the other has a tendency to
 accompany or succeed it.   When fibrous contractions succeed
 or accompany other fibrous contractions, the connection is termed
 association; when fibrous contractions succeed sensorial motions,
 the connection is termed causation ;  when fibrous and sensorial
 motions reciprocally introduce each other,  it is termed catena-
 tion of animal motions.
   VIII. These four faculties of the sensorium during their  in-
 active state are termed irritability, sensibility, voluntarity, and
 associability; in their active state they are termed, as above,  ir-
 ritation, sensation, volition, association.
   Irritation is an exertion or change of  some extreme part of
 the sensorium residing in the muscles or organs of sense, in con-
 sequence of the appulses of external bodies.
   Sensation is an  exertion or change of the central parts of the
 sensorium, or of the whole of it, beginning at some of those ex-
 treme parts of it which re'side in the muscles or organs of sense.
   Volition is an exertion or change of the central  parts of the
 sensorium, or of the whole of it, terminating in some of those
 extreme parts of it 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 contrac-
tions.  See Zoonomia, Vol. I.
  The word sensorium is used to express not only the medullary
part of  the brain, spinal marrow, nerves, organs of sense and
muscles, but also at the same time that living principle, or spirit
of animation, which resides throughout the body, without being
Cognizable to our senses except by its effects. 
(  151  )
              ADDITIONAL  NOTE  III.

                       VOLCANOES.

        Next when imprison'd fires in central caves
        Burst the firm earth,  and drank the headlong waves.
                                      Canto I. 1. 322.

   The great and repeated explosions of volcanoes are shown
 by Mr. Mitchell, in the Phil. Transact, to arise from their com-
 munication  with the sea, or with rivers, or inundations; and
that after a chink or crack is made, the water rushing into an
 immense burning cavern, and falling on boiling lava, is instantly
 expanded into steam, and produces irresistible explosions.
   As the first volcanic fires had no previous vent, and were pro-
 bably more  central, and larger in quantity, before they burst
 the crust of the earth, then entire,  and  as  the  sea covered the
 whole,  it must rapidly sink  down  into every  opening chink;
 whence these primeval  earthquakes were of much greater ex-
 tent,  and of much greater force, than those which occur in the
 present era.
   It should be added, that  there may be other  elastic vapours
 produced by great heat from whatever will evaporate, as mer-
 cury, and even diamonds; which may be more elastic, and con-
 sequently exert  greater force than the steam of water, even
 though  heated red  hot: which  may  thence exert a sufficient
 power to  raise islands  and continents,  and even to throw the
 moon from the earth.
   If the moon be supposed to have been thus thrown out of the
 great cavity which  now contains the South Sea, the immense
 quantity of water flowing in from the primeval ocean, which then
covered the earth,  would much  contribute  to leave the conti-
 nents and islands, which might be raised at the same time above
the surface of  the water.  In later days, there  are accounts of
large stones falling from the sky, which may have been thus
thrown bv explosion from some distant earthquake, without suf-
ficient force to cause them to circulate round the earth, and thus"
produce numerous small moons or satellites. 
152
Additional Notes.
  Mr. Mitchell observes, that the  agitations of the earth from
the great earthquake at Lisbon, were felt in this comitry about
the same time after the shock as sound would have taken in
passing from Lisbon hither; and thence ascribes these agita-
tions to the vibrations of the solid earth, and not to subterrane-
ous caverns of communication.  (Philos. Trans.)  But from the
existence of warm springs at Bath and Buxton,  there must cer-
tainly be unceasing subterraneous fires at some  great depth be-
neath those parts of this island.  See  on this  subject Botanic
Garden, Vol. II.  Canto IV.  1. 79, note.   For an account of the
noxious vapours emitted from volcanoes see Botanic Garden,
Vol. II. Canto IV. 1. 328, note. For the milder effects of central
fires see Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Canto I. 1. 139, and Additional
Note VI.




             ADDITIONAL  NOTE   IV.

                       MUSQUITO.

         So from deep lakes the dread Musquito springs,
         Drinks the soft breeze, and dries his tender wings.
                                         Canto I. 1. 348.

   The gnat, or musquito, culex pipiens.  The larva  of this in-
sect lives chiefly in water, and the pupa moves with great agility.
It is fished for by ducks ;  and, when it becomes a fly, is the food
of the young of partridges, quails,  sparrows, swallows, and
other small birds. The females wound us, and leave a  red point;
and in India their bite is more venomous. The male has its an-
tennae and feelers feathered, and seldom bites  or sucks blood.
Linn. Syst. Nat.
   It may  be  driven away by smoke, especially  by that from
inula helenium, elecampane; and by that of cannabis, hemp.
(Kalm.)  It is said that a light in a chamber  will prevent their
attack on sleeping persons.,
   The gnats of this country are produced in greater numbers in
some years than others,  and are then seen in  swarms for many 
Musquito.
153
 evenings near the lakes or rivers whence they arise; and, I sup-
 posts emigrate to upland situations, where  fewer of them are
 produced.  About thirty years ago such a swarm  was observed
 by Mr. Whitehurst,  for  a day or two,  about the  lofty tower of
 Derby church, as to give a suspicion of the fabric being on fire.
   Many  other kinds of flies have their origin in the water, as,
 perhaps, the whole class of neuroptera.  Thus the libellula, dra-
 gon-fly ; the larva of which hurries amid the water,  and is the
 cruel crocodile of aquatic insects.  After they become flies, they
 prey principally on the class of insects termed lepidoptera, and
 diptera of Linnams.  The ephemera is another of this order,
 which rises from the lakes in such quantities in  some countries,
 that the rustics have carried cart-loads of them to manure their
 corn-lands; the larva swims in the water.  In its fly-state the
 p'easures of life are of  short duration, as its marriage, produc-
 tion of its progeny, and funeral, are often celebrated in one day.
 The phryganea is another fly of this order;  the  larva lies con-
 cealed under jthe water in moveable cylindrical tubes of their
 own making.   In the fly-state they institute  evening dances in
 the air in swarms, and  are fished for by the swallows.
   Many other flies,  who do not leave their eggs in water, con-
 trive to lay them in moist  places, as the oestros bovis;  the larva
of which  exist in die bodies of cattle, where they are nourished
during the winter, and are occasionally extracted by a bird of
the crow kind, called buphaga.  These larvae are also found in
the stomachs  of horses, whom they sometimes destroy.  An-
other species of them adhere to the anus of horses, and creep
into the lowest bowel, and are called botts ;  and another spe-
cies enters the frontal sinus of sheep, occasioning a vertigo cal-
led the turn.  The musca pendula lives in stagnant water; the
larva is suspended by a thread-form respiratory tube: of the
musca chamxleon, the larva lives in fountains, and the fly occa-
sionally walks upon the  water.   The musca  vomitoria is pro-
duced in carcases: three of these  flies consume the dead  body
of a horse as soon as a lion.  Linn. Syst. Nat.
U 
(  154  )
              ADDITIONAL  NOTE  V.

                AMPHIBIOUS ANIMALS.

         So still the Diodons, amphibious tribe,
         With two-fold lungs the sea and air imbibe.
                                    Canto I. 1.352.

   D. D. Garden dissected the amphibious creature called diodon
by Linnseus, and was amazed to find that it possessed both ex-
ternal gills and internal lungs, which he described and prepared,
and sent to Linnaeus, who thence put this animal into the order
nantes of his class amphibia.   He adds also,  in his account of
polymorpha, before the class amphibia,  that some of this class
breathe by lungs only,  and others by both lungs and gills.
   Some amphibious quadrupeds, as the beaver, water-rat, and
otter, are  said to have the foramen ovale of the  heart  open,
which communicates from one cavity of it to the other; and that,
during their continuance under  water, the blood can thus, for a
time, circulate without passing through the lungs; but as it can-
not by these means acquire oxygen either from the  air or water,
these creatures find it frequently necessary to rise to the surface
to respire. As this foramen ovale is always open in the  foetus
of  quadrupeds,  till  after its birth  that it begins  to respire,
it has been proposed by some to keep young  puppies, three  or
four times a day, for a minute  or two under warm  water,  to
prevent this communication  from one cavity of the heart to the
other from growing up; whence it has been thought such dogs
might become amphibious.   It is also believed that this circum-
stance has existed in some divers for pearl,  whose children are
said to have been thus kept under water in  their early infancy,
to  enable them afterwards to succeed in their employment.
  But the most frequent distinction of the amphibious animals
that live much in the water, is, that their heart consists but  of
one cell; and as they are pale creatures, with but  little blood,
and that colder and darker coloured, as frogs and lizards, they
require less oxygen than the warmer animals with a greater 
Amphibious Animals.                 155
 quantity and more scarlet blood;  and thence, though they have
 only lungs, they can stay long under water without great incon-
 venience; but  are all of them, like frogs, and crocodiles, and
 whales,  necessitated frequently to  rise above  the  surface for
 air.
   In this circumstance of their possessing a one-celled heart,
 and colder and darker blood, they approach to the state offish;
 which thus appear not to acquire so much oxygen by their gills
 from the water as terrestrial animals do by their lungs from the
 atmosphere : whence it may be concluded that the gills of fish
 do not decompose the water which passes through them, and
 which  contains so much more oxygen than the air, but that they
 only procure a small quantity of oxygen from the air which is
 diffused in the water; which also is further confirmed by an ex-
 periment with the air-pump, as fish soon die when put  in a glass
 of water into the exhausted receiver, which they would not do
 if their gills had power to  decompose the  water and obtain the
 oxygen from it.
   The lamprey,  petromyzoh, is put  by Linnaeus amongst the
 nantes, which are defined to possess both gills and lungs.  It has
 seycn  spiracula, or  breathing holes,  on each side of  the neck,
 and by its more perfect lungs approaches to the serpent kind.
 (Syst.  Nat.)   The means by which it adheres to stones, even in
 rapid streams,  is probably  owing to a partial  vacuum  made by
 its respiring  organs like sucking,  and may be compared to  the
 ingenious method by  which  boys are seen to lift large stones in
 the street, by applying to them a piece of strong moist leather
 with a string through the centre of  it; which, when  it  is for-
 cibly drawn upwards, produces a partial vacuum under it, and
 thus the stone is supported  by the pressure of  the atmosphere.
   The leech, hirudo, and the remora, echeneis, adhere strongly
to objects probably  by a similar method. I once  saw ten or
 twelve leeches adhere to each  foot of an old horse a little above
 his hoofs,  who was grazing in a morass, and which did not lose
 their hold when he moved about.  The bare-legged travellers in
 Ceylon are said to be much infested by leeches;  and the sea-
leech,  hirudo muricata, is said to adhere  to fish,  and the re-
 mora  is  said to adhere to ships in such  numbers as to  retard
•.heir progress. 
156                  Additional Notes,
  The respiratory organ of the whale, I suppose,  is pulmonary
in part,  as he is obliged to come frequently to the surface,
whence he can be pursued after he is struck with the harpoon;
and may, nevertheless,  be in part like the gills of  other fish, as
he seems to draw in water when he is below the surface, and
emits it again when he rises above it.



             ADDITIONAL  NOTE VI.

         HIEROGLYPHIC  CHARACTERS.

     So erst, as Egypt's rude designs explain.  Canto I. 1. 371.

  The outlines of animal bodies, which gave names to the con-.
stellations, as well as the characters used in chemistry for the
metals, and in astronomy for the planets, were originally hiero-
glyphic figures, used by the magi of Egypt,  before the invention
of letters, to record their discoveries  in those sciences.
   Other hieroglyphic  figures seem  to have been designed to
perpetuate the  events of history,  the discoveries in other arts,
and  the opinions of those ancient philosophers on other subjects.
Thus  their figures of  Venus for beauty, Minerva for wisdom,
Mars and Bellona for  war, Hercules for strength, and  many
others, became  afterwards the deities of  Greece and Rome;
and, together with the  figures of Time, Death, and Fame, con-.
stitute the language of the painters to this day.
   From  the similarity of the characters which  designate the
metals in chemistry, and the planets in astronomy,  it may be
concluded that these parts of science  were then  believed to be
connected: whence astrology seems to have been a very early
superstition.  These, so far, constitute an universal visible Ian-!
guage in those sciences.
   So the glory, or halo, round the head, is a part of the uni-
versal language of the eye, designating a holy person; wings on
the  shoulders denote a good angel;  and a tail and hoof denote
the  figure of an evil demon; to which may be  added the cap of
liberty,  and the tiara of popedom.  It is to be wished that many
other universal characters could  be  introduced  into practice, 
                 Hieroglyphic Characters.              157

which  might either constitute a more comprehensive language
for painters, or for other  arts; as those of ciphers and  signs
have done for arithmetic and algebra,  and crotchets for music,
and the alphabets for  articulate  sounds; so a zigzag line made
on white paper by a black-lead  pencil, which communicates
with the surface of the mercury in the barometer, as the paper
itself is made constantly to move laterally by a clock, and daily
to descend  through the space necessary, has ingeniously pro-
duced a most accurate visible account of the rise and fall of the
mercury in the barometer  every hour in the year.
   Mi-. Grey's Memoria Technica was designed as an artificial
language to remember numbers,  as of the eras or dates of his-
tory.   This was done by substituting one consonant  and one
vowel for each figure of the ten ciphers used in arithmetic, and
by composing words of these  letters; which  words Mr. Grey
makes into hexameter verses, and produces an audible jargon,
which  is to be committed to memory,  and occasionally analysed
into numbers when required.  An ingenious  French botanist,
M. Bergcret, has proposed to apply this idea of Mr. Grey to
a botanical nomenclature,  by making the name of each plant to
consist of letters,  which, when  analysed, were to signify the
number of the class, order, genus, and species, with a descrip-
tion also of some particular  part of the plant, which was de-
signed to  lie both an audible and visible  language.
   Bishop Wilkins, in his elaborate '• Essay towards a Real Cha-
racter and a Philosophical Language,"  has endeavoured to pro-
duce, with the  greatest simplicity, and accuracy,  and concise-
ness, an universal language, both to be written and spoken, for
the purpose of  the communication of all our ideas with greater
exactness and less labour  than is  done in common languages, as
thev are now spoken  and  written. But we have to lament that
the progress of general science is yet too limited both for his
purpose, and  for that even of a nomenclature for botany; and
that the science of grammar, and even the  number and man-
ner of the pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet, are not
yet determined with  such accuracy as  would be necessary to
constitute Bishop Wilkins's  grand design of an universal lan-
guage,  which might  facilitate the acquirement of knowledge,
and thus add to the power and happiness of mankind. 
(  158  )
              ADDITIONAL  NOTE VII.

                 OLD AGE AND DEATH.

          The age-worn fibres goaded to contract,
          By repetition palsied, cease to act.
                                       Canto II. 1. 4.

                      I.  Effects of Age.

   The immediate cause of the infirmities of age, or of the pro-
 gress of life to death, has not yet been well ascertained.  The
 answer to the question, why animals become feeble and diseased
» after a time, though nourished with  the  same food which in-
, creased their growth from infancy, and afterwards  supported
 {hem for many years  in unimpaired health and strength, must
 be sought for from the laws of animal excitability, which, though
 at first increased, is afterwards diminished by frequent repeti-
 tions of its adapted stimulus, and at length ceases to obey it.
   1. There are four kinds of stimulus which  induce  the fibres
 to contract, which constitute the muscles or the organs of sense;
 as,  first,  The application of external bodies, which excites into
 action the sensorial power of irritation; 2dly, Pleasure and pain,
 which excite  into action the sensorial power of sensation; 3dly,
 Desire and aversion, which excite into action the  power of vo-
 lition ; and, lastly,  The fibrous contractions, which precede as-
 sociation, which is  another sensorial power.  See Zoonomia,
 Vol. I. Sect. II.  13.
   Many of the motions of the organic system which are neces-
 sary to life, are excited by more than one of these stimuli at the
 same time,  and some of them occasionally by them all.   Thus
 respiration  is generally caused by the stimulus of blood in the
 lungs, or by the  sensation of the  want of oxygen; but is also
 occasionally voluntary.  The actions of the heart also, though
 generally owing to the stimulus of the  blood, are  also inflamed
 by the association  of its motions  with those  of  the  stomach:
 whence sometimes arises  an inequality of the pulse, and with
 other parts of the system,  as with the capillaries:  whence heat 
                     Old Age and Death.                 159

 of the skin in fevers with a feeble pulse.  (See Zoonomia.) They
 are also occasionally influenced by sensation, as is seen in the
 paleness occasioned by fear, or the blush  of shame and anger:
 and, lastly, the motions of the heart are  sometimes assisted by
 volition: thus in those who are much weakened by fevers, the
 pulse is liable to stop during their  sleep,  and to induce great dis-
 tress ; which is owing at that time to the total suspension of vo-
 luntary power: the same occurs during sleep in some asthmatic
 patients.
  2. The debility of approaching age appears to be induced by
 the inactivity of many parts of the system, or their disobedience
 to their usual kinds and quantities of stimulus: thus the pallid
 appearance of the skin of old age is owing to  the inactivity of
 the heart, which ceases to obey the  irritation caused by the sti-
 mulus of the blood, or its association with other moving organs
 with its  former energy: whence  the capillary  arteries  are not
 sufficiently distended in their diastole, and consequently contract
 by their elasticity,  so as to close the canal, and  their sides gra-
 dually coalesce.  Of these, those  which are most distant from
 the heart, and  of the smallest diameters, will soonest close,  and
 become impervious: hence the hard pulse  of aged patients is
 occasioned by the  coalescence of the sides  of the vasa vasorum,
 or capillary arteries of the coats of the other arteries.
  The veins of elderly people  become turgid or distended with
 blood,  and stand prominent on the skin; for as these do not pos-
 sess the elasticity  of the arteries, they become distended with
 accumulation of blood; when the heart,  by its lessened excita-
 bility, does  not contract sufficiently forcibly, or frequently, to
 receive,  as fast as usual, the returning blood;  and their  appa-
 rent prominence on the skin is occasioned by the deficient secre-
 tion of fat or mucus in the cellular membrane ;  and also to the
 contraction and coalescence,  and consequent less bulk, of many
 capillary arteries.
  S. Not only the muscular fibres  lose their  degree of excitabi-
 lity from age, as in the above examples, and as may be observed
in the tremulous hands  and feeble step of  elderly persons ;  but
the organs of sense become less excitable by the stimulus of ex-
ternal objects:  whence the sight and hearing become defective.
The stimulus of the sensorial power of sensation  also less affects 
160                  Additional Notes.
the aged, who grieve less for the loss of friends or for other disap-
pointments.  It should, nevertheless, be observed, that when the
sensorial power of irritation is much exhausted, or its produc-
tion much diminished, the sensorial power of sensation  appears
for a time to be increased; as in intoxication there exists a kind
of delirium and quick flow of ideas, and yet the person becomes so
weak as to totter as he walks;  but this delirium is owing to the
defect of voluntary power to correct the streams of ideas by in-
tuitive analogy,  as in dreams. (See Zoonomia).  And thus also
those  who are enfeebled by habits of much  vinous potation,  or
even by age  alone, are liable to weep at  shaking hands with a
friend, whom they have  not  lately seen;  which is owing to de-
fect of voluntary power to correct their trains of ideas caused
by sensation, and not to the increased quantity of sensation, as
I formerly supposed.
  The same  want of voluntary power to keep the trains of sen-
sitive  ideas  consistent, and to  compare them  by intuitive an-
alogy  with the order of nature, is the occasion of the starting
at the clapping  to of a door, or the  fall of a key, which occa-
sions violent surprise, with fear,  and sometimes convulsions, in
very feeble hysterical patients, and  is not owing I believe  (as
I formerly supposed) to increased sensation; as they are less
sensible to small stimuli than when in health.
  Old people are less able also to perform the voluntary exer-
tions of exercise or of reasoning; and, lastly, the association of
their ideas becomes more imperfect,  as they are forgetful of the
names of persons and places; the associations of which are less
permanent than those of the other words of a language, which
are more frequently repeated.
  4. This disobedience of the fibres of age to their usual stimuli
has generally been ascribed to repetition or habit, as those who
live near a  large clock, or a mill, or a water-fall, soon cease
to attend to the perpetual noise of it in the day, and sleep dur-
ing the night undisturbed. Thus all medicines, if repeated too
frequently, gradually lose their effect, as wine and opium cease
to intoxicate. Some disagreeable tastes, as tobacco, by frequent
repetition cease to be disagreeable; grief and pain  gradually
diminish, and at length cease altogether; and hence life itself.
becomes tolerable. 
Old Age and Death.                 161
  This diminished power of contraction of  the  fibres of the
■muscles or organs of sense, which constitutes permanent de-
bility, or old age, may arise from a deficient secretion of senso-
rial power in the brain,  as well as from the disobedience of the
muscles and organs of sense to their usual stimuli; but this less
production of sensorial power must  depend on the inactivity of
the glands which compose the brain, and are  believed to sepa-
rate it perpetually from the blood;  and is thence  owing to  a
similar cause with the inaction of the  fibres of the other parts
of the system.
  It is, finally, easy to understand how the fibres may cease to
act by the usual quantity of stimulus,  after having been previ-
ously exposed to a greater quantity of stimulus, or to one too
long continued;  because die expenditure of sensorial power has
then been greater than its production : but it is not easy to ex-
plain why the repetition of fibrous contractions, which, during
the meridian of life, did not expend the sensorial power faster
than it was produced, or only in such  a degree as was daily re-
stored by rest and sleep, should at  length, in the advance of life,
expend too much of it; or otherwise,  that less of it should be
produced in the brain, or reside in the nerves ; lastly,  that the
fibres should become less excitable by the usual quantity of it.
  5. But these facts would seem to show,  that all parts of the
system are  not changed as we advance in life,  as some have
supposed; as in that case it might have preserved for ever its
excitability;  and it  might then, perhaps,  have been easier for
nature to have continued her animals and vegetables for ever in
their mature state, than perpetually by a complicate apparatus,
to have  produced new ones, and  suffer the old ones to perish.
For a further account of stimulus and the consequent animal ex-
ertion, see Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XII.

              II. Means of preventing old Age.

  The means of preventing the approach of age must, there-
fore, consist in  preventing the inexcitability of the fibres, or the
diminution of the production of sensorial power.
   1.  As  animal motion cannot be performed without the fluid
matter of heat, in which all things are immersed,  and without
                              x 
162
Additional Notes.
 a sufficient quantity of moisture to prevent  rigidity, nothing
 seems so well adapted to both these purposes as the use of the
 warm bath; and especially in those who become  thin  or  ema-
 ciated with age, and who have a hard and dry skin, with hard-
 ness of the coat of the arteries; which feels under the finger
 like a cord: the patient should sit in warm water for half an
 hour every day, or alternate days, or twice  a week; the  heat
 should be about ninety-eight degrees on Fahrenheit's scale,  or of
 such a warmth as may be most agreeable to his sensation  ; but
 on leaving  the bath he should always be kept so cool,  whether
 he goes into bed or continues up, as not sensibly to perspire.
   There is a popular prejudice, that the warm bath relaxes
 people, and that the cold bath braces  them; which are  me-
 chanical terms belonging to drums and  fiddle-strings, but not
 applicable, except  metaphorically, to animal bodies,  and  then
 commonly  mean weakness and strength.  During the continu-
 ance in the bath the patient does not lose weight, unless he goes
 in after a full meal, but generally weighs heavier, as the absorp-
 tion is greater than the perspiration; but if he suffers himself
 to sweat on his leaving the bath,  he will undoubtedly be  wea-
 kened by the increased action  of the system and its exhaustion:
 the same occurs to those who are heated by exercise, or by wine,
 or spice, but not during their continuance in the warm bath:
 whence we may conclude, that the warm bath is the most harm-
 less of all those stimuli, which  are greater than our natural ha-
 bits have accustomed us to; and that it particularly counteracts
 the approach of old age in emaciated people with dry skins.
  It may be here observed, in favour of bathing, that some fish
 are believed to continue to a  great age,  and continually to en-
 large in size as they advance in  life, and that long after their
 state of puberty.  I have seen perch full  of spawn which were
 less than two inches long, and it is known that they will grow to
 six or eight times that size.  It is said that the whales which have
 been caught of late years are much less in size than those which
were caught when first the whale-fishery was. established, as the
large  ones, which were supposed to have been some hundred
years old, are believed to be already destroyed.
  All cold-blooded amphibious  animals more slowly waste their
 sensorial power, as  they are accustomed to less stimulus from 
Old Age and Death.
163
their respiring less oxygen; and their movements in water are
slower than those of aerial animals, from the greater resistance
of the element.  There besides seems to be no obstacle to the
growth of aquatic animals, as by means of the air-bladder they
can make their specific gravity the same as that of the water in
which they swim : and the moisture of the element seems well
adapted to counteract the rigidity of their fibres;  and as their
exertions in locomotion, and the pressure of some parts on others,
are so much less thau in the bodies of land animaK
  2. But as all  excessive stimuli exhaust the sensorial power,
and render the system less excitable for a time, till the quantity
of sensorial power is restored by sleep,  or  by the diminution  or
absence of stimulus, which is seen by the weakness of inebriates
for a day at least after intoxication.  And as the frequent repe-
tition of this great and unnatural  stimulus of fermented liquors
produces a permanent debility,  or disobedience of the system to
the usual and natural kinds and quantities of stimulus, as occurs
in those who have long been addicted to the ingurgitation of fer-
mented liquors.
  And as, secondly, the too great deficiency of the quantity of
natural stimuli, as of food, and warmth, or of fresh air, pro-
duces also diseases; as is often seen in the children  of the poor
in large towns, who become scrofulous from want of due nourish-
ment, and from cold, damp, unairy lodgings.
  The great and principal means to prevent the approach of
old age and death must consist in the due management of the1
quantity of every kind of stimulus, but particularly of that from
objeots external to the moving organ; which may excite into
action too great or too small a quantity of the sensorial power of
irritation, which principally actuates die vital organs:  whence
the use of much wine, or opium, or spice, or of much salt,  by
their unnatural  stimulus induces consequent debility, and shor-
tens life, on the one hand, by the exhaustion of sensorial power;
so,  on the other hand, the want of heat, food, and fresh air,
induces debility from defect of stimulus,  and a consequent accu-
mulation of sensorial power, and a general  debility of the sys-
tem :   whence arise the  pains of cold and  hunger, and  those
which are called nervous, and which are the cause of hysteric,
tpileptic, and perhaps of asthmatic paroxysms, and of the cold
fits of fever. 
164
Additional Notes.
   3. Though all excesses of increase and decrease of stimulas
should be avoided, yet a certain variation of stimulus seems to
prolong the excitability of the system; as during any diminution
of the usual  quantity of stimulus an accumulation of sensorial
power is produced; and, in consequence the excitability, which
was lessened by the  action of habitual  stimulus,  becomes re-
stored.  Thus those who are uniformly habituated to much arti-
ficial heat, as in warm parlours in the winter months, lose their
irritability in some degree, and become feeble like hot-house
plants; but  by frequently going for  a time into the cold air, the
sensorial power of irritability is  accumulated,  and they become
Stronger.
   Whence it may be deduced,  that the variations of the cold
and heat of this climate contribute to strengthen its inhabitants,
who are more  active and vigorous, and live longer, than those
of either  much warmer or much colder latitudes.
   This accumulation of sensorial power from diminution of sti-
mulus any one may observe, who in severe weather may sit by
the lire-side till he is chill and uneasy with the sensation of cold;
but if he walks into the frosty air for a few minutes, an accu-
mulation  of  sensorial power is produced by diminution of the
stimulus of heat, and on his  returning into the room where he
was chill before, his whole skin will now glow with warmth.
   Hence  it may be concluded,  that the variations of the quan-
tity of  stimuli  within certain limits contribute to our  health;
and that those  houses which  are kept too uniformly warm are
less -#holesome than where the  inhabitants are occasionally ex-
posed to cold air in passing from one room to another.
   Nevertheless, to those weak habit6, with pale skins, and large
pupils of the eyes, whose degree of irritability is less than health
requires,  as in scrofulous, hysterical, and some consumptive
constitutions, a climate warmer than our own maybe of service,
as a greater stimulus of heat may be wanted to excite their less
irritability.   And also a more uniform quantity of heat may be
serviceable  to  consumptive patients than is  met with in this
country, as the lungs cannot be clothed  like the external skin,
and are therefore subject to greater extremes of heat and cold
in passing in winter from a warm room into the frosty air.
   4. It should  nevertheless be observed,  that  there is one kind 
Old Age and Death.
165
of stimulus which,  though it be employed in quantity beyond its
usual state, seems to increase the production of sensorial power
beyond the expenditure of it (unless its excess is great indeed),
and thence to  give permanent strength and energy to the sys-
tem ; I mean that of volition. This appears not only from the
temporary strength of angry or  insane people, but because in-
sanity even cures some diseases of debility, as  I  have seen in
dropsy, and in  some fevers;  but it is also observable, that many
who have exerted much voluntary effort during their whole
lives, have continued active to great age.  This, however, may
be conceived to arise  from  these great exertions being per-
formed principally by the organs of sense, that is, by exciting
and comparing ideas;  as in those who have invented sciences,
or have governed nations, and which did not, therefore, exhaust
the sensorial power of those organs which are necessary to life,
but,  perhaps,  rather prevented  them  from being  sooner  im-
paired, their sensorial power not having been so frequently ex-
hausted by great activity; for very violent exercise of the body,
long-continued, forwards old age, as is seen in post-horses  that
are cruelly treated, and in many of the poor, who with difficulty
support their families by incessant labour.


             III. Theory of the Approach of Age.

  The critical  reader is,  perhaps, by this time, become so far
interested in this subject as to excuse a more prolix elucidation
of it.
  In early life  the repetition of animal  actions occasions them
to be performed with greater facility, whether those repetitions
are produced by volition, sensatiop,  or irritation; because they
soon become associated together, if  as much sensorial power is
produced between  every reiteration of action as is expended
by it.
  But if a stimulus be repeated at uniform intervals of time, the
action, whether of our muscles or organs of sense, is performed
with still greater facility and energy;  because the sensorial
power of association mentioned above is combined with the  sen-
sorial power of irritation, and forms part of the diurnal chain 
166
Additional Notes.
 of animal motions; that is, in  common language, the acquired
 habit assists the power of the stimulus. See Zoonomia, Vol. I.
 Sect. XXII. 2. and Sect. XII.  3. 3.
   On this circumstance depends the easy motions of the fingers
 in performing music,  and of the feet and arms in dancing and
 fencing, and of the hands in the use  of tools in mechanic arts,
 as well as all the vital motions which  animate and nourish or-
 ganic bodies.
   On the contrary, many animal motions, by perpetual repeti-
 tion, are performed with less energy;  as those who live near a
 water-fall, or a smith's forge, after a time,  cease to hear them.
 And in those infectious diseases which are attended with fever,
 as the small-pox and  measles,  violent motions of  the system
 are excited, which at  length cease, and  cannot again be pro-
 duced by application of the same stimulating material;  as when
 those are inoculated for the small-pox who have before under-
 gone that malady. Hence the repetition which occasions animal
 actions for a time to be performed with greater energy occasions
 them at length to become feeble, or to cease entirely.
   To explain this difficult problem we must more minutely con-
 sider the catenations of animal motions, as described in Zoono-
 mia, Vol. I. Sect. XVII.  The vital motions,  as suppose of the
 heart and arterial system, commence from the irritation occa-
 sioned by the stimulus of the blood,  and then have this irrita-
 tion assisted by the power  of association; at the same time an
 agreeable sensation is produced by the due actions of the fibres,
 as in the secretions of the glands, which constitutes the  pleasure
 of existence.   This agreeable sensation is intermixed  between
 every link of this diurnal chain of actions,  and contributes to
 produce  it by what is  termed  animal causation.  But there is
 also a degree of the power of volition excited in consequence of
 this vital pleasure, which is also intermixed between the links
 of the  chain of fibrous actions; and thus also contributes to its
 uniform, easy  and perpetual production.
   The effects of surprise and novelty must now be considered by
the patient reader as they affect the catenations of action ; and,
 I hope,  the curiosity of the subject will excuse the prolixity of
this account of it. When any violent stimulus breaks the passing
 current or catenation of our ideas, surprise is produced,  which is 
                    Old Age and Death.                167

accompanied with pain or pleasure,  and consequent volition to
examine the object of it,  as explained in Zoonomia,  Vol. I.
Sect. XVIII. 17. and which  never affects us in  sleep.  In our
waking hours, whenever an  idea of imagination occurs which
is incongruous to our former experience,  we feci another kind
of surprise, and instantly dissever the train of imagination by
the power of volition, and compare  the incongruous idea with
our previous knowledge of nature,  and reject it by an act of
reasoning,  of which we are unconscious,  termed in Zoonomia,
« Intuitive  Analogy," Vol. I. Sect. XVII. 7.
  The novelty of any idea  may be considered as  affecting  us
with another kind of surprise or incongruity, as it differs from
the usual train of our ideas,  and forms a new link  in  this per-
petual chain;  which, as it thus differs from the ordinary course
of nature,  we  instantly examine by the voluntary efforts of in-
tuitive analogy; or by reasoning, which we attend to;  and com-
pare it with the usual appearances of nature.
  Those ideas which affect  us with surprise, or incongruity,  or
novelty,  are attended with painful  or pleasurable  sensation;
which we mentioned before  as intermixing with  all catenations
of  animal actions, and contributing to  strengthen their perpe-
tual and energetic production; and  also exciting,  in some de-
gree, the power of volition, which also intermixes with the links
of the chain of animal actions, and contributes to produce it.
  Now,  by frequent repetition, the surprise, incongruity, or no-
velty ceases;  and, in consequence, the pleasure or pain which
accompanied  it, and also the degree of volition  which was ex-
cited by that sensation of pain or pleasure; and thus the senso-
rial power of sensation and of volition are subducted from the
catenation of vital actions, and they are in consequence produced
much weaker, and at length cease entirely.  Whence we learn
why contagious matters induce their effects on  the circulation
but once ;  and why, in process of time, the vital movements are
performed with less energy, and at length cease: whence the
debilities of age, and consequent death. 
(  168  )
            ADDITIONAL NOTE VIII.

                    REPRODUCTION.

         But Reproduction with ethereal fires
         New life rekindles, ere the first expires.
                                    Canto II. 1. 14.

   I. The reproduction or generation of living organized bodies
 is the great criterion or characteristic which distinguishes ani-
 mation from  mechanism.  Fluids  may circulate in hydraulic
 machines, or simply move in them, as mercury in the barometer
 or thermometer; but the power of producing an embryon which
 shall gradually acquire  similitude  to its parent, distinguishes
 artificial from natural organization.
   The reproduction of plants and animals appears to be of two
 kinds, solitary and sexual: the former  occurs in the formation
. of the buds of trees, and the bulbs of tulips; which for several
 successions generate other buds, and other bulbs, nearly similar
 to the parent, but constantly approaching to greater perfection,
 so as finally to produce sexual organs, or flowers, and consequent
 seeds.
   The same occurs in some inferior kinds of animals; as the
 aphides in the spring and summer  are  viviparous for eight or
 nine generations, which successively produce living descendants
 without sexual intercourse, and are themselves, I suppose, with-
 out sex; at length in the  autumn they propagate males and fe-
 males, which copulate and lay eggs, which lie dormant during
 the winter, and are hatched by the vernal sun; while the truffle,
 and perhaps mushrooms amongst vegetables, and the polypus
 and taenia amongst insects, perpetually propagate themselves by
 solitary reproduction,  and have not yet acquired male and fe-
 male organs.
   Philosophers have thought these  viviparous aphides,  and the
 taenia  and volvox, to  be  females;  and  have supposed them to
 have been  impregnated long before their  nativity within each
 other; so the taenia and  volvox still continue to produce their
 offspring  without sexual intercourse.  One extremity of  the 
                         Reproduction.                    169

 taenia is said by Linnxus to grow old, whilst at the other end
 new ones are generated, proceeding  to infinity like the roots of
 grass.   The volvox globator is transparent,  and carries within
 itself children and grand-children to the fifth generation, like the
 aphides; so that the taenia produces children and grand-children
 longitudinally in a chain-like series, and the  volvox propagates
 an offspring included within itself to the fifth  generation.  Syst.
 Nat.
   Many microscopic animals,  and some larger ones,  as the hy-
 dra or polypus, are propagated by splitting or dividing; and some
 still larger animals, as oysters, and perhaps eels, have*not yet
 acquired sexual organs,  but produce a paternal progeny, which
 requires no mother  to supply it with a nidus,  or with nutriment
 and oxygenation;  and, therefore, very accurately resemble the
 production of the buds of trees,  and the wires of some herba-
 ceous plants, as of knot-grass and of strawberries, and the bulbs
 of other  plants, as  of onions  and potatoes;  which  is further
 treated of in Phytologia,  Sect. VII.
   The  manner in which I suspect the solitary reproduction of
 the buds of trees  to be effected, may also be applied to the soli-
 tary generation of the insects mentioned above,  and probably
 of many others, perhaps  of all the microscopic ones.   It should
 be previously observed,  that many  insects are hermaphrodite,
 possessing both male and female organs of reproduction, as
 shell-snails and dew-worms; but that these are seen reciprocally
 to copulate with each other, and are believed not to  be able to
 impregnate themselves;  which belongs, therefore,  to sexual
 generation, and not to the solitary reproduction of which I am
 now speaking.
   As in the chemical production of  any new combination of
 matter, two  kinds of particles appear to be necessary ;  one of
 which must possess the power of attraction,  and the other the
 aptitude  to be attracted, as a magnet and a piece of iron; so in
 vegetable or animal combinations, whether for the purpose of
nutrition or for reproduction, there must exist also two kinds of
organic matter; one possessing the appetency  to unite, and the
other the propensity to be united.  (See Zoonomia, octavo edi-
tion, Sect. XXXIX. 8.) Hence in the generation of the buds of
trees, there are probably two kinds of glands, which acquire 
170
Additional Notes.
from  the vegetable blood,  and deposit beneath the cuticle of
the tree two kinds of formative organic matter, which unite and
form parts of the new vegetable embryon; which again uniting
with other  such organizations, form the caudex, or the plumula,
or the radicle, of a new vegetable bud.
  A similar mode of reproduction by the  secretion of two kinds
of organic particles from  the blood, and by  depositing them
either internally, as in the  vernal and summer aphis or volvox,
or externally, as in the polypus and taenia, probably obtains in
those animals;  which are thence propagated by the father only,
not requiring  a cradle, or nutriment, or oxygenation from a
mother; and that the five generations,  said to be seen in  the
transparent volvox globator within each other,  are perhaps  the
successive  progeny  to be delivered at different periods of time
from the father, and erroneously supposed to be mothers impreg-
nated before their nativity.
  II.  Sexual as  well as solitary reproduction appears to be ef-
fected by two kinds  of glands;  one of which collects or  secretes
from  the blood formative organic particles with appetencies to
unite, and  the other formative organic particles with propensi-
ties to be united.  These probably undergo some change by a
kind of digestion in their respective glands; but could not other-
wise unite  previously in the mass of blood from its perpetual
motion.
  The first mode of sexual reproduction seems to have  been by
the formation of males into hermaphrodites ; that is, when  the
numerous formative glands, which existed in the caudex of  the
bud of a tree,  or on the surface of a polypus, became so united
as to form but two glands; which might then be called male and
female organs.   But they still collect and secrete their  adapted
particles from the same mass of blood, as in snails and dew-
worms,  but do not seem to  be so  placed as to produce  an em-
bryon by the mixture of their secreted fluids, but to  require  the
mutual assistance of two hermaphrodites for that purpose.
  From this view of the subject it would appear that vegetables
and animals were at first propagated by solitary generation, and
afterwards  by hermaphrodite sexual generation;  because most
vegetables  possess at this day both male and  female organs in
the same flower, which Linnaeus has thence well called herma- 
Reproduction.
171
 phrodite flowers; and that this hermaphrodite  mode of repro-
 duction still exists in many insects, as in snails and worms;  and,
 finally, because  all  the male quadrupeds,  as well as men,  pos-
 sess at this day some remains of the female apparatus, as the
 breasts with nipples, whicli still at their nativity are said to be
 replete with a kind of milk, and the nipples swell on titillation.
   Afterwards the sexes seem to have been  formed in vegetables
 as in flowers, in addition  to the power of solitary reproduction
 by buds.  So in animals the aphis is propagated both by solitary
 reproduction as in spring, or by sexual generation as in autumn;
 then the vegetable sexes began to exist in separate plants, as in
 the classes  monoecia and dioecia, or both  of them in the same
 plant also, as in the class polygamia; but the larger and more
 perfect animals are now propagated by sexual reproduction only,
 which seems to  have been the chef-d'oeuvre, or capital work of
 nature; as  appears by the wonderful transformations of leaf-
 eating caterpillers into honey-eating moths and butterflies, ap-
 parently for the sole purpose of the formation of sexual organs,
 as in the silk-worm, which takes no food after  its transforma-
 tion, but propagates its species and dies.


                     III.  Recapitulation.

   The microscopic productions of spontaneous vitality, and the
 next most inferior kinds of vegetables and animals, propagate
 by solitary generation only;  as the buds and bulbs raised imme-
 diately from  seeds, the lycoperdon  tuber, with  probably many
 other fungi,  and the polypus, volvox, and taenia.  Those of the
 next order propagate both by solitary and sexual reproduction,
 as those buds and bulbs which produce flowers  as well as other
 buds or bulbs; and the aphis,  and probably many other insects.
 Whence it appears, that many of those vegetables and animals
 which  are produced bv solitary generation, gradually become
 more perfect, and at length produce a sexual  progeny.
   A third order of organic nature consists of hermaphrodite ve-
getables and animals, as  in those flowers  which have anthers
and stigmas  in the same corol; and in many insects, as leeches,
Bnails,  and worms; and perhaps all those reptiles which have 
172
Additional Notes.
 no bones,  according to the observation of M. Poupart, who
 thinks that the number of hermaphrodite animals exceeds that
 of those which are  divided into sexes.   (Mem. de I'Acad. des
 Sciences.)  These hermaphrodite insects I suspect to be inca-
 pable of impregnating themselves, for reasons mentioned in Zoo-
 nomia, Sect. XXXIX. 6. 2.
   And, lastly, the most perfect orders  of animals are propa-
 gated by sexual intercourse only; which, however, does not ex*
 tend to vegetables, as all those raised from seed  produce some
 generations of buds or bulbs previous to their producing flowers,
 as occurs not only in trees but also in annual plants. Thus three
 or four joints of wheat grow upon each other before that  which
 produces a flower ; which joints are all separate plants growing
 over each other, like the buds  of trees,  previous to the upper-
 most;  though this happens  in a few months  in annual plants,
 which requires as many years in the successive buds  of trees;
 as is further explained in Phytologia, Sect. IX,  3.1.


                      IV.  Conclusion,

   Where climate  is favourable, and salubrious food  plentiful,
 there is reason to  believe that the races of animals perpetually
 improve by reproduction.  The smallest microscopic animals
 become larger ones  in a short time,  probably by successive re-
productions, as is so distinctly seen in  the buds of seedling apple-
 trees, and  in  the bulbs of tulips raised from seed; both which
die annually, and leave behind them one or many, which are
more perfect than themselves,  till they produce a sexual pro-
geny, or flowers.   To which may be added, the rapid improve-
ment of our domesticated dogs,  horses, rabbits, pigeons, which
improve in size, or in swiftness, or in the sagacity of the  sense
 of smell, or in colour,  or other properties, by sexual reproduc-
 tion.
   The great Linnaeus having perceived the changes produced in
 the vegetable  world by sexual reproduction, has supposed that
not more than  about sixty plants were at first created,  and that
 all the others  have been formed by their solitary or sexual re-
 productions; and adds, Suadent hasc Creatoris leges a  simplicU 
Reproduction.
173
bus ad composita.   (Gen. Plant, preface to the natural orders,
and Amenit. Acad. VI. 279.)  This mode of reasoning may be
extended to the most simple productions of spontaneous vitality.
  There is one curious circumstance of animal life analogous in
some degree to this wonderful power of reproduction ;  which is
seen in the propagation of some contagious diseases.   Thus one
grain of variolous matter, inserted by inoculation, shall in about
seven days stimulate the system into unnatural action; which in
about seven days more produces ten thousand times the quantity
of a similar material thrown out on the skin in pustules!
  The mystery of reproduction, which alone  distinguishes or-
ganic life from mechanic or chemic action, is yet wrapt in dark-
ness.   During the decomposition of organic bodies, where there
exists  a due degree of warmth with moisture,  new microscopic
animals of the most minute kind are produced;  and these possess
the wonderful power  of  reproduction,  or of producing animals
similar to  themselves in their general structure, but with fre-
quent  additional  improvements; which  the preceding parent
might, in some measure, have acquired by his habits of life or
accidental situation.
   But it may appear too bold in the present state of our know-
ledge on this subject,  to  suppose that all vegetables and animals
now existing were originally derived from the smallest microsco-
pic ones, formed by spontaneous vitality; and that they have, by
innumerable reproductions, during innumerable centuries of time,
gradually acquired the size, strength,  and excellence of form
and faculties  which they now possess; and that such  amazing
powers were  originally impressed on  matter  and spirit by the
great Parent of Parents, Cause of Causes, Ens Entium! 
(  174  )
             ADDITIONAL  NOTE  IX.

                         STORGE.

       And heaven-born Storge weaves the social chain.
                                    Canto II. 1. 92.

   The Greek word Storge is used for the affection of parents
to children; which was also visibly represented by the Stork or
Pelican feeding her young with blood taken  from her own
wounded bosom.  A number of Pelicans form a semicircle in
shallow parts of the sea near the coast, standing on their long
legs; and thus including a shoal of small fish,  they  gradually
approach the shore; and seizing the fish as  they advance,  re-
ceive them into a pouch under their throats;  and bringing them
to land, regurgitate them for the use of their young, or for their
future support. (Adanson, Voyage to Senegal.)  In this country
the parent Pigeons, both male and female, swallow the grain or
other seeds, which they collect for their young,  and bring it up
mixed with a kind of miik from their stomachs, with their bills
inserted into the mouths of the young doves. J. Hunter's Works.
   The affection of the parent to the young, in experienced mo-
thers, may be in part owing to their having been relieved by them
from the  burden of their milk;  but it is difficult to understand
how this affection commences in  those mothers of the bestial
world, who have not experienced this relief from the sucking of
their offspring;  and still more so to understand how female
birds were at first induced to incubate  their  eggs for many
weeks;  and,  lastly, how caterpillars, as of the silk-worm, are
induced to cover themselves with a well-woven house of silk
before their transformation.
  These as well as many other animal facts,  which are difficult
to account for, have been referred to  an inexplicable instinct;
which is supposed to preclude any further investigation: but as
animals seem to have undergone great  changes, as well as the
inanimate parts of the earth,  and are probably still in a state of
gradual improvement, it is not unreasonable to conclude that
some of these actions, both of large animals and of insects, may 
Storge.                       175
have been acquired in a state preceding  their present one, and
have been derived from the parents to their offspring  by imita-
tion, or other kind of tradition:  thus the eggs of the  crocodile
are at this day hatched by the warmth'of the sun in Egypt; and
the eggs of innumerable insects, and the spawn of fish, and of
frogs, in this climate are hatched by the vernal warmth.  This
might be the case of birds  in warm climates, in their early state
of existence; and experience might have taught them to incubate
their  eggs, as they became more  perfect animals, or removed
themselves into  colder climates: thus  the ostrich is  said to sit
upon its eggs only in the night in warm situations, and both day
and night in colder ones.
  This love of the mother in  quadrupeds to the offspring, whom
she licks and cleans, is so allied to the pleasure  of the taste or
palate,  that nature seems to have had a great escape  in the pa-
rent quadruped not devouring her offspring.  Bitches, and cats,
and sows, eat the placenta;  and if a dead offspring occurs, I am
told, that also is sometimes eaten,  and yet the living offspring is
spared; and by that nice  distinction the progenies of  those ani-
mals are saved from destruction!
  " Certior  factus sum a viro rebus antiquissimis docto, quod
" legitur in Berosi operibus homines ante diluvium  mulicrum
" pucrperarum  placentam edidisse, quasi cibum delicatum  in
u epulis luxuriosis; et quod hoc nefandissimo crimine movebatur
" Deus diluvio submergere terrarum incolas."  Anon.
  It may be finally concluded, that this affection from the parent
to the progeny existed before animals were divided into  sexes,
and produced the beginning of sympathetic society, the source
of which may perhaps be thus well accounted for: whenever the
glandular system is stimulated into greater natural action within
certain limits, an addition of pleasure  is produced  along with
the increased secretion.   This pleasure,  arising from the acti-
vity of the system,  is  supposed to constitute the happiness  of
existence,  in contradistinction  to the ennui or tacdium vitae; as
shown in Zoonomia,  Sect. XXXIII. 1.
  Hence the secretion of nutritious juices, occasioned by the sti-
mulus of an embryon or egg in the womb, gives pleasure to the
parent  for a length of time: whence by association a similar
pleasure may be occasioned to the parent by seeing mid touching 
176
Additional Notes,
the egg or fetus after its birth; and in lactescent animals an ad-
ditional pleasure is produced  by the new secretion of milk, as
well as by its emission into the sucking lips of the infant.  This
appears to be one of the great secrets of Nature, one of those
fine, almost invisible cords, which  have bound  one  animal to
another.
  The females of lactiferous animals have thus a passion or in-
let of pleasure in their systems more than the males, from their
power of giving suck to their offspring: the want of the object
of this passion, either  owing to the death of the progeny, or
to the unnatural fashion of their situation in life, not only deprives
them of this innocent and virtuous source of pleasure, but has
occasioned diseases which have been fatal to many of them.



             ADDITIONAL  NOTE  X.

              EVE FROM ADAM'S RIB.

         Form'd a new  sex, the Mother of Mankind.
                                   Canto II. 1. 140.

  The Mosaic history  of Paradise, and of Adam and Eve, has
been thought by some to be a sacred  allegory, designed to teach
obedience to divine commands, and to account for the origin of
evil, like Jotham's  fable of the trees, (Judges ix. 8.) or Na-
than's fable of the poor man and his lamb, (2 Sam. xii.  1.) or
like the parables in  the  New Testament; as otherwise know-
ledge could not be said to grow upon one tree, and life upon an-
other, or a serpent to  converse: and, lastly, that this account
originated with  the magi or philosophers of Egypt,  with  whom
Moses was educated; and that this part of the history, where
Eve is said to have been made from a rib of Adam,  might have
been an hieroglyphic design of the Egyptian philosophers, show-
ing their opinion  that  mankind  was originally  of both sexes
united, and was afterwards divided into males and females: an
opinion in later times held by Plato, and I believe by Aristotle,
and which must have arisen from profound inquiries into the
original state of animal existence. 
(  1^7  )
              ADDITIONAL NOTE XI.

                 HEREDITARY DISEASES.

          The feeble births acquired diseases chase,
          Till Death extinguish the degenerate race.
                                    Canto II. 1. 165.

   As all the families both of plants and animals appear in a
 state of perpetual improvement  or degeneracy,  it becomes a
 subject of  importance to detect the causes of these mutations.
   The insects which are not propagated by sexual intercourse
 are so few or so small, that no observations have been made on
 their diseases;  but hereditary  diseases are believed more to
 affect the  offspring of solitary than of sexual generation in re-
 spect to vegetables; as those fruit-trees which have  for more
 than a century been propagated only by ingrafting, and not from
 seeds, have been observed by Mr. Knight to be at this time so
 liable to canker, as not to be worth cultivation.  From the same
 cause I suspect  the degeneracy of some potatoes  and of some
 strawberries to have arisen; where the curled leaf has appeared
 in the former, and barren flowers in the latter.
   This may arise from the progeny by solitary reproduction so
 much more exactly resembling  the parent,  as is well seen in
 grafted trees compared with seedling ones ; the fruit of the for-
 mer always resembling that  of  the parent tree,  but not so pf
 the latter.   The  grafted scion also accords with the branch of
the tree from whence it was  taken, in the time of its bearing
 fruit; for if a scion be taken from a bearing branch of a pear or
 apple tree, I believe it will produce fruit even the next year, or
 that succeeding; that  is, in the  same time that k would have
produced fruit, if it had continued growing on the  parent tree;
but if the parent pear or apple tree has been cut down or headed,
and scions are then taken from the young shoots of the stem, and
ingrafted, I believe those grafted trees will continue to grow for
ten or  twelve years  before they  bear fruit, almost as long as
seedling trees ; that is,  they will require as much time as those
new  shoote from  the lopped  trunk would require, before they
                             z 
178                  Additional Notes.
produce fruit.  It should thence be inquired, when grafted fruit-
trees are purchased, whether the scions were taken from bear-
ing branches, or from the young shoots of a lopped trunk ; as the
latter, I  believe, are generally  sold, as they appear stronger
plants.  This greater similitude of the progeny to the parent in
solitary reproduction must certainly  make them  more liable to
hereditary diseases, if such have been  acquired  by the  parent
from unfriendly climate or bad nourishment, or accidental injury.
   In respect to the  sexual progeny of vegetables it has long been
thought, that a change of seed or of situation is, in process of time,
necessary to prevent their degeneracy; but it is now believed,
that it is only changing for seed of a superior quality that will
better the product.   At the same time it may be probably useful
occasionally to  intermix seeds from different situations together;
as the anther-dust  is liable to pass from one plant to another in
its vicinity ; and by these means the new seeds or plants may be
amended,  like the  marriages of animals into different families.
   As the sexual progeny of vegetables are thus less liable to here-
ditary diseases than the solitary progenies, so it is reasonable to
conclude, that the  sexual progenies of animals may be less liable
to hereditary diseases, if the marriages are into different fami-
lies, than if into the same family.  This has long been supposed
to be true by those  who breed animals for sale; since if the male
and female be of different temperaments,  as these are extremes
of the animal system, they may counteract each other; and cer-
tainly where both  parents are of families which are afflicted
with the same hereditary disease, it is more likely to descend to
their posterity.
   The hereditary  diseases of this country have many of them
been the consequence of drinking much fermented or spirituous
liquor ; as the  gout always, most kinds of dropsy, and, I believe,
epilepsy and insanity.   But another material, which is liable to
produce diseases in its immoderate use, I believe to be common
salt; the sea-scurvy is evidently caused by it in long voyages;
and I suspect the scrofula and consumption to arise in the young
progeny from the debility of the lymphatic and venous  absorp-
tion produced  in the parent by this innutritious fossile  stimu-
lus. The petechiae  and vibices in the sea-scurvy,  and occasional
haemorrhages evince the defect of venous absorption ;  the occa- 
         Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.   179

 sional hacmoptoe at the commencement of pulmonary consump-
 tion seems also to arise  from defect of venous  absorption ; and
 the scrofula,  which arises from the inactivity of the lymphatic
 absorbent system, frequently exists along with pulmonary as well
 as with mesenteric consumption.   A tendency to these diseases
 is certainly hereditary, though perhaps not the diseases them-
 selves:  thus a less quantity of ale, cyder, wine, or spirit, will
 induce the gout and dropsy in those constitutions whose parents
 have been  intemperate  in  the use of those liquors;  as I have
 more than once had occasion to observe.
   Finally, the art to improve the sexual progeny of either vege-
 tables or animals  must consist in choosing the  most perfect of
 both sexes; that is, the most beautiful in respect to the body,
 and the most  ingenious in respect  to the mind; but where one
 sex is  given, whether male or female, to improve a progeny
 from that person may consist in choosing a partner of a contrary
 temperament.
   As many families become gradually extinct by hereditary dis-
 eases, as by scrofula,  consumption, epilepsy, mania, it is often
 hazardous to marry an heiress, as she is  not unfrequently the
 last of a diseased family.




             ADDITIONAL  NOTE  XII.

     CHEMICAL THEORY OF ELECTRICITY AND
                      MAGNETISM.

         Then mark how two electric streams conspire
         To form the resinous and vitreous fire.
                                     C.VNTOIII. 1.21,

               I.  Of Attraction and Repulsion,

   The motions which accomplish the combinations and decom-
positions of bodies  depend on the peculiar attractions and repul-
sions of the particles of those bodies, or of the sides and angles
of them; while the motions of the sun and planets, of the air 
180
Additional Notes,
and ocean, and of all bodies approaching to a general centre, or
retreating from it, depend on the general attraction or repulsion
of those  masses  of matter.   The  peculiar attractions above
mentioned are termed chemical affinities, and the  general at-
traction  is termed gravitation; but the peculiar  repulsions  of
the particles of bodies, or  the general repulsion of  the masses
of matter, have obtained no specific names, nor have been suf-
ficiently considered, though they appear to be as powerful agents
as the attractions.
  The motions of ethereal fluids, as of magnetism and electri-
city,  are yet imperfectly understood, and  seem to depend  both
on chemical affinity and on gravitation;  and also on the pecu-
liar repulsions of  the particles of bodies, and on the general re-
pulsion of the masses of matter.
  In what manner attraction and repulsion are produced has not
yet been attempted to be explained by modern philosophers; but
as nothing can act  where it does not  exist, all distant attrac-
tion of the particles of bodies, as well as  general gravitation,
must  be ascribed to some still  finer ethereal fluid;  which fills
up all space between the suns  and their planets,  as well as the
interstices of coherent matter.  Repulsion, in the  same man-
ner, must consist of some  finer ethereal  fluid; which at first
projected the planets from the sun, and I suppose prevents their
return to it; and which occasionally volatilizes or decomposes
solid bodies into fluid or aerial  ones, and perhaps  into ethereal
ones.
  May not the ethereal matter which constitutes repulsion be
the same as the  matter of,heat in its  diffused state;  which,  in
its quiescent state, is combined with various bodies,  as appears
from  many chemical explosions, in which  so much  heat is set
at liberty ?  The ethereal  matter which constitutes  attraction
we are less acquainted with; but it may abo  exist  combined
with bodies, as well as in its diffused state; since the specific
gravities of some metallic mixtures are said not to accord  with
what  ought to result from the combination of their specific  gra-
vities, which existed before their  mixture; but their absolute
gravities  have not been attended to sufficiently; as  these have
always been  supposed to depend  on their quantity of matter,
and situation in respect to the centre of the earth. 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    181

  The ethereal  fluids, which constitute peculiar repulsions and
attractions, appear to gravitate round the particles of bodies
mixed together, as those which constitute  the  general repul-
sion or attraction appear to gravitate round the greater masses
of matter mixed together; but that which constitutes attraction
seems to exist in a denser state next to the particles or masses
of matter; and  that which constitutes  repulsion to exist more
powerfully in a sphere further from them: whence many bodies
attract at one distance and repel at another.  This may be ob-
served by approaching to each  other two electric atmospheres
round insulated cork-balls; or by pressing globules of mercury,
which roll on the surface, till they unite with it; or by pressing
the drops of water, which stand on a cabbage leaf, till they unite
■with it, and hence light is reflected from the surface of a mirror
without touching it.
  Thus the peculiar attractions and repulsions of the  particles
of bodies, and the  general ones of the  masses of  matter, per-
petually oppose and counteract each other; whence, if the power
of attraction should cease to act, all matter would be dissipated
by the power of repulsion into boundless space; and if heat, or
the power of repulsion, should cease to act, the whole world
would become one solid mass, condensed into a point.


                II. Preliminary Propositions.

  The following propositions concerning Electricity and Gal-
vanism will either be proved  by direct  experiments, or will be
rendered probable  by their tending to  explain or  connect the
variety of electric facts to which they will be applied.
  1. There are  two kinds of electric ether, which exist either
separately or  in combination.   That which is accumulated on
the surface of smooth  glass,  when it is  rubbed with a  cushion,
is here termed vitreous ether;  and that which  is  accumulated
on the surface of resin or sealing-wax, when it is rubbed with a
cushion,  is here termed resinous ether; and a combination of
them, as in their usual  state,  may be termed  neutral electric
ethers.
  2. Atmospheres of vitreous or of resinous or of  neutral elec- 
182
Additional Notes.
tricity surround all separate bodies,  are attracted by them,  and
permeate those which are called conductors, as metallic  and
aqueous and carbonic ones; but will not permeate those which
are termed non-conductors, as air, glass, silk, resin, sulphur.
   3. The particles of vitreous electric ether strongly repel each
other as they surround other  bodies, but strongly attract  the
particles of resinous electric ether.  In similar manner the par-
ticles of the resinous ether powerfully repel each other, and as
powerfully attract those of the vitreous ether.  Hence in their
separate state  they appear to occupy much greater space, as
they gravitate round insulated bodies,  and are then only cogni-
zable by our senses or experiments.  They rush violently toge-
ther through conducting substances, and  then probably possess
much less space in this their combined state.  They thus resem-
ble oxygen  gas and nitrous gas, which rush  violently together
when in contact, and occupy less space when united than either
of them possessed separately before their union. When the  two
electric ethers thus unite,  a chemical explosion occurs, like an
ignited  train of gun-powder; as they give  out light and heat,
and rend or fuse the bodies they occupy; which cannot be ac-
counted for on the mechanical theory of Dr. Franklin.
  4. Glass holds within it in combination much resinous electric
ether, which constitutes a part of it,  and which more forcibly
attracts vitreous electric ether from surrounding bodies, which
stands on it mixed with a less proportion of resinous ether like
an atmosphere,  but cannot unite with the resinous ether, which
is combined with the glass; and resin, on the contrary,  holds
within it in combination  much vitreous electric ether, which
constitutes a part of it, and which more forcibly attracts resin-
ous electric ether from surrounding bodies,  which stands on it
mixed with a less proportion of vitreous ether like an atmos-
phere, but cannot unite with the vitreous ether which is  com-
bined with the resin.
  As in the production of vitrification, those materials are ne-
cessary which  contain much oxygen,  as minium and  manga-
nese ; there is probably much oxygen combined with glass, which
may thence be esteemed a solid acid, as water may be esteemed
a fluid one.  It is hence not improbable, that one kind of electric
ether may also be combined with it, as it seems to affect  the 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism,    18o

oxygen  of water in the Galvanic experiments.  The combina-
tion of the other kind of electric ether with wax or sulphur, is
countenanced from those bodies, when heated or melted, being
said to part with much electricity as they cool, and as it  appears
to affect the hydrogen in the decomposition of .water by Galva-
ni'.m.
  5.  Hence the non-conductors of  electricity are of two kinds;
such as are combined with vitreous ether, as resin and sulphur,
ar.d such as are combined with resinous ether, as glass,  air, silk.
But both these kinds of non-conductors are impervious  to either
of the electric ethers; as those ethers being already combined
with other bodies,  will not unite with each other, or be  removed
from their situations by each other.  Whereas the perfect con-
ducting bodies, as  metals, water, charcoal, though surrounded
with electric atmospheres,  as they have neither of the electric
ethers combined with  them, suffer them to permeate  and pass
thnnigh them, whether separately or in their  neutral state of
reciprocal combination.
  But it is probable that imperfect conductors may possess more
or less of either the vitreous or resinous ether combined with
them, since their  natural atmospheres  are dissimilar,  as men-
tioned below;  and that this makes them more or less imperfect
conductors.
  6. Those bodies which are  perfect conductors have proba-
bly neutral electric atmospheres gravitating round them, consist-
ing of an equal or  saturated mixture of  the two electric ethers;
whereas the atmospheres round the non-conducting bodies pro-
bably consist of an unequal  mixture of the electric ethers, as
move of the vitreous one round glass, and more  of the  resinous
one round resin;  and, it is probable, that these mixed atmos-
pheres, which surround imperfect conducting  bodies, consist
also of different proportions of  the vitreous and resinous ethers,
according to their  being more or less perfect conductors.  These
minute  degrees of the difference of these electric atmospheres
are evinced by Mr. Bonnet's Doubler of Electricity, as shown
in his work, and arc termed by him Adhesive Electric Atmos-
pheres, to distinguish them from those accumulated by art; thus
the natural adhesive electricity of  silver  is more of  the vitreous
kind  compared widi  that of zinc, which consists of a greater 
184
Additional Notes.
 proportion of the resinous;  that  is, in  his language, silver is
 positive and zinc negative.  This experiment I have successfully
 repeated with Mr. Bennet's Doubler along with Mr. Swanwick.
   7. Great accumulation or  condensation of the separate elec-
 tric ethers attract each other so strongly, that they will break
 a passage through non-conducting bodies as through a plate of
 glass, or of air, and will rend bodies which are less perfect con-
 ductors, and give out light and heat like  the explosion of a train
 of gun-powder: whence, when a strong electric shock is passed
 through a quire of paper, a bur, or elevation of the sheets, is
 seen on both sides of  it, occasioned by the explosion.   Whence
 trees and stone walls are burst by lightning, and wires are fused,
 and inflammable bodies burnt, by the heat given out along with
 the flash of light, which cannot be explained by the  mechanic
 theory.
  8. When artificial or natural accumulations of these separate
 ethers are very minute in quantity or intensity, they pass slowly
 and with  difficulty from one body to another, and require  the
 best conductors for this purpose:  whence many of the pheno-
 mena  of the torpedo or gymnotus, and  of Galvanism.  Thus,
 after having discharged a coated jar, if the communicating wire
 has been quickly withdrawn,  a second small shock may be taken
 after the  principal discharge, and this repeatedly two or three
 times.
  Hence the charge of the Galvanic pile being very minute in
quantity or intensity,  will not readily pass through the dry cuti-
cle of the hands, though it so easily passes through animal flesh
or nerves,  as this  combination of charcoal with water seems to
constitute the most perfect conductor yet known.
  9. As light is reflected from the surface of a mirror before it
actually touches it, and as drops of water  are repelled from cab-
bage leaves without touching them, and as oil lies on water with-
out touching it, and also as a fine needle may be made to lie on
water without touching it, as shown by Mr. Melville, in the Li-
terary Essays of Edinburgh, there  is reason to believe, that the
vitreous and resinous electric ethers are repelled by, or will not
pass through,  the surfaces of glass or resin to which they are
 applied.  But though neither of these electric  ethers passes
through the surfaces of glass or resin, yet their attractive or  re- 
        Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.   185

 pulsive powers pass through  them, as the attractive or repul-
 sive power of the magnet to iron passes through the atmosphere,
 and all oiuer bodies which exist between them:  So an insulated
 cork-ball, when electrir-ed either with vitreous or resinous ether
 repels another insulated cork-ball electrised with the same kind
 of ether, through half an inch of common air,  though  these
 electric atmospheres do not unite.
   Whence it may be concluded, that the general attractive and
 repulsive ethers accompany the electric ethers as well  as they
 accompany all other bodies;  and that the electric ethers do not
 themselves attract or repel through glass or resin, as they can-
 not pass through them, but strongly attract each other  when
 they come into contact, rush together, and produce an explosion
 of the sudden liberation of heat and light.


                III. Effect of Metallic Points.

   1.  When a pointed wire is presented by a person standing on
 the ground to an insulated conductor, on which either vitreous or
 resinous electricity is  accumulated, the accumulated electricity
 will pass off at a much greater distance than if a metallic knob
 be fixed on the wire, and presented in its stead.
   2.  The same occurs if the metallic point be  fixed on the elec-
 trised conductor, and the finger of a  person standing on the
 ground be presented to it, the accumulated electricity will pass
 off at a much greater distance,  and indeed will soon discharge
 itself  by communicating  the accumulated electricity  to the
 atmosphere.
 ■ 3.  If a metallic point be fixed on the prime conductor, and
 the flame of a candle  be presented to it, on electrising the con-
 ductor, either with vitreous or resinous ether, the flame of die
 candle is blown from the point, which must be owing to the elec-
 tric fluid in its passage from the point carrying along with it a
 stream of atmospheric air.
  The manner in which the accumulated electricity so  readily
passes off by a metallic point may be thus understood; when
a metallic point stands erect from an electrised metallic plane,
 tut accumulated electricity which exists on  die extremity of the
                             '.'A 
186
Additional Notes.
point is attracted less than that on the other parts of the elec-
trised surface.   For the particle of electric matter immediately
over the point is attracted by that point only; whereas the par-
ticles of electric matter over every other part of the electrised
plane are not only attracted by the parts of the plane immediately
under them, but also laterally by the circumjacent parts of it:
whence the accumulated electric fluid is pushed off at this point
by that over the other parts being more strongly attracted to the
plane.
  Thus if a light insulated horizontal fly be constructed of wire
with points fixed as tangents to the circle,  it will revolve the
way contrary to the direction of the points as long as it continues
to be electrised.  For the same reason as when a circle of cork,
with  a point of the cork standing from it  like a tangent,  is
smeared with oil,  and thrown upon a lake,  it will continue  to
revolve backwards, in  respect to the direction of the point, till
all the oil is dispersed  upon  the lake, as first observed by Dr.
Franklin ;  for the  oil being attracted to all the other parts of the
cork-circle more  than  towards the pointed tangent, that part
over the point is pushed off and diffuses itself on the water, over
which it passes without touching, and consequently without fric-
tion ; and thus the cork revolves in the contrary direction.
  As the flame of a candle  is blown  from a point fixed on an
electrised conductor, whether vitreous or  resinous electricity is
accumulated on it, it shows that in both cases electricity passes
from the point, which  is a forcible argument against the me-
chanical theory of positive  and negative electricity;  because
then  the flame should be blown towards the point in one case,
and from it in the other.
  So the electric fly, as it turns horizontally, recedes from the
direction of the points of the tangents, whether it be electrised
with vitreous or resinous electricity; whereas if it was supposed
to receive electricity, when electrised by resin, and to part with
it when electrised by glass, it  ought to revolve different ways;
which also forcibly opposes the theory of positive and negative
electricity.
  As an electrised point with either kind of  electricity causes a
stream of air to pass from it in the direction of the point,  it
seems to affect the air much in the same manner as the fluid 
        Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    187

matter of heat affects it; that is, it will not readily pass through
it, but will  adhere to the particles of. air, and is thus  carried
away with them.
  From  this it will also appear, that points do not attract elec-
tricity, properly speaking, but suffer it to depart from them; as
it is there less attracted to the body which it surrounds than by
any other part of the surface.                       •
  And as a  point presented to an electrised conductor facilitates
the discharge of it, and blows the flame of a candle towards the
ronductov,  whether vitreous  or resinous electricity be accumu-
lated upon it, it follows, that in both cases some electric matter
passes from the point to the  conductor,  and that hence there
are two electric ethers; and that they combine or explode when
they meet  together, and  give out light and heat, and occupy
less space in this their combined state, like the union of nitrous
gas with oxygen gas.


       IV.  Accumulation of Electric Ethers by Contact.

  The electric ethers  may be separately accumulated by con-
tact of conductors  with non-conductors, by vicinity  of the two
ethers, by heat, and by decomposition.
  Glass  is believed to consist in part of consolidated resinous
ether,  and  thence  to attract  an electric atmosphere round it,
which  consists of a greater proportion of vitreous ether com-
pared to the quantity of the resinous, as mentioned in Proposi-
tion No. 4.   This atmosphere may stand off a line frpm the sur-
face of the  glass, though its attractive or repulsive power may
extend to a  much  greater distance; and a more  equally mixed
electric atmosphere may stand off about thd same distance from
the surface of a cushion.
  Now when a cushion is forcibly  pressed upon the surface of a
glass cylinder or plane, tiie atmosphere of the cushion is forced
within  that  of the glass, and consequently the vitreous  part of
it is brought within the sphere of  the attraction of the resinous
ether combined with the glass, and therefore becomes attracted
bv it in addition to the vitreous  part of the spontaneous atmos-
phere  of the glass; and the resinous part of the  atmosphere of 
188
Additional Notes.
the cushion  is at the same time  repelled by its vicinity to the
combined resinous  ether.of the glass.  From troth which cir-
cumstances a vitreous ether alone surrounds the part of the glass
on which the cushion is forcibly pressed; which does not, ne-
vertheless, resemble an electrised coated jar; as this accumu-
lation of vitreous ether on one side of the glass is not so vio-
lently condensed, or  so  forcibly  attracted to the glass by the
loose resinous ether on  the other side of it, as occurs in the
charged coated jar.
  Hence as weak differences of the kinds or quantities of elec-
tricity do not very rapidly  change place, if the cushion be sud-
denly withdrawn, with or  without friction,  I suppose an accu-
mulation of vitreous electric ether will be left on the surface of
the glass, which will diffuse itself on an insulated conductor by
the  assistance of points, or will  gradually be dissipated in the
air,  probably like odours by the repulsion of its own particles,
or may be conducted away by the surrounding air as it is repel-
led from it, or by the moisture or other impurities of the atmos-
phere.   And hence I do not suppose the friction of the glass-
globe to be necessary,  except  for the purpose of more easily re-
moving the parts of the surface from the pressure of the cushion
to the points of the prime conductor, and to bring them more
easily into reciprocal contact.
   When sealing-wax or sulphur is rubbed by a cushion, exactly
the  same circumstance  occurs, but with the different ethers;
as  the  resinous ether of  the  spontaneous  atmosphere of the
cushion, when it is pressed within the spontaneous atmosphere
of the  sealing-wax,  is  attracted by the solid vitreous ether,
which is combined with it; and,  at the same time,  the vitreous
ether of the cushion is repelled by it; and hence an atmosphere
of resinous  ether alone exists  between the sealing-wax and the
cushion thus pressed together.  It is nevertheless possible, that
friction on both sealing-wax and glass may add some facility to
the accumulations of their  opposite ethers by the warmth which
it occasions; as most electric machines succeed best after be-
ing warmed,  I think, even in dry frosty seasons.
   Though when a cushion  is applied to a smooth-surfaced glass,
 so as to intermix their electric atmospheres, the vitreous ether
 of the cushion is attracted by the resinous ether combined with 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    189

the glass; but does not intermix with it,  but only adheres to it:
and as the glass  turns round, the vitreous electric atmosphere
stands on the solid resinous electric ether combined with the
glass, and is taken away by the metallic  points of the prime
conductor.
  Yet if  the surface of the glass be roughened by scratching it
with a diamond or with hard sand, a new  event occurs ; which
is, that the  vitreous  ether  attracted from the cushion  by the
resinous ether, combined with the glass,  becomes adhesive to  it,
and stands upon the roughened glass, and will not quit the glass
to go to the  prime conductor: whence the  surface  of the glass
having a vitreous electric atmosphere united, as it were, to  its
inequalities, becomes similar to resin, and  will now attract re-
sin'His electric ether,  like a stick of sealing-wax, without com-
bining with  it.  Whence this curious and otherwise unintelligible
phenomenon,  that smooth-surfaced glass will give vitreous elec-
tric ether to an insulated conduct r, and  glass with a roughened
surface will give  resinous ether to it.


       V. Accumulation of Electric Ethers by Vicinity.

   Though the contact of a cushion on the  whirling glass is the
easiest method  yet in use for the  accumulation  of the vitreous
electric ether on an  insulated conductor,  yet there are other
methods of  effecting  this, as by the vicinity of the two electric
ethers with a non-conductor between them.
   Thus  I believe a great quantity of both  vitreous  and resinous
electric  ether may be  accumulated in the following manner.
Let a glass  jar be coated within in the usual manner, but let it
have a loose external coating, which can easily be withdrawn by
an insulating handle;  then charge the jar, as highly as it may be,
by throwing into  it vitreous electric ether;  and in this state her-
metically seal it,  if practicable, otherwise close it with a glass
stopple and wax. When the external coating is drawn off by an
insulating handle, having previously had a communication with
the  earth, it  will possess an accumulation of resinous electric
ether; and  then touching it with your finger, a spark  will  be
seen, and there will cease to be any accumulated ether. 
190                  Additional Notes*
  Thus by alternately replacing this loose coating,  and with-
drawing it from the sealed charged jar, by means of an insu-
lating handle,  and by applying it to one insulated  conductor
when it is in the vicinity of the jar, and to  another insulated
conductor when it is withdrawn, vitreous electric ether may be
accumulated  on one of them,  and resinous on the other; and
thus I suspect an immense quantity of both ethers may be pro-
duced without friction or much labour, if a large electric battery
was so contrived; and that it might be applied to many mecha-
nical purposes where other explosions are now used, as in the
place of steam-engines, or to rend rocks, or timber,  or destroy
invading armies!
  The principle of this mode of accumulating the two electric
ethers in some measure resembles that of Volta's Electrophorus
and Bennet's Doubler.
VI. Accumulation of Electric Ethers by Heat and by Decom-
                         position.

  When  glass or amber is heated by the fire in a dry season, I
suspect that it becomes in some degree electric; as either of the
electric ethers which is combined with them may have its com-
bination  with those materials  loosened  by the application of
heat;  and that on this account they may more forcibly attract
the opposite one from the air in their vicinity.
  It has long been known, that a siliceous stone called the tour-
malin, when its surfaces are polished, if it be laid.down before
the fire, will become electrified with vitreous,  or what is called
positive electricity, on its upper surface; and resinous, or what
is called negative electricity, on its under surface; which I sup-
pose lay in contact with somewhat which supported it near the
fire.
  In this experiment I suppose the tourmalin to be  naturally
combined with resinous electric ether, like  glass; which on one
side next towards the fire, by the increase of its attractive power,
owing  to the heat having loosened its combination with the earth
of the  stone, more strongly attracts vitreous electric ether from
the atmosphere;  which now stands on its surface:  and then, as 
        Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    191

 the lower surface of the stone lies in contact  with the hearth,
 the less quantity of vitreous ether is there repelled by the greater
 quantity of it on the upper surface; while the  resinous ether
 is attracted by  it;  and the stone is thus charged  like a coated
jar with vitreous electric ether condensed on one side of it,  and
 resinous on the other.
   So cats, as they lie by the fire in a frosty day, become so elec-
 tric as frequently to give a perceptible spark to  one's finger from
 their ears without friction.
   A  fourth method of separating the two ethers would seem to
 be by the decomposition of metallic bodies, as in the experiment
 with Volta's Galvanic pile;  which is said by Mr. Davy to act so
 much more powerfully when an acid is added to the water used
 in the experiment; as will be spoken of below.
   From experiments made by M. Saussure on  the electricity of
 evaporated water from hot metallic  vessels, and  from those of
 china and glass, he found when the vessel was calcined or made
 rusty by  the evaporating water, that the  electricity of it  was
 positive (or vitreous), and  that from china or glass was  nega-
 tive (or resinous), (Enc. Brit. Art. Electricity, No. 206,) which
 seems also to show, that vitreous electric ether was given out or
 produced by the corrosion of metals, and resinous ether from
 the evaporation of water.


  VII. The Spark from the Conductor,  and of  Electric Light.

   When either  the  vitreous or resinous electric ether is  accu-
mulated on an insulated conductor, and an uninsulated conductor,
 as the finger of an attendant, is  applied nearly in contact with
it, what happens?  The attractive and repulsive powers of the
 accumulated electric ether pass through the non-conducting plate
of air;  and if it be of the vitreous kind, it attracts the resinous
clctric ether of the finger  towards it,  and repels  the vitreous
electric ether of the finger from it.
   Hence there exists for an instant a charged plate of air be-
tween the finger and the prints conductor, with  an accumulation
of vitreous ether on one side of it, and of resinous ether on  the
other side of it; and, lastiy, these two kinds of electric ethers sod- 
192
Additional Notes,
 denly unite by their powerful attraction of each other, explode,
 and give out heat and light, and rupture the plate of non-con-
 ducting air which separated them.
   The rupture or disjunction of the plate of  air is known by the
 sound of the spark, as of thunder;  which shows that a vacuum
 of air was previously produced by  the explosion of the electric
 fluids, and a vibration of the air in consequence of the sudden
 joining again of the sides of the vacuum.
   The light which attends electric sparks and shocks is not ac-
 counted for by the Theory of Dr. Franklin.   I suspect that it is
 owing to the combination of the two electric ethers, frcm which,
 as from all chemical explosions, both light and heat are set at li-
 berty, and because a smell is said to be perceptible from electric
 sparks, and even a taste which must be deduced from new com-
 binations, or decompositions, as in other explosions:  add to this
 that the same thing occurs, when electric shocks are passed
 through  eggs in the dark, or through water,  a luminous line is
 seen like the explosion of a train of gun-powder. Lastly, whether
 light is really produced in the passage of the Galvanic electri-
 city through the eyes, or that the sensation alone of light is per-
 ceived by its stimulating the optic  nerve, has not yet been in-
 vestigated;  but I suspect the former, as it emits  light from its
 explosion even in passing through  eggs and through water, as
 mentioned above.

  VIII.  The Shock from the coated Jar, and of Electric
                       Condensation,

  1. When a glass jar is coated on both sides,  and either  vitre-
ous or resinous  electricity  is thrown upon  the coating on one
side, and there is a communication to the earth from the  other
side, the same thing happens as in the plate of air between the
finger and prime conductor above described; that is,  the accu-
mulated electricity, if  it be of the vitreous kind, on one coat-
ing of the glass jar will attract the resinous part of the electri-
city, which surrounds or penetrates the coating on the other side
of the jar, and also repel the vitreous part of it; but this occurs
on a much more extensive surface  than in  the instance of the
plate of air between the finger and prime conductor. 
        Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    193

   The difference between electric sparks and shocks consists in
this circumstance, that in the former  the insulating medium,
whether of air or of thin glass, is ruptured in one part, and
thus a communication is made between the  vitreous and resinous
ethers,  and they unite immediately, like globules of quicksilver,
when pressed forcibly together: but in the electric  shock a com-
munication  is made by some conducting  body  applied to the
other extremities of the  vitreous and of  the  resinous atmos-
pheres, through which they pass and unite,  whether both sides
of the coated jar are insulated or only one side of it.
   And  in this line,  as  they reciprocally meet,  they appear to
explode and give out light and heat, and a new combination of
the two ethers is produced,  as a residuum after the explosion,
which probably occupies much less space than either the vitre-
ous or resinous ethers did separately before.  At the same time
there may be another unrestrainable ethereal fluid yet unob-
served,  given out from this explosion, which rends oak trees,
bursts  stone walls,  lights inflammable  substances,  and  fuses
metals,  or dissipates them in a calciform smoke, along with
which great light and much heat are emitted;  or these effects
are  produced by the heat and light only thus set  at liberty by
their synchronous and sudden evolution.
   2. The curious circumstance of electric condensation appears
from the violence of the shock  of the  coated jar,  comp.ived
with the strongest spark  from an insulated  conductor, though
the latter possesses a much greater surface: when vitreous elec-
tric ether is thrown on one side of a  coated  jar, it attracts the
resinous-electric ether of the other side of the coated jar;  and
the same occurs,  when  resinous ether is thrown on one side of
it, it attracts the vitreous ether of the other side of it, and thus
the vitreous  electric ether on one side of the jar,  and the re-
sinous ether on the other side of it, become condensed, that is,
accumulated in  less  space,  by their reciprocal  attraction of
each other.
   This  condensation of the two electric ethers  owing  to their
reciprocal attraction, appears fivm another curious event, that
the thinner  the glass jar is, the stronger will the charge be on
the same quantity of surface,  as then  the two ethers approach-
ing nearer without their intermixing, attract each other stronger, 
194
Additional Notes.
and, consequently, condense each other more.  And when the
glass jar is very thin, the reciprocal attractive powers of the
vitreous and resinous ether attract each other so violently  as at
length to pass  through  the glass by rupturing it, in the same
manner  as a less forcible  attraction of them  ruptures  and
passes through  the plate of air in the production of sparks from
the prime conductor.
  As these two ethers on each side of a charged coated jar so
powerfully attract each other, when a communication is made
between them by some conducting substance, as in the common
mode of discharging an electrised coated jar, they recipro-
cally pass to  each other for the purpose of combining, as some
chemical fluids  are known to  do; as when nitrous gas and oxy-
gen gas are  mixed together; whence as these fluids pass both
ways to intermix with each other, and then explode, a bur ap-
pears  on each  side of a quire of paper well pressed together,
when a  strong electric shock is passed through it;  which is
occasioned by Weir explosion, like a train  of gun-powder, and
consequent emission of some other ethereal fluid, either those
of heat and light, or of some new one not yet observed.  Whence
it becomes difficult to explain,  according  to the theory of Dr.
Franklin, which way the electric fluid  passed, and which side
of  the coated jar contained  positive, and  which the negative
charge, according to that doctrine.
  But the theory of the ingenious Dr.  Franklin  failed also in
explaining other phenomena of the coated jar; since if the
positive electricity accumulated on one side of the jar repelled
the electricity from the coating on the other side of it, so as to
produce an electric vacuum,  why should it be so eager, when
a communication is made by  some conducting body, to run into
that vacuum by  its attraction or gravitation, which has  been
made by its repulsion; as thus it seems to be violently attracted
by  the  vacuum from which  it had previously repelled  a fluid
similar to itself, which is not easily to be comprehended ?
  3. There is another mode by  which either vitreous or resin-
ous electric ether is capable of condensation; which consists in
contracting the volume, so as  to diminish the surface of the
electrised body;  as  was ingeniously  shown by Dr. Franklin's
experiment of electrising a silver tankard with a length of chain 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    195

rolled up within it, and then drawing up the chain by a  silk
string, which weakened the electric attraction of the tankard;
which was strengthened again by returning the chain into it:
thus the condensation of an electrised cloud is believed to con-
dense the  electric ether which it contains, and thus to occasion
the lightning passing from one cloud to another,  or from a
cloud into the earth.
  This experiment of the chain and tankard is said to succeed
as well with what is termed negative electricity in the theory of
Dr. Franklin, as with what is termed positive  electricity; but
in that theory the negative electricity means a less quantity or
total deprivation or vacuity of that fluid:  now to condense nega-
tive electricity by lowering the suspended chain into the tank-
ard, ought to make it less negative; whereas, in this experi-
ment I am told it becomes more so, as appears by its stronger
repulsion  of cork balls suspended on silk strings, and previously
electrised by rubbed sealing-wax:  and if the negative electri-
city be believed  to be a perfect vacuum of it, the  condensation
of a vacuum of electricity  is totally incomprehensible; and this
experiment alone seems to demonstrate the existence of  two
electric ethers.

                IX.  Of Galvanic Electricity.

  1. The conductors of electricity, as well as the non-conduc-
tors of it, have probably a portion of the vitreous  and resinous
ethers combined with them,  and have also another portion of
these ethers diffused round them, which forms their natural or
spontaneous  adhesive atmospheres, and which exists in different
proportions  round them,  correspondent  in quantity to those
which are combined with them, but opposite in kind.
  These  adhesive spontaneous atmospheres of electricity are
6hown to  consist of different proportions  or quantities of the
electric ethers, by Mr. Bennet's Doubler of Electricity, as men-
tioned in his work called New Experiments on Electricity.  In
this work, p. 91, the blade of a steel knife was evidently, in his
language, positive, compared to a soft  iron wire, which  was
comparatively negative;  so  the adhesive electricity of gold,
silver, copper, brass, bismuth, mercury, and various kinds of 
196
Additional Notes,
wood and stone, were what he terms positive or vitreous; and
that of tin and zinc,  what he terms negative or resinous.
  Where these spontaneous atmospheres of diffused electricity
surrounding two conducting bodies, as two pieces of silver, are
perfectly similar, they probably do not intermix when brought
into the vicinity of each other;  but if these spontaneous atmos-
pheres of diffused electricity are different in respect to the pro-
portion of the two ethers, or perhaps in respect to their quan-
tity, in however small degree either of these  circumstances
exists, they may be made to unite, but with some difficulty;  as
the two metallic plates (suppose one of silver, and another of
zinc)  which they surround,  must  be brought into absolute  or
adhesive contact; or otherwise these atmospheres maybe forced
together so as to be  much flattened, and compress each other
where they meet,  like  small globules of quicksilver  when
pressed together,  but without uniting.
  This curious phenomenon may be seen in more dense electric
atmospheres accumulated by art,  as in the following experi-
ment, ascribed to Mr. Canton.  Lay a wooden skewer, the size
of a goose-quill, across a dry wine-glass, and another across an-
other wine-glass; let the ends of them touch each other, as they
lie in a horizontal line; call them X and Y;  approach a rubbed
glass-tube near the  external end of  the skewer X, but not  so
as to touch it; then separate the two skewers by removing the
wine-glasses further from each other; and,  lastly,  withdraw
the rubbed  glass-tube, and the skewer  X will now be found to
possess resinous electricity, which has been generally called ne-
gative or minus electricity; and the skewer Y will be found to
possess vitreous, or  what is  generally termed positive or plus
electricity.
  The same phenomenon will occur if rubbed sealing-wax  be
applied near to,  but not in contact  with the skewer X, as the
skewer X will then be left with an atmosphere of vitreous ether,
and the skewer Y with one  of resinous ether.  These experi-
ments also  evince the existence of  two electric fluids, as they
cannot be understood from an idea of one being a greater or less
quantity of the same material; as a vacuum of electric ether,
brought near to one  end of the skewer,  cannot be  conceived so
to attract the ether as to produce a vacuum at the other end. 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    197

  In this experiment the electric atmospheres, which are nearly
of similar kinds, do not seem to touch, as there may  remain a
thin plate of air between them, in the same manner as small
globules of mercury may be pressed together so as to  compress
each other, long before they intermix ; or as plates of lead or
brass require strongly to be pressed together  before they ac-
quire the attraction of cohesion ; that is, before they come into
real contact.
  2. It is probable, that all bodies are more or less perfect con-
ductors, as  they have less or more of either of the electric
ethers combined with them;  as mentioned in Preliminary Pro-
position No. VI. as they may  then less  resist  the passage of
either of the ethers through them.  Whence some conducting
bodies  admit the junction of these  spontaneous electric atmos-
pheres,  in which the proportions or quantities of the two  ethers
arc not very different,  with greater facility than others.
   Thus in the common experiments, where the vitreous  or re-
sinous ether is  accumulated by art, metallic bodies have been
esteemed the best conductors, and next to these water, and all
other moist bodies; but  it was lately discovered that  dry char-
coal, recently burnt, was a more perfect conductor than metals;
and it appears  from the experiments discovered by Galvani,
which have thence the name of Galvanism, that animal flesh,
and particularly perhaps the nerves of animals,  both which are
composed of much carbon and water, are the most perfect con-
ductors yet discovered; that is,  that they give the least  resist-
ance to the junction of the  spontaneous  electric atmospheres,
whicli exist round metallic bodies, and which differ very little
in respect to the proportions of their vitreous and resinous in-
gredients.
   Thus also, though where the accumulated  electricities are
dense, as in charging a coated glass jar, the glass which inter-
venes may be of considerable  thickness,  and may still become
charged by  the stronger attraction of the  secondary electric
ethers; but where the spontaneous adhesive electric atmospheres
iire employed to charge  plates of air, as in the Galvanic pile,
or  probably to  charge  thin animal membranes or cuticles, as
perhaps in the shock given by the torpedo or gymnotus, it seems
necessary that the intervening non-conducting plate must  be ex- 
198
Additional Notes.
tremely thin, that it may become charged by the weaker attrac-
tion of these small quantities or difference of the spontaneous
electric atmospheres; and in this circumstance only,  I suppose,
the shocks from  the Galvanic pile, and from the torpedo and
gymnotus, differ  from those of the coated jar.
   3. WThen atmospheres of electricity, which do not differ much
in the quantity or proportion of their  vitreous and  resinous
ethers,  approach each  other,  they are not easily or rapidly
united; but the predominant vitreous or resinous ether of one
of them repels the similar ether of the opposed atmosphere, and
attracts the contrary kind of ether.
   The slowness  or difficulty with  which atmospheres, which
differ but little in kind or in density, unite with each  other, apr
pears not only from the experiment of  Mr. Canton above re-
lated, but also from the repeated smaller shocks, which may be
taken from a charged coated jar after the first or principal dis-
charge, if the conducting medium has not been quickly removed,
as is also  mentioned above.
  Hence  those  atmospheres of either kind  of electric matter,
which differ but very little from each other in kind or quantity,
require the most perfect conductors to cause them to unite.
Thus it appears by Mr. Bennet's Doubler, as mentioned in the
Preliminary  Proposition  No. VI.  that  the natural adhesive
atmosphere round silver contains more vitreous electricity than
that naturally round zinc; but when thin  plates of these metals,
each about an ounce in  weight,  are laid on each other, or mo-
derately pressed together, their atmospheres do not unite.  For
metallic plates, which when laid on each other do not adhere,
cannot be  said to be in real contact,  of which their not adhering
is a proof; and in  consequence a thin plate of air, or of their
own repulsive ethers, exists between them.
  Hence  when  two plates of zinc and  silver are thus brought
into  the  vicinity  of each other,  the plate of air between them,
as they are not in adhesive contact, becomes like  a charged
coated jar; and if these two metallic plates are touched by your
dry hands, they  do not unite  their  electricities, as the dry
cuticle is  not a sufficiently good conductor; but  if one of the
metals be  put above, and  another under  the tongue,  the saliva
and  moist mucous membrane, muscular  fibres,  and nerves,, 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.     199

supply so good a conductor, that this very  minute electric shock
is produced, and a kind of pungent taste is perceived.
   When a plate or pencil of silver is put between the upper lip
and the  gum, and a plate or pencil of zinc under the tongue, a
sensation of light is perceived in the eyes as often as the exterior
extremities of these  metals  are brought into contact; which  is
owing in like manner to the  discharge of a very minute electric
shock, which would not have been produced but by the interven-
tion of such good conductors  as moist membranes, muscular
fibres, and nerves.
   In this situation a sensation of light is produced in the eyes,
which seems to show, that these ethers  pass through nerves
more easily than through muscular flesh simply ; since the pas-
sage of them through the retina of the eyes from the upper gum
to the parts beneath the tongue is a more distant one than would
otherwise appear necessary.   It is not so easy to give the sensa-
tion of light in the eyes, by passing a small shock of  artificially
accumulated electricity through the eyes (thougli this may, I be-
lieve, be done), because this artificial accumulated electricity, as
it passes with greater  velocity than the spontaneous accumula-
tions of it, will readily permeate the muscles or other moist parts
of animal  bodies ; whereas  the  spontaneous  accumulations of
electricity seem  to require the best of all conductors, as animal
nerves,  to facilitate their passage.
  4. In the Galvanic pile of  Volta, this electric shock becomes
so much increased, as to pass by less perfect conductors, and to
give shocks to the arms of the conducting person, if  the cuticle
of his hands be  moistened, and even to show sparks iike  the
coated jar; which appears to be effected in  this manner:  When
a plate of silver is laid horizontally on a plate of zinc, the plate
of air between them  becomes charged like a coated jar ; as the
silver, naturally possessing more vitreous electric ether, repels
the vitreous ether which the  zinc possesses in less quantity, and
attracts the resinous ether of the zinc. Whence the inferior sur-
face of  the plate of  zinc  abounds now with vitreous ether, and
its upper surface witii resinous ether. Beneath this pair of plates
lay a cloth  moistened with water, or with some better conduc-
tor,  as salt and water, or a slight acid mixed with water, or vo-
latile alkali of ammoniac mixed with water,  and this vitreous 
200
Additional Notes,
 electric ether on the lower surface of the zinc plate will be given
 to the second silver plate which lies beneath it;  and thus  this
 second silver plate will possess not only its own natural vitreous
 atmosphere, which was denser, or in greater quantity, than that
 of the zinc plate next  beneath it, but now acquires an addition
 of vitreous ether from the zinc  plate above it, conducted to it
 through the moist cloth.
   This then will repel more vitreous ether from the second zinc
 plate into the third silver one ; and so on till the plates of air
 between the  zincs  and silvers are all charged, and each stronger
 and stronger as they descend in the pile.
  If the reader still prefers the Franklinian theory  of positive
 and negative electricity, he will please to put the  word positive
 for vitreous,  and negative for resinous,  and he  will find  the
 theory of the Galvanic pile equally thus accounted for.
  When a Galvanic pile is thus  placed,  and a  communication
 between the two ends of it is made by wires, so that the electric
 shocks pass through  water, the water  becomes decomposed in
 some measure,  and  oxygen is liberated from it at the point of
 one wire, and  hydrogen  at the  point  of the  other; and this
 though a syphon of water be interposed between them.  This cu-
 rious circumstance seems to evince the existence of two electric
 ethers,  which enter the  water at different ends of the syphon,
 and have chemical affinities to the  component parts  of it;  the
 resinous ether sets at liberty the hydrogen at one end, and the
 vitreous ether the oxygen at the  other  end of the conducting
 medium.                                 .
  Hence it must appear, that the longer the Galvanic pile, or
 the greater the number of the alternate pieces of silver and zinc
 that it consists of, the stronger will  be the Galvanic shock ; but
 there is another circumstance difficult to explain, which is the
 perpetual decomposition of water by the Galvanic pile,  when
 water is made the conducting medium between the two extremi-
 ties of the pile.
  As no conductors of electricity are absolutely perfect, there
 must be produced a certain accumulation  of vitreous ether on
 one side of each charged plate of the Galvanic pile, and of re-
 sinous ether on the other side of it,  before the discharge  takes
place, even though the conducting medium be in apparent con- 
       Chemical Thc>ry of Electricity and Mignetism.    201

tact.  When the discharge does take p! ice, the whole of the ac-
cumulated electricity  explodes and vanishes; and then  an in-
stant of time is required for the silver  and zinc again to attract
from the air, or other bodies in their vicinity,  their spontaneous
natural atmospheres, and then another discharge ensues ; and so
repeatedly and perpetually till the surface of one of the metallic
plates becomes so  much oxydated or calcined, that it ceases to
act.
   Hence a perpetual  motion may be said to be produced, with
an incessant decomposition of  water into the two gasses of oxy-
gen and hydrogen; which must probably be constantly proceed-
ing on all moist surfaces, where a chain of electric conductors
exists, surrounded with different proportions of the two electric
ethers.  Whence the ceaseless liberation of oxygen from the wa-
ter has oxydated or calcined the ores of metals near the surface
of the earth, as of manganese, of zinc into lapis calaminaris, of
iron into various ochres, and other calciform ores.  From this
source also  the corrosion of some metals may be traced,  when
they are immersed in water in the vicinity of each other, as when
the copper  sheathing of ships was held on by iron nails.  And
hence another great operation of nature is probably produced;  I
mean the restoration of oxygen to the atmosphere from the sur-
face of the earth in dewy mornings,  as well as from the perspi-
ration of vegetable leaves; which atmospheric oxygen is hourly
destructible by the respiration of animals and plants, by combus-
tion, and by other oxydations.
   6. The combination of the electric ethers with metallic bodies
before mentioned,  appears from the Galvanic pile; since, ac-
cording to the experiments of Mr. Davy, when an acid is mixed
with the water placed between the alternate pairs of silver and
zinc plates, a much greater electric shock is produced  by  the
bame pile; and an anonymous writer in the Phi.os. Mag. No. 36,
for Ma\, 1801,  asserts,  that when the  intervening cloths or pa-
pers are moistened with pure alkali, as a solution of pure ammo-
nia, the  effect is greater than by any  odier material.   It must
here be observed, that both the acid and the aikaiine solution, or
common salt and water,  and even water alone, in these experi-
ments, much erodes the plates of zinc, and somewhat tarnishes
those of siih er.  Whence it  would appear, that as by the  re- 
202
Additional Notes,
peated explosions of the two electric ethers in the conducting
water  both oxygen and  hydrogen are liberated, the oxygen
erodes the zinc plates, and thus increases the Galvanic shock by
liberating their combined electric ethers ;  and that this erosion
is much increased by a mixture, either  of  acid or of volatile al-
kali with the water.  Further experiments are wanting on this
subject, to show whether metallic bodies emit either or both of
the electric ethers at the time of their solution or erosion in acids
or in alkalies.


               X.  Of the two Magnetic Ethers.

  1. Magnetism coincides with electricity in so many important
points, that the existence of two magnetic ethers, as well  as of
two electric ones, becomes highly probable.  We shall suppose
that in a common bar of iron or steel, the two magnetic ethers
exist intermixed or in their neutral state; which for the greater
ease of speaking of them may be called arctic ether and  ant-
arctic ether ; and in this state,  like the two electric fluids,  they
are not cognizable by our senses or experiments.
  When these  two magnetic ethers are separated from  each
other,  and the  arctic  ether is accumulated on one  end of an
iron or steel bar,  which is then called the north-pole of the
magnet, and the antarctic ether is accumulated on the other end
of the bar, and is then termed the south-pole of the magnet;
they become capable of attracting other pieces of iron or steel,
and are thus cognizable by experiments.
  It seems probable,  that it is not the magnetic ether itself
which  attracts or repels particles of iron, but that an attrac-
tive and repulsive  ether attends  the magnetic  ethers, as  was
shown to attend the electric ones in No. II. 9. of this Note; he-
cause magnetism does not pass through other bodies, as it  does
not escape from magnetised steel when in contact with other
bodies; just as the electric fluids do not pass through glass; but
the attractive and repellent ethers, which attend both the mag-
netic and electric ethers, pass through all bodies.
  2. The prominent articles of analogical coincidence between
magnetism  and electricity are,  first, that  when one end of an 
        Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism,    203

 iron bar possesses an accumulation of arctic magnetic ether, or
 northern polarity, the other end possesses an accumulation of
 antarctic magnetic ether, or southern polarity;  in the same
 manner as when vitreous electric  ether is accumulated  on one
 side of a coated glass jar, resinous  electric ether becomes accu-
 mulated on the other side  of it;  as the vitreous  and resinous
 ethers strongly attract each other,  and strongly repel the ethers
 of the same denomination, but are prevented from intermixing
 by the glass  plane between them;  so the  arctic and antarctic
 ethers attract each other, and repel those of similar denomina-
 tion, but  are prevented from intermixing by the  iron or steel
being a bad conductor of them;  they will,  nevertheless,  sooner
 combine,  when  the bar is of soft iron, than when  it is of hard-
 ened steel;  and then they slowly  combine without explosion,
 that is,  without emitting heat and light like the electric ethers,
 and therefore resemble a mixture of oxygen and pure ammonia;
 which unite silently, producing a neutral fluid, without emitting
 any other fluids previously combined with them.
  Secondly, if the north-pole of a magnetic bar be approached
 near to the eye of a sewing-needle, the arctic ether of the mag*
 net attracts  the antarctic ether,  which resides in the  needle
 towards the eye of it,  and repels the arctic ether, which resides
in the needle towards the point, precisely in  the same manner
 as occurs in presenting an electrised glass tube,  or a rubbed
 stick of sealing-wax to one extremity of two skewers insulated
horizontally on wine-glasses in the experiment ascribed to Mr.
 Canton, and described in No. IX. 1.  of this  Additional Note,
 and also so exactly resembles the method of producing a sepa-
 ration and consequent accumulation of the two electric ethers by
pressing a cushion on  glass or on sealing-wax, described in No»
 IX. of this.Notc, that their analogy is eTidently apparent.
  Thirdly, when much accumulated electricity is approached
to one end of a  long glass tube by a charged  prime conductor,
 there will exist many divisions of the vitreous and resinous elec-
tricity  alternately; as the vitreous ether attracts  the resinous
ether from a certain  distance on the surface of  the  glass tube,
and repels the vitreous ether; but,  as this surface  is a bad con-
ductor,  these reciprocal attractions and repulsions do not ex-
 tend very far along it, but cease and recur in various parts of 
204
Additional Notes.
it.  Exactly similar to this, when a magnetic bar is approxi-
mated to the end of a common bar of iron or steel, as described
in Mr. CavahVs valuable  Treatise on  Magnetism,  the  arctic
ether of the north-pole of the magnetic  bar attracts the antarc-
tic ether of the bar of common iron towards the end in contact,
and  repels the arctic ether; but, as iron and  steel  are as bad
conductors of magnetism as glass is of electricity,  this accu-
mulation of arctic ether extends but a little way, and then there
exists an accumulation of antarctic ether; and thus reciprocally
in three or four divisions of the bar, which now becomes mag-
netised, as the glass tube became  electrised.
  Another striking feature, which shows the sisterhood of elec-
tricity and magnetism, consists in the  origin of  both  of therri
from  the earth, or common mass of matter.   The eduction of
electricity from the earth is shown by an insulated cushion soon
ceasing  to  supply either  the vitreous or resinous ether  to the
whirling globe of glass or of sulphur: the eduction  of magnetism
from the earth appears from the following experiment; if a bar
of iron be set  upright on the earth in this part of the world,  it
becomes in a short time magnetical;  the lower end possessing
northern polarity, or arctic ether, and the higher end, in conse-
quence, possessing southern polarity, or antarctic ether;  which
may be  well explained, if  we suppose,  with Mr. Cavallo,  that
the earth itself is one  great magnet, with its southern polarity
or antarctic ether at the  northern end of its axis; and, in con-
sequence, that it attracts the arctic ether of the  iron  bar  into
that end of it which touches the earth, and repels the antarctic
ether of the iron bar to the other end  of it, exactly the same
as when the southern pole of an artificial  magnet  is brought
into contact with one end of a sewing-needle.
  3. The magnetic and electric ethers  agree in the  characters
above mentioned, and perhaps in many  others,  but differ in the
following ones.  The  electric ethers pass readily through me-
tallic, aqueous, and carbonic bodies, but do not permeate vitre-
ous or resinous ones; though on  the surfaces of these they are
Capable of  adhering, and of being accumulated by the approach
or contact  of other bodies; while the magnetic ethers will not
permeate any bodies,  and are capable of  being accumulated
only on  iron and steel by the  approach  or contact of natural or 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism,   205

artificial magnets, or of the earth; at the same time the attrac-
tive and repulsive powers both of the magnetic and electric
ethers will act through all bodies, like those of gravitation and
heat.
  Secondly, the two electric ethers rush into combination,  when
they can approach each other, after having been separated and
condensed, and produce a violent  explosion, emitting the heat
and light which were previously combined with them; whereas
the two magnetic ethers slowly  combine,  after  having been
separated and  accumulated on the opposite ends of  a soft iron
bar, and,  without  emitting heat and  light, produce a neutral
mixture,  which,  like the electric combination,  ceases  to be
cognizable by our senses or experiments.
  Thirdly,  the wonderful property  of the  magnetic ethers,
when separately accumulated on the ends of  a needle, endea-
vouring to approach  the two opposite poles of the  earth;  no-
thing similar to which has been observed.in  the electric ethers.
  From these strict analogies between electricity and  magnet-
ism, we may conclude that the latter consists of two ethers as
well as the former; and that they both, when separated by art
or nature, combine by chemical  affinity when they approach,
the one exploding, and then consisting of a residuum after hav-
ing emitted heat and light;  and  the  other producing simply a
neutralized fluid by their union.

                      XI. Conclusion.

  1. When two fluids are diffused together without  undergoing
any change of  their chemical properties-, they are said simply
to be mixed, and not combined ; as milk and water when poured
together, or as oxygen and azote  in the common atmosphere.
So when salt or sugar is diffused in water, it is termed solution,
and  not combination; as no change of their chemical  proper-
ties succeeds.
  But when an acid is mixed with a pure alkali a combination
is produced, and the mixture is  said co become neutral, as it
does not possess the chemical properties which either of the two
ingredients possessed  in their separate  state,  and is therefore
similar to neither  of them.   But when a carbonated alkali, as 
206
Additional Notes,
mild  salt of tartar,  is mixed  with a mineral acid, they pre-
sently combine as above;  but now the carbonic acid flies forci-
bly away in the  form of  gas:  this, therefore, may be termed
a  kind  of explosion; but  cannot properly be  so called, as the
ethereal fluids of heat and light are not principally emitted, but
aji aerial one or gas; which  may probably acquire a small
quantity of heat from the  combining matters.
   But when strong acid of nitre is poured upon charcoal in fine
powder, or upon oil of cloves,  a violent explosion ensues, and
the ethereal matters of heat and light are emitted in great abun-
dance, and  are dissipated; while, in the  former instance, the
oxygen  of the nitrous  acid  unites with  the  carbon,  forming
carbonic acid  gas, and the azote escapes in its gaseous form;
which may be  termed a residuum after the explosion,  and may
be confined in a proper apparatus, which the heat and light can-
not; for the former,  if its production be great and sudden, bursts
the vessels, or otherwise  it passes,<slowly through them;  and
the latter passes through transparent bodies, and combines with
opake ones.
   But where ethers only are  concerned in an  explosion, as the
two electric ones, which  are previously difficult to confine in
vessels,  the repulsive ethers of heat and light are given out,
and what remains is a combination of the two electric ethers;
which, in this state, are attracted by all bodies,  and form atmos-
pheres round them.
   These combined electric atmospheres must possess less  heat
and light after their  explosion;  which they seem afterwards to
acquire at the time they are again separated from each other,
probably from the combined heat and combined light of the
cushion and glass, or of the  cushion and resin; by the contact
of which they are separated; and not from the diffused heat of
them ; but no experiments have yet been made to ascertain this
fact:  this combination of  the vitreous and resinous ethers may
be esteemed the  residuum after  their explosion.
   2. Hence the essence of explosion consists in two bodies, which
are previously united with heat  and light,  so strongly attracting
each other, as to set  at liberty those two repulsive ethers; but it
happens that  these  explosive  materials  cannot  generally  be
brought into each other's vicinity in a state of sufficient density, 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    -07

unless they are also previously combined with some other mate-
rial beside the light and heat above spoken of; as in the nitrous
acid, the oxygen is previously combined with azote, and is thus
in a condensed  state before  it is brought into the contact or
vicinity of the carbon:  there are, however,  bodies which will
slowly explode, or give out heat  and light without being pre-
viously combined with other bodies ;  as phosphorus in the com-
mon atmosphere, some dead fish in a certain degree of  putri-
dity, and some living  insects  probably by their respiration in
transparent lungs,  which is a kind of combustion.
  But the two electric  ethers are condensed by being brought
into vicinity with  each  other  with a non-conductor between
them, and thus explode violently, as soon as they communicate,
either by rupturing the interposed non-conductor, or by  a me-
tallic  communication.   This curious method of a previous con-
densation of the two exploding matters, without either of them
being combined with any other material except with the  ethers
of heat and light, distinguishes this ethereal explosion from that
of most other bodies, and seems to have been the  cause  which
prevented the ingenious Dr. Franklin, and others since his time,
from ascribing the powerful effects of  the electric  battery,  and
of lightning in bursting trees,  inflaming combustible  materials,
and fusing metals,  to chemical explosion;  which it resembles in
every other circumstance, but in the  manner of  the previous
condensation of the materials, so as violently to  attract each
other, and suddenly set at liberty the heat and light with which
one or both of them were combined.
  3. This combination of vitreous and resinous electric  ethers
is again  destroyed  or weakened  by the attractions of other bo-
dies ;  as  they separate  entirely, or exist in different proportions,
forming  atmospheres round conducting and non-conducting bo-
dies ;  and in this they resemble other combinations of matters;
as oxygen and azote,  when united in the production of nitrous
acid, are again separated by carbon; which attracts the oxygen
more  powerfully than  that attracts the azote with which it is
combined.
  This  mode of again  separating the combined electric ethers
by pressing  them,  as they surround bodies in different propor-
tions,  into cacli otiier's  atmospheres, as by the glass and cushion* 
208
Additional Notesi
has not been observed respecting the decomposition of other bo-
dies, when  their minute particles are brought so near together
as to decompose each other;  which has thence probably contri-
buted to  prevent this decomposition of the two combined elec-
tric ethers from being ascribed to chemical laws; but, as far as
we know, the attractive and repulsive  atmospheres round the
minute particles of bodies in  chemical operations  may act in a
similar manner, as  the attractive  and repulsive  atmospheres
which  accompany the electric ethers surrounding  the larger
masses of matter;  and that hence both the electric and the che-
mical explosions are  subject to the same laws, and also the de-
composition again  of those particles which were  combined in
the act of explosion.
  4.  It is probable that this theory of electric and magnetic at-
tractions  and repulsions, which so visibly exist in atmospheres
round larger masses of matter, may be applied to explain the
invisible  attractions  and repulsions of the minute particles of
bodies in chemical combinations and decompositions, and also to
give a clear idea of the attractions of the great  masses of mat-
ter which form the gravitations of the universe.
  We are so accustomed to see bodies attract each other,  when
they are in absolute contact,  as dew-drops or particles of quick-
silver forming themselves into spheres, as water rising in capil-
lary tubes, the solution of salts and sugar in water, and the co-
hesion with which all hard bodies are held together, that we are
not surprised at the attractions of bodies in contact with each
other, but ascribe them to a law affecting all matter. In similar
manner,  when two bodies in apparent contact repel each other,
as oil thrown on water, or when heat converts  ice into water
and water into steam, or when one hard body in motion pushes
another hard body out of its place, we feel no surprise, as these
events so perpetually occur to us, but ascribe them, as well as the
attractions of bodies in contact with each other, to a general law
of nature.
  But when distant bodies appear to attract or repel each other,
as we believe that nothing can act where it does not exist, we
are struck with astonishment; which  is owing to our not seeing
the intermediate ethers, the existence of which is ascertained by
the electric and magnetic facts above related. 
       f hcmical Theory of F.hctricity and Magnetism.   209

  From the facts and observations above  mentioned electricity
and magnetism  consist  each of them  of two ethers, as the vi-
treous and res:<ious electric ethers, and the arctic and antarctic
magnetic ethers.  But as neither of the electric ethers will pass
through glafs or resin;  and as neither of the  magnetic ethers
will pass through any bodies except iron  ; and yet the attractive
and repulsive powers accompanying all these ethers permeate
bodies of all kinds;  it  follows,  that  ethers more subtile than
either the electric or magnetic ones attend those ethers forming
atmospheres round them;  as those electric and magnetic ethers
themselves form atmospheres round other bodies.
  This secondary atmosphere of the electric one appears to con-
sist of two ethers, like  the electric one which it surrounds: but
these ethers are probably more  subtile, as they permeate  all
bodies; and when they  unite by the reciprocal approach of the
bodies which they surround, they do not appear to emit heat
and light,  as the primary electric atmospheres do; and there-
fore they are simpler fluids, as they are not previously combined
with heat and light.   The secondary magnetic atmospheres are
 also probably more subtile or simple than  the primary ones.
  Hence we may suppose,  that not only all the larger insulated
masses of matter, but all the minute particles also, which con-
stitute those masses, are  surrounded by two ethereal fluids;
which, like the electric and magnetic ones, attract each other
forcibly, and as forcibly repel those of the same denomination ;
and,  at the same time, strongly adhere to the bodies which they
surround.   Secondly, that  these ethers are of the finer  kind,
like those secondary ones which  surround the primary electric
and magnetic ethers; and that therefore they do not  explode,
giving out heat and light when they unite, but simply combine,
and  become neutral; and, lastly, that they surround  different
bodies in different proportions, as the vitreous and resinous elec-
tric ethers were shown to surround silver and zinc, and  many
other metals, in different proportions, in No. IX. of this note.
   :>.  For the greater ease of conversing on this subject, we shall
call these two ethers, with which all bodies are surrounded, the
masculine and the feminine ethers, and  suppose them to possess
the properties above mentioned.  We should here, however, pre-
viously observe, that in chemical processes it is necessary tiiat 
210
Additional Notes.
the bodies which are to combine or unite with each other should
be in a fluid state, and the particles in contact with each other ;
thus,  when salt is dissolving in water, the particles of salt unite
with those of the water which touch them ;  these particles of
water become saturated, and thence attract some of the saline
particles  with less force ; which are therefore attracted from
them by those behind;  and the first particles of water are again
saturated from the  solid salt; or, in some similar processes, the
saturated combinations may subside or evaporate, as in the union
of the two electric  ethers, or  in the explosion of gun-powder,
and thus those in their vicinity may approach each other.  This
necessity of a  liquid form,  for the purpose of combination,
appears in the lighting of gun-powder, as well as in all other
combustion; the spark of fire applied dissolves the sulphur, and
liquifies the combined heat;  and, by these means, a fluidity suc-
ceeds, and the consequent attractions and repulsions which form
the explosion.
   The whole mixed mass of matter, of  which the earth is com-
posed,  we suppose  to be surrounded and penetrated by the two
ethers, but with a greater proportion of the masculine ether than
of the feminine.  When a stone is elevated above the surface of
the earth, we suppose it also to be surrounded with an atmos-
phere of the two ethers, but with a greater  proportion of the
feminine than of the masculine;  and that  these ethers  adhere
strongly by cohesion both to the earth and to  the stone elevated
above it.   Now the greater quantity of the masculine ether of
the earth becomes in contact with the greater quantity of the fe-
minine ether of the stone above it,  which it powerfully attracts,
and,  at the same time, repels the less quantity of the masculine
ether of the stone.  The reciprocal attractions of these two fluids,
 if not restrained by counter attractions, bring them together as
in chemical combination, and thus they bring together the solid
bodies  which they reciprocally  adhere to, if they  be  not im-
 moveable ; which  solid bodies, when brought into contact, co-
 here by their own  reciprocal attractions;  and hence the myste-
rious affair of distant attraction  or gravitation becomes intelli-
 gible, and consonant to the chemical combinations of fluids.
   To further elucidate these various attractious, if the patient
reader be not already tired, he will please to attend to the fol- 
       Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.    211

lowing experiment; let a bit of sponge, suspended on a silk line,
be m- istened with a solution of pure alkali, and another similar
piece of sponge be moistened with a weak acid, and suspended
near the former; electrize one of them with vitreous ether, and
the other with resinous ether, as they hang with a thin plate of
glass between them : now, as these two electric ethers appear to
attract each other without  intermixing, as neither of them can
pass through glass, they  must be themselves surrounded with
secondary  ethers, which pass  through the  glass,  and attract
each other as they become in  contact: as these secondary ethers
adhere to the primary vitreous and  resinous ethers, these pri-
marv ones are drawn by them into each other's vicinity by the
attraction of cohesion, and become condensed on each side of
the glass plane;  and  then  when  the glass plane is withdrawn,
the two electric ethers being now  in contact, rush violently toge-
ther, and draw along with them the pieces of moistened sponge,
to which they adhere; and, finally, the acid and alkaline liquids
being now brought into  contact,  combine by their chemical af-
finity.
   The repulsions of distant bodies are also explicable by this
idea of their being surrounded with two ethers, which weliave
termed masculine and feminine, for the case of conversing about
them; and have compared them to vitreous and resinous elec-
tricity, and to arctic and  antarctic  magnetism.  As  when two
particles of matter, or two larger masses of it, are surrounded
both with their masculine ethers, these ethers repel each other,
 or refuse to intermix ; and, in consequence, the bodies to which
 they adhere  recede  from each  other; as  two cork balls sus-
 pended near  each other, and  electrised  both with vitreous or
 both with resinous ether,  repel each other;  or as the extremi-
 ties of two needles magnetised both with arctic, or both with ant-
 arctic ether,  repel each other ; or as oil and water surrounded
 both with their  masculine, or both with their feminine ethers,
 repel each other without touching;  so light is believed to be re-
 flected from  a mirror without touching  its surface,  and to be
 bent towards the edge of a knife, or  refracted by its approach
 from a rarer medium into a denser one,  by the  repulsive ether
 of the mirror,  and the attractive ones of the knife-edge,  and  of
 the  denser medium.  Thus a polished tea-cup slips on the po- 
212
Additional Notes*
lished saucer, probably without their actual contact with each
other,  till a  few drops of water are interposed between them
by capillary attraction, and prevent its sliding by their tenacity.
And so,  lastly, one hard body in motion  pushes another hard
body out of its place by their repulsive ethers, Avithout being in
contact;  as appears  from their  not adhering to each  other,
which  all bodies in real contact are believed to do.  Whence
also may be inferred the reason why bodies have been supposed
to repel  at one distance and attract at another, because they
attract when their particles are in contact with each other, and
either  attract or repel, when at a distance,  by the intervention
of their  attractive or  repulsive ethers.
  Thus have I endeavoured to take one step further back into
the mystery of the gravitation and repulsion of bodies,  which
appeared to be distant  from each other,  as of the  sun and
planets,  as I before endeavoured to take one step further back
into the mysteries of  generation in my account of the produc-
tion of the buds of vegetables in Phytologia. With what suc-
cess these have been attended I now  leave to the judgment of
philosophical readers, from which I can make no appeal.




            ADDITIONAL  NOTE  XIII.

                 ANALYSIS OF TASTE.

         Fond Fancy's eye recalls the form divine,
         And Taste sits smiling upon Beauty's  shrine.
                                   Canto III. 1. 221.

   The  word Taste, in its extensive application, may express
the pleasures received by any of our senses, when excited into
action by the stimulus of external objects; as when odour.-, sti-
mulate the  nostrils, or flavours the palate; or when smooth-
ness or softness are perceived by the touch, or warmth  by its
adapted  organ of sense.  The word Taste  is also  used  to sig-
nify the  pleasurable trains of ideas suggested by language, as
in the  compositions of poetry and oratory.   But the pleasures 
                     Analysis of Taste.                  213

consequent to the exertions of our  sense of  vision only are
designed here to be treated of, with occasional references to
those of the ear, when they elucidate each other.
  When any of our organs of  sense are excited into their due
quantity of action,  a pleasurable sensation succeeds, as shown
in 'Zoonomia,  Vol. I. Sect. IV.  These are simply the pleasures
attending perception, and not those which are termed the plea-
sures of Taste;  which consist of additional pleasures arising
from the peculiar forms or colours of objects, or of their pecu-
liar combinations or successions, or from other agreeable trains
of ideas previously associated with them.
  There are four sources of pleasure attendant on the excita-
tion of the nerves of vision by light  and  colours, besides that
simply of perception above mentioned: the first is derived from
a degree of novelty of the  forms, colours, numbers, combina-
tions, or successions,  and visible  objects.   The second is de-
rived from a degree of repetition of their forms, colours, num-
bers, combinations, or successions.   Where these two circum-
stances exist united in  certain quantities,  and compose the
principal part of a landscape,  it is termed picturesque by mo-
dern writers.   The third  source of pleasure from  the percep-
tion  of the visible world, may be termed the melody of colours,
whicli will be shown to coincide  with  melody of sounds: this
circumstance  may  also accompany the picturesque, and will
add  to the pleasure  it affords.   The fourth source of pleasure
from the perception of visible objects is derived from the pre-
vious association of other pleasurable trains of ideas with cer-
tain  forms, colours,  combinations,  or successions  of them.
Whence the  beautiful,  sublime,  romantic,  melancholic, and
ether emotions, which have not acquired names to express them.
We  may add, that all these four sources of pleasure from per-
ceptions are equally applicable to those of sounds as of sights.


         I. A'ovelty or infrequency of visible Objects.

  The first circumstance which suggests an additional pleasure
in the contemplation of visible objects, besides that of simple
perception, arises from  their  novelty or infrequency; that  is, 
214
Additional Notes.
from the unusual combinations or successions of their forms or
colours.  From this source is derived the perpetual cheerfulness
of youth;  and the want of it is liable  to add  a gloom to the
countenance of age.  It is this which produces variety in land-
scape, compared with the common course of nature, an intri-
cacy which incites investigation, and  a  curiosity which leads to
explore the works of nature.  Those who travel into foreign
regions, instigated by curiosity, or who examine and unfold the
intricacies of sciences at home, are led by novelty;  which not
only supplies ornament to beauty or to grandeur, but adds agree-
able surprise to the point of the  epigram, and to the double
meaning of the pun, and is  courted alike by poets and phi-
losophers.
   It should be here premised, that the word Novelty, as used
in these pages,  admits of degrees or quantities; some objects,
or the ideas excited by them, possessing more or less novelty,
as they are more or less unusual; which the reader will please
to attend to, as we have used the word Infrequency of objects,
or of  the ideas excited by them,  to  express the degrees or
quantities of their novelty.
   The source from  which  is  derived  the pleasure of novelty,
is a metaphysical inquiry of great curiosity,  and will, on that
account, excuse my here introducing it.  In our waking hours,
whenever an  idea occurs which is incongruous to our former
experience, we  instantly dissever the train of imagination by
the power of volition, and  compare the^incongruous  idea with
our previous knowledge of  nature, and reject it.  This opera-
tion of the mind has not yet acquired  a specific name, though
it is exerted every minute of our waking  hours, unless it may
be termed Intuitive Analogy.   It is an act of reasoning of
which we are  unconscious,  except  by its  effects in preserving
the ccngruity of our ideas.  See Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XVII.
3.7.
   In our sleep, as the power of volition is  suspended,  and, con-
sequently, that of reason, when any incongruous ideas occur in
the trains of imagination which compose our dreams, we can-
not compare them with our previous knowledge of nature and
reject them: whence arises the perpetual inconsistency of our
sleeping trains of ideas; and whence in  our dreams we never 
                     Analysis of Taste.                  213

feel the sentiment of  novelty,  however  different  the ideas
which present themselves  may  be from  the  usual course of
nature.
   But in our waking hours, whenever any object occurs which
does not accord with the usual course of nature, we immediately
and unconsciously exert our voluntary power, and examine  it
by intuitive analogy, comparing it with our previous knowledge
of nature.  This exertion of our volition excites many other
ideas, and is attended with pleasurable sensation; which con-
stitutes the  sentiment  of novelty.  But when the object of
novelty stimulates  us so  forcibly as suddenly to disunite  our
passing trains of ideas,  as if a pistol be unexpectedly  dis-
charged,  the emotion of surprise is experienced;  which,  by
exciting violent irritation and violent sensation, employs for a
time the whole  sensorial energy, and thus dissevers the pas-
sing trains of ideas before the power of volition has time to
compare them with the usual phenomena of nature; but as the
painful emotion of fear  is then generally added to that of sur-
prise, as every one experiences  who hears a noise in the dark,
which he cannot immediately account for,  this great degree of
novelty, when it produces much surprise, generally ceases to be
pleasurable, and does not then belong to objects of taste.
   In its less degree surprise is generally agreeable, as it simply
expresses the sentiment occasioned by the novelty of our ideas;
as in common language we say,  we are agreeably surprised at
the unexpected meeting with a friend, which not only expresses
the sentiment of novelty, but also the pleasure  from other
agreeable ideas associated with the object of it.
   It must  appear from hence, that different  persons must be
affected more or less agreeably  by different degrees or quan-
tities of novelty in the objects of taste, according to their pre-
vious knowledge of nature, or their  previous habits or oppor-
tunities of attending to the fine arts.  Thus, before its nativity,
the fetus experiences the perceptions of heat and co'd, of hard-
ness and softness, of motion and rest, with those perhaps of hun-
ger and repletion,  sleeping  and  waking,  pain  and pleasure;
and perhaps some other  perceptions, which may at this early
time of  its existence have occasioned  perpetual trains of ideas.
On its arrival into the world the perceptions of light and sound 
216
Additional Notes.
must, by their novelty, at first dissever its usual trains of ideas,
and  occasion great surprise;  whicli, after  a few repetitions,
will cease to be disagreeable, and only excite the emotion from
novelty,  which  has not acquired a separate name,  but is in
reality a less degree of surprise; and, by further experience, the
sentiment of novelty, or any degree of surprise,  will cease to
be excited by the sounds or sights which at first excited per-
haps a painful quantity of surprise.
  It  should here be observed, that as the pleasure of novelty
is produced by the exertion of our voluntary power in compar-
ing uncommon objects with those which are more usually exhi-
bited, this sentiment of novelty is less perceived by those who
do not readily use the faculty of volition, or who have little pre-
vious knowledge of nature, as by very ignorant or very stupid
people, or by brute animals;  and that, therefore, to be affected
with this  circumstance of the objects of Taste requires some
previous knowledge of such kinds of objects,  and some  degree
of mental exertion.
  Hence, when  a greater variety of objects than  usual  is pre-
sented to the eye,  or when  some intricacy of forms, colours,
or reciprocal locality more than usual accompanies them, it is
termed novelty if it only excites the exertion of intuitive com-
parison with the usual order of nature, and affects us witli plea-
surable sensation; but is termed surprise if it suddenly disse-
vers our  accustomed habits of motion, and is then more gene-
rally  attended with disagreeable  sensation.  To this circum-
stance attending objects of taste is to be referred what is termed
wild and  irregular in landscapes, in contradistinction to the
repetition of parts  or uniformity spoken of below.  We may
add, that novelty of notes and tones in music, or of their com-
binations or successions, are equally agreeable to the ear as the
novelty of forms and colours, and of their combinations  or suc-
cessions are to the eye; but that the greater quantity or  degree
of novelty, the sentiment of which is generally termed Surprise,
is more frequently  excited by unusual or unexpected sounds;
which are liable to alarm us with fear as well as surprise us
with novelty. 
Analysis of Taste.
217
                Repetition of visible Objects.

  The repeated excitement of the same or  similar ideas with
certain  intervals of time, or distances of space between them,
is attended  with agreeable sensations,  besides that simply of
perception;  and, though it appears to be diametrically oppo-
site to the pleasure arising from the novelty of objects above
treated of, enters into the compositions of all the agreeable arts.
  The  pleasure arising from the repetition of  similar ideas
with certain intervals of time or distances  of space between
them, is a subject of great metaphysical curiosity,  as  well as
the source of the pleasure derived from novelty, which will,  I
hope, excuse its introduction in this place.
  The repetitions of motions may be at first produced either by
volition, or by sensation, or by irritation ; but they soon  become
easier to perform than any other kinds of  action,  because they
soon become associated  together; and thus  their frequency of
repetition,  if as much  sensorial power  be produced during
every reiteration as is expended, adds to the facility of their
production.
  If a stimulus  be repeated  at uniform intervals  of time, the
action, whether of our muscles or organs of sense, is produced
with  still greater  facility or energy;  because  the sensorial
power of association,  mentioned above, is combined with the
sensorial power  of irritation;  that is, in common language, the
acquired habit assists the power of the stimulus.
  This  not  only obtains in  the annual, lugar, and diurnal cate-
nations  of animal motions,  as explained  in Zoonomia, Sect.
XXXVI.  which  are  thus  performed with great facility and
energy;  but in  every less  circle of actions or ideas, as in the
burden of a song, or the reiterations of a dance.  To the faci-
lity and  distinctness  with  which we hear sounds at repeated
intervals, we owe the pleasure which we receive from musical
time, and from  poetic time; as described  in Botanic Garden,
Vol. II.  Interlude III. And to this, the pleasure we receive from
the rhymes  and  alliterations of modern versification;  the source
of which, without this key, would be difficult to discover.
  There is  no variety of notes referable to  the gamut in  the
                           '.'E 
218
Additional Notes.
beating of a drum; yet, if it be performed in musical time, it
is agreeable to our ears; and, therefore, this pleasurable sen-
sation  must be owing to the repetition of the  divisions of the
sounds at certain intervals of time,  or musical bars.  Whether
these times or bars are distinguished by a pause,  or by an em-
phasis, or  accent, certain  it is, that this distinction is perpe-
tually repeated, otherwise the ear could not determine instantly
whether the successions of sound were  in common or in  triple
time.
  But besides these little circles of musical time, there are  the
greater returning periods, and the still more distinct chorusses;
which, like the rhymes at the end of verses, owe their beauty
to repetition; that is, to the facility and distinctness with which
we perceive sounds, which we expect to perceive, or have per-
ceived before; or, in the language  of this work, to the greater
ease and energy with which  our organ is excited by the com-
bined  sensorial powers of association and irritation, than by
the latter singly.
  This kind of pleasure arising from repetition, that is, from
the facility and distinctness with which we perceive and under-
stand  repeated sensations,  enters into all the  agreeable arts;
and, when it is carried to excess, is termed formality.  The art
of dancing, like that of music, depends for a great part of the
pleasure it affords on repetition;  architecture, especially the
Grecian, consists of one part being a  repetition of  another;
and hence the beauty of the pyramidal outline  in landscape-
painting, where one side of the picture may be  said in some
measure to balance the other.   So universally does repetition
contribute to our pleasure in the fine arts,  that beauty itself has
been defined by some writers to consist in a due combination of
uniformity and variety.   See Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXII.
2. 1.
  Where these repetitions of form, and reiterations of colour,
are produced in a  picture or natural landscape, in an agree-
able quantity, it is termed simplicity, or unity of character;
where the  repetition principally is seen  in the disposition or lo-
cality  of the  divisions, it  is called symmetry, proportion, or
grouping the  separate parts;  where this repetition is most  con-
spicuous in the forms of visible objects,  it is called regularity 
Analysis of Taste.
219
or uniformity; and where it affects the colouring principally,
the artists call it breadth of colour.
  There  is,  nevertheless, an excess of the repetition of the
same or similar ideas, which ceases to please,  and must, there-
fore,  be excluded from  compositions of Taste in painted land-
scapes, or in ornamented gardens; which is then called forma-
lity,  monotony, or  insipidity.  Why the excitation of ideas
should  give additional pleasure  by the facility and distinctness
of their production  for a certain time, and then cease to give
additional pleasure,  and gradually to give less pleasure than
that which  attends  simple exertion of them, is another curi-
ous metaphysical problem, and deserves investigation.
  In  our waking hours, a perpetual voluntary  exertion, of
which we are unconscious, attends all our new trains of ide^is,
whether those of imagination or of perception; which,  by com-
 paring them with our  former experience, preserves the con-
 sistency of the former, by rejecting such  as are incongruous;
and adds to the credibility  of the latter,  by their analogy to
objects of our previous knowledge:  and this exertion is attended
with  pleasurable  sensation.  After very  frequent  repetition,
these trains of ideas do not  excite the exertion of this  intuitive
analogy,  and, in consequence, are not attended  with additional
pleasure to that simply of perception; and, by continued repe-
tition, they  at length lose even the pleasure  simply of percep-
tion,  and thence finally cease to be excited:  whence one cause
of the torpor of old  age,  and of death,  as spoken of in Addi-
tional Note  No. VII. 3. of this work.
  When  there exists in any landscape  a  certain  number  and
diversity of  forms and colours, or of their combinations or suc-
cessions,  so as to produce a  degree of novelty; and that with a
certain repetition,  or arrangement of parts, so as to render
them  gradually  comprehensible, or easily compared with the
usual course of nature; if this agreeable combination of visible
objects  be on  a  moderate scale, in respect to magnitude,  and
form  the principal  part of the landscape,  it  is termed Pictu-
resque by modem artists; and when  such a  combination of
forms and colours contains many easy flowing curves and smooth
surfaces,  the delightful sentiment of Beauty becomes added t«
the pleasure of the picturesque, 
220
Additional Notes.
   If the above agreeable  combination  of novelty and repetition
exists on a larger scale, with more projecting rocks, and deeper
dells, and perhaps with a somewhat greater proportion of no-
velty than  repetition, the landscape assumes the name of Ro-
mantic ; and if some of these forms or combinations are much
above the usual magnitude of similar objects, the more interest-
ing sentiment of Sublimity  becomes mixed with the pleasure
of the romantic,


                  III.  Melody of Colours,

  A third source of pleasure arising from the inspection of vi-
sible objects,  besides that of simple perception,  arises  from
what may be  termed melody of colours, as certain colours are
more agreeable when they succeed each other, or  when they
are disposed in each other's  vicinity, so  as successively to af-
fect the organ of vision.
  In a paper on the colours seen in the eye after looking for'
some time  on luminous objects, published  by  Dr. Darwin, of
Shrewsbury, in the Philos. Trans. Vol. LXXVI. it is evidently
shown,  that we see certain colours not only with  greater ease
and distinctness, but with relief and pleasure,  after having for
some time inspected other certain colours; as  green after red,
pr» red  after green; orange  after blue, or blue after orange;
yellow after violet, or violet after yellow:  this, he shows, arises
from the ocular spectrum of the colour last viewed coinciding
with the irritation of the colour now under contemplation.
  Thus, if you make a dot with ink in the centre of a circle of
red silk the size of a letter wafer, and  place  it on a sheet of
white paper, and look on  it for a minute without moving  your
eyes, and then gently turn them on the white paper  in its vici-
nity, or gently close them, and hold one hand  an inch or two
before them, to prevent too  much  light from passing through
the eye-lids, a circular spot of pale green will be seen on the
white paper, or in  the closed eye;  which is called  the ocular
spectrum of the red silk, and is formed, as Dr. Darwin shows,
by the pandiculation or stretching of the fine fibrils which con-
stitute the  extremities of the optic nerve, in  a direction con- 
                      Analysis of Taste.                  221

 trary to  that in which  they have been excited by previously
 looking at a luminous object till they become fatigued,  like the
 yawning or stretching of the larger muscles after acting long in
 one direction.
   If at this time the eye, fatigued by looking long at the centre
 of the red silk,  be  turned  on paper previously coloured with
 pale green, the circular spot, or ocular spectrum, will appear of
 a much darker green; as now the irritation from the pale green
 paper coincides with the pale green spectrum remaining in  the
 eye,  and thus excites those fibres of the retina into stronger  ac-
 tion : on this account some colours are seen more distinctly, and,
 consequently, more  agreeably after others, or when placed in
 the  vicinity  of  others:   thus, if orange-coloured  letters  are
 painted on a blue ground, they may be read at as great distance
 as black on white, perhaps at a greater.
   The  colours which are thus  more distinct when seen in suc-
 cession, are  called opposite colours by Sir Isaac Newton, in  his
 Optics, Book I. Part 2, and may be easily discovered by any one,
 by the method above  described; that is, by laying  a coloured
 circle of paper or silk on a  sheet of  white paper, and inspect-
 ing it some time with steady  eyes, and then either gently closing
 diem, or removing them on  another  part  of the white paper,
 and the ocular spectrum, or opposite colour, becomes visible in
 the eye.
   Sir  Isaac  Newton has observed,  that the breadths of  the
 seven primary colours in the sun's image, refracted by a prism,
 are proportioned to the seven musical notes of the gamut,  or to
 the intervals  of the eight sounds contained in an octave.
   From this  curious coincidence, it has been proposed  to pro-
 duce a luminous music,  consisting  of successions or combina-
 tions of colours, analogous to a tune  in respect to the propor-
 tions above mentioned.  This might  be performed by a strong
 light, made by means of Mr. Argand's lamps, passing through
 coloured glasses,  and falling  on a defined part of the  wall, with
 moveable  blinds before them, which might communicate with
 the keys of a harpsichord, and thus produce, at the same time,
 visible and audible music in unison with each other.
   Now-, as the pleasure we receive from the sensation of melo-
dious notes, independent of musical time, and of the previous 
222
Additional Notes,
associations of agreeable ideas with them, must arise from our
hearing some proportions of sounds after others more easily,
distinctly, or agreeably; and as there is a coincidence between
the proportions of the primary colours and the primary sounds,
if they may be so called, the same  laws must probably govern
the sensations of both.  In this circumstance, therefore, consists
the sisterhood of Music and Painting; and hence they claim a
right to borrow metaphors from each other:  musicians to speak
of the brilliancy of sounds, and the light and  shade of a con-
certo; and painters of the harmony of colours, and the tone
of a picture.
   This source of pleasure, received from  the melodious succes-
sion of colours or of sounds, must not  be confounded with the
pleasure received from the repetition of them explained above;
though the repetition,  or division of musical notes into bars, so
as to produce common or triple time, contributes much to the
pleasure of music: but in viewing a fixed landscape, nothing
like musical  time exists: and the pleasure received therefore
from certain successions of colours must depend only on the
more easy or distinct  action of the retina in perceiving  some
colours after others, or in their vicinity; like the facility, or even
pleasure,  with which we act with contrary muscles in yawning
or stretching, after having been fatigued with a long previous
exertion in the contrary direction.
   Hence,  where colours are required to be distinct, those which
are opposite to each other should be brought  into succession or •
vicinity; as red and green, orange and blue, yellow and violet;
but where colours are required to intermix imperceptibly, or
slide into each other, these should not be chosen, as they might,
by contrast, appear too glaring or tawdry.   These  gradations
and contrasts of colours have  been practically employed both
by the painters of landscape, and by the planters of ornamental
gardens; thougli the theory of this part of the pleasure derived
from visible objects was not explained before the publication of
the paper  on ocular spectra  above mentioned; which is re-
printed at the end of the first part of Zoonomia, and has thrown
great light on the actions of the nerves of sense in consequence
of the stimulus of external bodies. 
Analysis of Taste.
223
 IV. Association of agreeable Sentiments with visible Objects.

  Besides the pleasure experienced simply by the perception of
visible objects, it has been already shown that there is an addi-
tional pleasure arising from the inspection of those  which pos-
sess novelty, or  some degree of it;  a second additional pleasure
from those which possess, in some degree, a repetition of their
parts; and a third from those which possess  a succession of
particular colours, which either contrast or  slide into each
other, and which we have termed melody of colours.
  We now  step forward to the fourth source of the pleasures
arising from the contemplation of visible objects,  besides that
simply of perception, which consists in our previous association
of some agreeable sentiment with certain forms  or combinations
of them.   These four kinds of pleasure,  singly or in combina-
tion, constitute what is generally understood by the word Taste,
in respect to the visible world; and by parity of reasoning  it is
probable,  that  the pleasurable ideas received by the other
senses,  or which are associated with  language, may be traced
to similar sources.
  It has been shown by Bishop Berkeley,  in his ingenious essay
on vision, that the  eye only acquaints us with the perception of
light and colours; and that our idea of the solidity of the bodies
which reflect them is learnt by the organ of touch:  he there-
fore calls our vision the language of touch; observing that cer-
tain gradations of  the shades  of colour,  by our previous expe-
rience of having examined similar bodies by our hands or lips,
suggest our  ideas of solidity, and of the  forms of  solid  bodies;
as when we view a tree, it would otherwise  appear to us a flat
green surface;  but, by association of  ideas,  we know it to be a
cylindrical stem, with round branches. This association of the
ideas acquired  by  the sense of touch with those of vision, we
do  not allude to in  the following observations, but to the agree-
able  trains or tribes of ideas and  sentiments  connected with
certain kinds of visible objects. 
224
Additional Notts,
                    Sentiment of Beauty.

   Of these catenations of sentiments with visible objects, the
 first is the sentiment of Beauty or Loveliness, which is suggested
 by easy flowing curvatures of surface,  with smoothness;  as
 is so well illustrated in Mr. Burke's Essay on the Sublime and
 Beautiful, and in Mr. Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty;  a new edi-
 tion of which is much wanted separate from his other works.
   The  sentiment  of Beauty  appears to be  attached from our
 cradles to the easy curvatures  of lines, and smooth  surfaces of
 visible objects,  and to  have been derived from the form of the
 female  bosom;  as spoken of in  Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XVI.
 on Instinct.
   Sentimental love, as distinguished from the animal passion of
 that name, with which it is frequently accompanied, consists in
 the desire or sensation of beholding, embracing, and saluting a
 beautiful object.
   The characteristic of beauty therefore is, that it is the object
 of  love; and though many other objects are,  in  common lan-
 guage, called beautiful, yet they are only called so metaphorical-
 ly, and ought to be termed agreeable.  A Grecian temple may
 give us the pleasurable idea of sublimity; a Gothic temple may
 give us the pleasurable idea of variety; and a modern house
 the pleasurable idea of utility; music and poetry may inspire
 our love by association of ideas: but none of these, except me-
 taphorically, can be termed beautiful, as we have no wish to
 embrace or salute them.
  Our perception of beauty consists in our recognition, by the
 sense of vision, of those objects, first, which have before inspired
 our love by the pleasure which they have afforded to many of
our senses; as to our sense of warmth, of touch, of smell, of taste,
hunger  and thirst; and, secondly,  which  bear any analogy of
form to  such objects.
  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 of diirst 
            The Theory and Structure of Language.       225

 afford pleasure by the possession of their objects, and by the
 subsequent digestion of the aliment; and, lastly,  the  sense of
 touch  is delighted by  the softness and smoothness of the milky
 fountain, the source of such variety of happiness.




             ADDITIONAL  NOTE  XIV.

  THE THEORY AND STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.

         Next to each thought associate sound accords,
         And forms the dulcet symphony of words.
                                   Canto  III. 1. 365.

   Ideas consist of synchronous motions or configurations of the
 extremities of the organs of sense; these, when  repeated by
 sensation, volition, or association, are either simple or complex,
 as they were first excited by  irritathn ; or have afterwards
 some parts abstracted from them, or some parts added to them.
 Language consists of words, which are the names or symbols of
 ideas.  Words are,  therefore,  properly all  of them nouns or
 names of things.
   Little had been  done in the investigation of the theory of lan-
 guage from the time  of Aristotle to the  present xra,  till Mr.
 Home Tooke, the ingenious and learned  author of the Diver-
 sions of Purley, explained those uadeclined  words of all lan-
 guages, which had puzzled the grammarians, and evinced from
 their etymology, that  they were  abbreviations of  other modes
 of expression.   Mr. Tooke  observes, that the first aim of lan-
 guage was to communicate our thoughts, and the second to do it
 with  dispatch; and hence  he divides words into  those which
 were necessary to express  our thoughts,  and those which are
 abbreviations of the  former; which he ingeniously styles the
 wings of Hermes,
  For the greater  dispatch of conversation many words suggest
more than one idea;  1 shall therefore arrange them according
to  the number and kinds of ideas which they suggest; and am
induced to do this, as a new distribution of the objects of any 
226
Additional Notes*
science may advance the knowledge of it by developing another;
analogy of its constituent parts.  And in thus endeavouring to
analyze the theory of language, I mean to speak primarily of the
English, and occasionally to add what may occur concerning the
structure of the Greek and Latin.


             I. Conjunctions and Prepositions.

  The first class of words  consists of those which suggest but
one idea, and suffer no change of termination; which have been
termed by grammarians Conjunctions and Prepositions :
the former of which connect sentences, and the latter words.
Both which have  been ingeniously explained  by Mr. Home
Tooke, from their etymology, to be abbreviations of other modes
of expression.
  1. Thus the conjunction  if and an, are shown by Mr. Tooke
to be derived from the imperative mood of the verbs to give and
to grant; but both of these conjunctions, by long use, appear to
have become the name of a more abstracted idea than the
words  give or grant suggest, as they do not now express any
ideas of person, or of number,  or of time; all which are gene-
rally attendant upon the meaning of a  verb; and perhaps all
the words of this class are the names of  ideas much abstracted,
which has caused the difficulty of explaining them.
  2. The number of Prepositions  is very great in the English
language, as they are used before the cases of  nouns, and the
infinitive mood of verbs, instead of the numerous changes of ter-
mination of the nouns and verbs of the Greek and Latin, which
gives greater simplicity to  our language, and greater facility of
acquiring it.
  The  prepositions, as well as the preceding conjunctions,  have
been well explained by  Mr. Home Tooke;  who has developed
the etymology of many of  them.  As the greatest number of
the ideas we receive from external objects  are complex  ones,
the names of these constitute a great part of language, as the
proper  names of  persons and  places,  which are complex
terms.   Now, as these  complex terms do  not always exactly
suggest the  quantity of combined ideas we mean to express, 
           The Theory and Structure of Language.       52?

some of the prepositions  are prefixed to them to add or to de-
duct something, or to limit their general meaning;  as a house
with  a party wall,  or a house without  a roof.  These words
are also derived by Mr. Tooke, as abbreviations of the impera-
tive  moods of verbs; but which appear now  to suggest ideas
further  abstracted  than those generally suggested by verbs,
and are all of them properly nouns,  or names of ideas.


                  II.  Nouns Substantive.

  The second class of words  consists of those which,  in their
simplest  state,  suggest but one idea, as the  word man;  but
which, by two changes of termination in our language, suggest
one secondary idea of number, as the word  men; or another
secondary idea of the genitive case, as man's mind,  or the
mind of man.  These words,  by other changes of termination
in the Greek and Latin languages, suggest many other second-
ary ideas, as of gender as well as  of number, and of all the
other cases described in their grammars, which in EngUsh are
expressed by prepositions.
  This class of words includes the Nouns Substantive, or
names of things,  of common  grammars, and  may be conveni-
ently divided  into  three  kinds: 1.  Those which suggest  the
ideas of tilings believed to possess  hardness  and figure,  as a
house or a horse.  2.  Those which suggest the ideas of things,
which are not supposed to possess hardness and figure,  except
metaphorically, as virtue, wisdom;  which have therefore been
termed abstracted ideas.   3.  Those  which have been called by
metaphysical writers reflex ideas, and mean  those of the ope-
rations of the mind, as sensation, volition, association.
  Another convenient division of these nouns substantive, or
names of things, may be,  1. Into general terms, or the names
of classes of ideas,  as man,  quadruped, bird,  fish,  animal.
2. Into the names of complex ideas, as this  house, that dog.
3. Into the names of simple ideas, as whiteness, sweetness.
  A  third convenient division of the names of things may be,
1. Into the names of entire things, whedier of  real or imagin-
ary  being;  tiiese are the nouns  substantive of grammars. 
528
Additional Notes*
■2i Into the  names of the qualities or properties of the former j
these are the nouns  adjective of grammars.  3. The names of
more abstracted ideas, as the conjunctions and prepositions of
grammarians.
   These nouns substantive, or names of entire things,  suggest
but one idea in their simplest form, as in the nominative case
singular of grammars.  As the word a  stag is the name Of a
single complex idea; but the word stags, by a change of termi-
nation, adds to this a secondary  idea of number; and the word
stag's, with a comma before the final s,  suggests, in English,
another secondary idea of something appertaining to the stag,
as a  stag's  horn;  which is,  however, in our language,  as fre-
quently expressed by the preposition of  as the  horn of a stag.
   In the Greek and Latin languages, an idea of gender is joined
with the names of entire things, as well as of number; but in
the English language, the nouns, which express inanimate ob-
jects,  have  no genders except metaphorically;  and even  the
sexes  of many animals have names  so totally  different from
each other,  that they rather give an idea of the individual crea-
ture than of the sex, as bull and  cow, horse  and mare, boar
and  sow, dog and bitch.  This  constitutes  another circum-
stance which renders our language more simple,  and more easy
to acquire;  and, at the  same time, contributes to the poetic
excellence of it;  as by adding  a  masculine or feminine pro-
noun,  as he, or she, other nouns substantive are so  readily
personified,
  In the Latin  language there ate five cases besides the nomi-
native, or original word,  and in  the Greek four.  Whence the
original noun substantive, by  change of its termination, sug-
gests a secondary idea, either corresponding with the genitive,
dative, accusative, vocative, or  ablative cases,  besides  the  se-
condary ideas of number and gender above mentioned.  The
ideas suggested  by these changes of termination,  which are
termed cases, are explained in the grammars of these lan-
guagep, and are expressed in  ours by prepositions, which are
called the signs of those cases,
  Thus the  word  Domini,  of the Lord,  suggests,  beside the
primary idea, a secondary one of something appertaining to it,
as templum domini, the temple of the Lord, or the Lord's tem- 
           The Theory and Structure of Language.       229

pie; which, in English, is either effected by an addition of the
letter s, with a comma before it, or by the preposition of.  This
genitive  case  is said to be expressed  in the Hebrew language
simply by the  locality of the words in succession to each other;
which must so far add to the conciseness of that language.
  Thus the word Domino, in the dative case, to the Lord, sug-
gests, besides the primary idea, a secondary one, of something
being added to the primary one, which is effected in English by
the preposition to.
  The accusative case, or Dominum, besides the primary io'ea,
implies something having  acted upon the object of that primary
idea,  as felis edit murem,  the cat eats the mouse.  This is thus
effected in the Greek and  Latin by a change  of  termination of
the noun acted upon, but is managed in a more concise way in
our language by its situation in the sentence,  as it  follows the
verb.  Thus,  if the mouse in the above sentence was placed be-
fore the verb,  and  the cat after it,  in English the sense would
be inverted, but not so in Latin.  This necessity of  generally
placing the accusative case after the  verb is inconvenient in
poetry, though it adds to the conciseness and simplicity of our
language, as  it  saves the  intervention of a preposition, or of a
change of termination.
  The vocative case of the Latin language,  or Dominc, besides
the primary idea, suggests  a secondary one of appeal, or address,
which, in our language, is either marked by  its situation in the
sentence,  or by the preposition O preceding it: whence  this
interjection O conveys the idea of appeal joined to the subse-
quent noun, and is  therefore properly another noun, or name
of an idea,  preceding the principal one  like other prepositions.
  The ablative case in the Latin language, as Domino, suggests
a secondary idea of something being deducted from  or by the
primary  one; which is perhaps more  distinctly expressed by
one of those prepositions in our language,  which, as it suggests
somewhat  concerning the adjoined  noun,  is properly another
noun, or name of  an idea, preceding  the  principal one.
  When to these variations  of the  termination of nouns in the
singular number are added those equally numerous of the plural,
and the great  variety of these terminations correspondent to the
three genders, it is evident that the prepositions of our own and 
230
Additional Notes.
other modern languages,  instead of the changes of termination,
add to the simplicity of these languages, and to the facility of
acquiring them.
  Hence, in the Latin language, besides the original  or primary
idea suggested by each noun substantive,  or name of an entire
thing, there attends an additional idea of number,  another of
gender, and another suggested  by each change of termination,
which constitutes the cases; so that in this language four ideas
are  suggested at the same  time by one word;  as the primary
idea, its gender,  number,  and  case; the  latter of  which has
also four  or five varieties.   These nouns,  therefore, may pro-
perly be termed the abbreviation of sentences ; as the conjunc-
tions and prepositions are termed by Mr. Tooke the abbrevia-
tion of  words; and if the  latter  are called the wings affixed
to the feet of Hermes, the former  may  be  called the wings
affixed to his  cap.


       III. Adjectives, Articles, Participles, Adverbs.

  1. The third class of words consists of those which, in their
simplest form, suggests two ideas; one of them is an abstracted
idea of the quality of an object, but not of the object itself; and
the other is an abstracted idea of its appertaining to some other
noun, called a substantive,  or a name of an entire thing.
  These words are termed  Adjectives, are undeclined in our
language in respect to cases, number, or gender; but by three
changes of termination they suggest the   secondary  ideas  of
greater, greatest, and of less;  as the word sweet changes into
sweeter, sweetest, and sweetish; which may be termed three
degrees of comparison besides the positive meaning of the word;
which terminations  of er and est are seldom added to words of
more than two syllables; as those degrees are  then most fre-
quently denoted by the prepositions more and most.
  Adjectives seem,  originally, to have been derived from nouns
substantive,  of which they  express a quality;  as a musky rose,
a beautiful lady, a stormy day.  Some of them are formed from
the correspondent substantive, by adding the syllable  ly,  or like,
as a lovely child, a  warlike countenance ;  and in our language 
          The  Theory and Structure of Language.       231

it is frequently only necessary  to put a hyphen between two
nouns substantive for the purpose of converting the former one
into an adjective, as an eagle-eye, a May-day.  And many of
our adjectives are substantives unchanged,  and only known by
their situation in a  sentence, as a German, or a German gen-
tleman.  Adjectives therefore are names of qualities, or parts
of things, as substantives are the names of entire things.
  In the Latin and  Greek languages these  adjectives possess a
great variety of terminations;  which suggest occasionally the
ideas of number, gender,  and  the various cases  agreeing in
all  these with the substantive,  to which they belong; besides
the two  original  or primary ideas of quality, and  of their ap-
pertaining to some other word, which must be adjoined to make
them sense.  Insomuch that some of the adjectives, when de-
clined through all their  cases,  and genders, and numbers, in
their positive,  comparative, and superlative degrees, enume-
rate fifty or sixty terminations.   All which, to one who wishes
to learn these languages, are so many new words, and add much
to the difficulty of acquiring them.
  Though the English adjectives are undeclined, having neither
case, gender, nor number; and, with this simplicity of form,
possess a degree of comparison by the additional  termination
of ish, more than the generality of  Latin or Greek adjectives;
yet are they less  adapted to poetic measure, as they must ac-
company their corresponding substantives; from which they are
perpetually separated in Greek and Latin poetry.
   2. There is a second kind of adjectives which abound in our
language, and in the Greek, but not in the Latin, which are
called Articles by the writers of grammar, as  the letter a
and the word the.   These,  like the  adjectives above described,
suggest two primary ideas,  and suffer no change of termination
in our language, and therefore suggest no secondary ideas.
  Mr. Locke observes, that languages consist principally of ge-
neral terms ; as it would have been impossible to give a name to
every individual object, so as to communicate an idea of it to
others:  it would be like  reciting the name of every individual
soldier of an army, instead of using the general term, army.
Now, the use of the article a and the in English, and o in Greek,
converts  general terms into particular ones: this idea of parti- 
232
Additional Notes,
cularity, as a quality or property of a noun, is one of the pri-
mary ideas  suggested by these articles; and the otier is,  that
of its appertiining to some particular noun substantive, without
which it is not intelligible.  In both these respects these articles
correspond with adjectives; to which may be added, that our
article a maybe expressed by the adjective one or any; and that
the Greek article o is declined like other adjectives.
  The perpetual use of the article,  besides its converting ge-
neral terms  into particular ones, contributes much to the force
and beauty of our language from another circumstance, that ab-
stracted ideas become so readily personified simply by the omis-
sion of it; which, perhaps, renders the English language better
adapted to poetry than any other, ancient or modern: the fol-
lowing prosopopoeia from Shakspeare is thus beautiful.

       She  let  Concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
       Feed on her damask cheek.

  And the following line,  translated from Juvenal by Dr. John-
son, is much superior to the original, owing to the easy personi-
fication of Worth and Poverty, and  to the consequent concise-
ness of it.

       Difficile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat
       Res  angusta domi.
       Slow rises Worth  by Poverty depress'd.

  3. A third class of adjectives includes what are termed Par-
ticiples, which are allied to  the  infinitive moods of verbs,
and are formed in our language by the addition only of the syl-
lable ing or  ed; and are of two kinds,  active and passive, as
loving, loved, from  the verb  to love.  The verbs suggest an
idea of the noun, or thing  spoken of;  and also of  its manner of
existence, whether at rest, in action, or in being acted upon;
as I lie still,  or  I whip, or I am whipped ; and, lastly, another
idea of the time of resting, acting, or  suffering; but these adjec-
tives called  participles,  suggest only two primary ideas, one of
the noun,  or thing spoken  of,  and another of the  mode of exist-
ence,  but not a  third idea  of time; and in this respect partici- 
           The Theory and Structure of Language.      23S

 pies differ from the verbs,  from which they originate, or which
 originated from them, except in their infinitive moods.
   Nor do they resemble adjectives only in their suggesting but
 two primary ideas ; but in the Latin and Greek languages they
 are declined through all the cases,  genders and numbers, like
 Other adjectives,  and change their terminations in the degrees
 Of comparison.
   In our language^ the participle passive, joined to the verb to
 be, for  the  purpose of adding to it the idea of time, forms the
 whole of the passive  voice, and is frequently  used in a similar
 manner in the Latin language;  as, I am loved, is expressed
 either by amor, or amatus sum.   The construction of the whole
 passive voice from the verb to be, and the participles passive of
 other verbs,  contributes much to the simplicity of our language,
 and the ease of acquiring  it; but renders it less concise  than
 perhaps it might have been by some simple variations of termi-
 nation, as in the active voice  of it.
   4. A  fourth kind of adjective is called by the grammarians
 an Adverb; whicli has generally been formed from  the first
 kind of  adjectives, as these were frequently formed from  cor-
 respondent substantives ; or it has been formed from the third
 kind of adjectives, called  participles; and this is effected  in
 both cases by the addition of  the.syllable  ly, as wisely,  charm-
 ingly.
   This  kind of adjective suggests two primary ideas,  like the
 adjectives and participles  from which they are derived; but
 differ from  them in this curious circumstance, that the other
 adjectives relate to substantives, and are declined like them in
 the Latin and Greek languages, as a lovely boy, a warlike coun-
 tenance : but these relate to verbs, and are therefore undeclined,
 as to act boldly, to suffer patiently.


                        IV.  Verbs,

  The fourth class of words consists  of those which are termed
 Verbs, and which in their simplest  state suggest three ideas:
 1. An idea of the noun,  or name of the thing spoken  of, as a
whip.  2. An idea of its mode  of existence, whether  at rest,
                            •2G 
234                  Additional Notes.
or in action, or in being acted upon.  3.  An idea of the time of
its existence.  Thus, "the beadle whipped the beggar," in pro-
lix language might be expressed, the beadle with a whip struck
in time past the beggar.  Which three ideas are suggested by
the one word whipped.
  Verbs are therefore nouns, or names of entire ideas, with the
additional ideas of their mode of existence  and of time; but
the participles suggest only the noun, and the mode of existence,
without any idea of time ; as whipping or whipped.  The infini-
tive moods of verbs correspond in their signification with the
participles,  as they also suggest only the noun,  or name of the
thing  spoken of, and an idea of its mode of existence, exclud-
ing the idea of time;  which is expressed by all the other moods
and tenses:  whence it appears, that the infinitive  mood,  as well
as the participle, is not truly a part of the verb; but as the par-
ticiple resembles the adjective in its construction,  so the infini-
tive mood may be  said to resemble the substantive; and it is
often used as a nominative case to another verb.
  Thus in the words, " a charming lady with a smiling counte-
nance," the participle acts as an adjective; and  in the  words,
" to talk well commands attention," the infinitive mood  acts as
the nominative case of a noun substantive ; and their respective
significations are  also  very  similar, as  whipping, or to whip,
mean the existence of a person acting with a whip.
  In the Latin language, the  verb, in its simplest  form,  except
the infinitive mood and the participle, both which we mean to
exclude from complete verbs, suggests four primary ideas,  as
amo suggests the pronoun I, the noun love, its existence in  it*
active state, and the present time; which verbs in the Greek and
Latin undergo an uncounted  variation of termination, suggest-
ing so many different ideas in addition to the four primary ones.
  We do not mean to assert that all verbs are literally derived
from nouns in any language ; because all languages have, in pro-
cess of time,  undergone such great variation ;  many nouns hav-
ing become obsolete or have perished, and new verbs have been
imported from foreign languages,  or transplanted  from ancient
ones; but that this has originally been  the construction of  all
verbs, as well as those to Whip and to love above mentioned, and
innumerable others. 
           The Theory and Structure of Language.       235

  Thus there may appear some difficulty in analyzing from what
noun substantive were formed the verbs to stand  or  to lie; be-
cause we have not properly the name of the abstract ideas from
which these verbs arose, except we  use the same word for the
participle and the noun substantive, as standing, lying.  But the
verbs to  sit, and to walk, are less difficult to trace to their ori-
gin ;  as we have names for the nouns substantive, a seat, and a
walk.
  But there  is  another  verb of great  consequence  in all lan-
guages, which would appear in its simplest form in our language
to suggest but two primary ideas, as the verb to be, but that it
suggests  three primary  idea3,  like other verbs may be under-
stood, if  we use the synonimous term to exist instead of to be.
Thus, u  I exist" suggests first the abstract idea of existence, not
including the mode of existence, whether  at rest, or in action,
or in suffering;  secondly, it adds to that abstracted idea of ex-
istence its real state, or actual resting, acting, or suffering, ex-
istence ;  and, thirdly, the idea of the present time: thus, the
infinitive mood to be,  and the participle being, suggest both the
abstract  idea of existence and the actual state of  it,  but not the
time.
  The verb to be is also used irregularly to designate the parts
of time and actual existence; and is then applied to either the
active or passive participles of other verbs, and called an auxi-
liary verb; while the mode of existence, whether at rest, or in
action, or being acted upon, is expressed by the participle, as "I
am loving," is nearly the same as " I love," amo ; and " I am
loved,"  amatus  sum,  is nearly the same as amor.   This mode
of application of the  verb to be is used in French as well as in
English,  and in the passive voice of the Latin,  and perhaps in
many other languages ;  and is by its perpetual use in conversa-
tion rendered irregular in them  all, as I  am, thou  art, he is,
would not seem  to belong to die infinitive mood to be, any more
than sum,  fui, sunt, fuerunt, appear to belong to esse.
  The verb  to  Iiave  affords another instance  of irregular ap-
plication ;  the word means, in its regular sense,  to possess, and
then suggests three ideas, like the above verb of existence; first,
the abstracted idea of the  thing spoken of, or possession:  se-
condly,  the actual existence of possession;  and, lastly, the time, 
236
Additional Notes.
as I have or possess.  This verb to have, like the verb to be, is
also used irregularly to denote parts of past  time, and is then
joined to the passive participles alone,  as I have eaten ; or it is
accompanied with the passive participle of the verb to be, and
then with the active participle of another verb, as I have  been
eating.
  There is another word, will, used in the same irregular man-:
ner to denote the parts of future time, which is derived from the
verb  to will; which,  in its  regular use, signifies to  exert our
volition.  There are other words used to express other circum-
stances attending upon verbs ; as may, can, shall, all which are
probably the remains of verbs otherwise obsolete. Lastly, when
we recollect, that  in the moods and tenses  of verbs one word
expresses never less than three ideas in our language, and many
more in the Greek and Latin; as  besides those three primary
ideas, the idea of person and of number are always expressed
in the indicative mood, and  other  ideas suggested in the other
moods,  we cannot but admire what excellent abbreviations of
language are thus achieved ;  and when we observe the wonder-
ful intricacy and multiplicity of sounds in those languages, espe-
cially in the Greek verbs,  which change both the beginning and
ending  of the original word through three voices, and three
numbers, with  uncounted variations of  dialect, we cannot but
admire the simplicity of modern languages compared to these
ancient ones ;  and must finally perceive, that all language  con-
sists simply of nouns, or names of  ideas, disposed in succession
or in combination, all of which are expressed by separate words,
or by various terminations of the same word.


                         Conclusion.

  The theory of the progressive production of  language in the
early times of society, and its gradual improvements in the more
civilized ones, may be readily induced from the preceding pages.
In the commencement of society the names of the ideas of entire
things, which it was necessary most frequently to communicate,
would first be invented, as the names of individual persons, or
places,  fire, water, this berry, that root:  as  it was necessary 
The Theory and Structure of Layiguage.       237
*   perpetually to announce, whether one or many of such external
   things existed, it was soon found more convenient to add this
   idea of number by a change of termination of the word, than by
   the addition of another word.
     As many of these nouns soon became general terms, as bird,
   beast, fish, animal; it was next convenient to distinguish them
   when used for an individual, from the same  word used as a
   general term  ; whence the  two  articles a and the, in our lan-
   guage, derive their origin.
     Next to these names of the ideas of entire things, the words
   most perpetually wanted in conversation would probably consist
   of the names of the ideas of the parts or properties of things;
   which might  be  derived from the names  of some things, and
   applied to others which, in  these respects, resembled them :
   these are termed adjectives, as rosy cheek, manly voice, beastly
   action ;  and seem at  first  to  have been  formed simply by a
   change of termination of their correspondent substantives.  The
   comparative degrees  of greater  and less were  found  so fre-
   quently necessary to be suggested, that a change of termination
   even in our language for this purpose was produced ; and is as
   frequently* used as an additional word, as wiser, or more wise.
     The expression of general similitude, as well as partial simi-
   litude, becomes so frequently used in conversation, that another
   kind of adjective, called an adverb, was expressed by a change
   of termination, or addition of the syllable  ly, or like;  and as
   adjectives of the former kind  are applied to substantives, and
   express a partial similitude, these are applied  to verbs, and
   express a general similitude, as  to  act heroically,  to speak
   boldly, to think freely.
     The perpetual chain of causes and effects, which  constitute
   the  motions,  or changing configurations of the universe, are so
   conveniently divided into active and passive, for expressing the
   exertions or purposes of common  life, that  it became particu-
   larly convenient in all languages to substitute changes of ter-
   mination, instead of additional nouns, to express whether the
   thing spoken of was in a state of acting or of being acted upon.
   This change  of  termination,  betokening action  or  suffering,
   Constitutes the participle, as loving,  loved;  which,  as it ex- 
238
Additional Notes.
presses a property of bodies, is classed amongst adjectives in
the preceding pages.
  Besides the perpetual allusions to the active or passive state
of things, the comparative times of these motions, or changes,
were also perpetually required  to be expressed;  it was there-
fore found convenient in  all languages to  suggest  them  by
changes of terminations in preference to doing it by additional
nouns.  At the same  time the actual or real  existence of the
thing spoken of was perpetually required, as well as  the times
of their existence,  and the active or passive state of that  ex-
istence.  And as no conversation could be carried on without
unceasingly alluding to these circumstances,  they became in all
languages  suggested by  changes of termination, which  are
termed moods and  tenses in  grammars, and convert the par-
ticiple above mentioned  into a  verb;  as that participle  had
originally been formed by adding a termination to a noun, as
chaining, and chained, from chain.
  The great variety of changes of terminations in all  languages
consists therefore of  abbreviations  used instead of  additional
words; and adds much to the conciseness of language and  the
quickness with which we are enabled to communicate our ideas,
and may be said to add unnumbered wings to every limb of the
God of Eloquence,




             ADDITIONAL NOTE  XV.

        ANALYSIS OF  ARTICULATE  SOUNDS,

         The tongue, the lips articulate; the throat
         With soft vibration modulates the note.
                                  Canto III. 1. 367.

  Having explained in the preceding account of the theory
of language that it consists solely of nouns,  or the names of
ideas,  disposed in succession or combination, I shall now at-
tempt to investigate the number of the articulate sounds which 
               Analysis of Articulate Sounds.           239

constitute those names of ideas by their successions and combi-
nations, and to show by  what parts of the organs  of speech
they are modulated and articulated: whence  maybe deduced
the precise number of letters or symbols necessary to suggest
those sounds,  and form an  alphabet,  which  may  spell with
accuracy the words of all languages.


         I.  Imperfections of the present Alphabet.

  It is much to be lamented, that the alphabet, which has pro-
duced and preserved almost  all the improvements in other arts
and  sciences,  should have  itself received no  improvement in
modern times,  which have added so much elucidation to almost
every branch  of  knowledge that can  meliorate the condition
of humanity.   Thus, in our present alphabets many letters are
redundant, others  are  wanted; some simple articulate sounds
have two letters to suggest  them, and in other  instances two
articulate  sounds  are suggested by one letter.  Some  of these
imperfections  in the alphabet of our  own language shall  be
here enumerated.

X.  Thus the letter x is compounded of ks, or of gz, as in the
     words excellent, example:  eksellent, egzample.
C.  is sometimes k, at other times s, as in the  word access.
G.  is a single  letter in go;  and suggests  the letters d  and the
     French J in pigeon.
Qu is kw, as quality is kwality.
NG in the words long and in king is a simple sound  like the
     French n, and wants a new character.
SH  is a simple sound, arid wants a new character.
TH is either sibilant, as in thigh; or semivocal, as in thee; both
     of which are simple sounds, and want two new characters.
J French exists in our words confiiMon, and conclusion, judge,
     pigeon, and wants a character.
J consonant, in our language, expresses the letters d,  and the
     French j conjoined, as in John, Djon.
CH  is either k, as in  arch-angel'; or is used for a sound com-
     pounded of Tsh, as in Children, Tshildren. 
240
Additional Abtesi
 GL  is dl, as Glove is pronounced by polite people dlovC.
 CL  is tl, as Chloe is pronounced by polite speakers Tloe.

   The spelling of our language, in respect to the pronunciation,
 is also wonderfully defective, though perhaps less so than that
 of the French; as the words slaughter and laughter are pro-
 nounced totally different,  though spelt alike.   The word sough,
 now  pronounced suff,  was formerly called  sow;  whence the
 iron  fused and received into a sough acquired the nairie of sow-
 metal; and that received into less soughs, from  the former
 one,  obtained the name of pigs of iron or of lead;  from the
 pun on the word sough, into  sow and pigs.  Our word jealou-
 sies contains  all the vowels, though three of them  only  were
 necessary;  nevertheless,  in the two words abstemiously and fa-
 cetiously the vowels exist all of them in their usual order, and
 are pronounced in their most usual manner.
   Some of the vowels of our language are  diphthongs, and
 consist of two vocal sounds,  or vowels, pronounced in  quick
 succession;  these diphthongs are discovered by prolonging the
 sound,  and  observing  if the ending of it be different from the
 beginning;  thus the vowel i in our language,  as in the word
 high, if drawn out, ends  in the sound of the letter e as used in
 English; which is expressed  by the letter i in most other lan-
 guages:  and the sound of  this vowel i begins with ah, and con-
 sists therefore of  ah and ee.   Whilst the diphthong ou in our
 language, as in the word  how, begins with  ah also, and  ends
 in oo; and the vowel u of our language, as in the word use, is
 likewise a diphthong;  which begins with e  and ends with oo,
 as eoo. The  French u is also a diphthong compounded of a
and oo, as aoo.  And  many other defects and redundancies in
our alphabet will be seen  by perusing the subsequent structure
of a more perfect one.


                II.  Production of Sounds,

  By our organ of hearing we perceive the  vibrations of the
air; which vibrations  are  performed in more or in less time,
which constitutes  high or  low notes in respect to the gamut; 
               Analysis of Articulate Sounds.           241

but the tone depends on the kind of instrument which produces
them.   In  speaking of articulate sounds, they may be conveni-
ently divided,  first, into  clear continued sounds, expressed by
the letters  called vowels;  secondly,  into hissing  sounds, ex-
pressed by the letters  called sibilants; thirdly, into semi-vocal
sounds,  which consist of a mixture of the two former;  and,
lastly, into interrupted sounds,  represented by the letters pro-
perly termed consonants.
  The clear continued sounds are produced  by the streams of
air passing from the lungs  in respiration through the larynx;
which is furnished  with  many small  muscles, which, by their
action, give a proper tension to the extremity of this tube; and
the sounds,  I  suppose, are produced  by the opening and clos-
ing  of  its  aperture;  something  like the trumpet-stop  of  an
organ, as may be observed by blowing through the wind-pipe
of a dead goose.
  These sounds would all  be nearly similar,  except in their
being an octave or two  higher or lower; but they are  modu-
lated again, or acquire various tones, in their passage through
the mouth; which thus converts them into eight vowels, as will
be explained below.
   The  hissing  sounds are  produced by  air  forcibly pushed
through certain passages of the mouth, without being previously
rendered sonorous by the  larynx;   and obtain their sibilancy
from their slower  vibrations, occasioned by the mucous mem-
brane  which lines those  apertures or  passages  being less  tense
than that of the larynx.   I suppose the stream of air is in both
cases frequently interrupted by the closing of the sides or mouth
of the passages or  aperture; but that this is performed much
slower  in  the production of sibilant  sounds than in the pro-
duction of clear ones.
   The semi-vocal sounds are produced by the stream  of  air
 having received quick vibrations, or clear sound,  in passing
 through the larynx, or  in the cavity of  the mouth;  but  a part
 of  it,  as the outsidcs of this sonorous  current of air, after-
 w ards receives slower ribrations, or hissing sound, from some
 other passages of the lips or mouth, through which it then flows.
 Lastly, the  stops or consonants impede the current of air,
 whether sonorous or sibilant, for a perceptible time; and pro- 
342
Additional Notes.
bably produce some change of .tone in the act of opening  and
closing their apertures.
  There are other clear sounds besides  those formed by the
larynx:  some of them  are formed in the mouth,  as may be
heard previous to the enunciation of the letters  b,  and d,  and
ga;  or during the pronunciation of the semi-vocal letters v, z,
j, and others in sounding the liquid letters r and 1:  these sounds
we shall term orisonance.   The other clear sounds are formed
in the nostrils, aS in  pronouncing the liquid letters m, n, and
ng: these we shall term narisonance.
  Thus the clear sounds,  except those above mentioned,  are
formed in the larynx along with the musical height or lowness
of note;  but receive afterward a variation of  tone from  the
various passages of the mouth: add  to these, that as the sibi-
lant sounds consist of vibrations slower than those formed by
the  larynx, so a whistling through the lips consists of vibra-
tions quicker than those formed by the larynx.
   As all  sound consists in  the vibrations of the air, it may not
be disagreeable to the reader  to attend to the immediate causes
of those vibrations.   When any sudden impulse is given to an
elastic fluid, like the air, it acquires a progressive motion of the
whole,  and a condensation of the constituent particles, which
first receive the  impulse: on this account, the currents of the
atmosphere in stormy seasons are never regular, but blow  and
cease to blow by intervals; as a part of the moving  stream is
condensed by the projectile force;  and  the  succeeding part,
being consequently rarefied, requires some time to recover its
density,  and to follow  the former part:  this elasticity of the
air is likewise the cause of innumerable eddies in it, which are
much more frequent than in streams of  water; as when  it is
impelled  against.any oblique  plane,  it results with its elastic
force added to its progressive  one.
   Hence, when a vacuum is formed in the atmosphere, the sides
of the cavity forcibly rush together, both by the general pressure
of the superincumbent air, and by the expansion of the elastic
particles of it,  and thus produce a vibration of the atmosphere
to a considerable distance : this occurs, whether this  vacuity of
air be occasioned by the discharge of cannon, in which the air
is displaced by the sudden evolution of heat, which  as  suddenly 
               Analysis of Articulate Sounds.            243

vanishes; or whether the vacuity be left by a vibrating string,
as it returns from each side of the arc in which it vibrates; or
whether it be left under the lid of the valve in the trumpet-stop
of an organ  ; or of a child's play-trumpet, which continues per-
petually to open and close,  when air is blown through it;  which
is caused by the elasticity of the currents, as it occasions the
pausing gusts of wind mentioned above.
  Hence, when a quick current of air is suddenly broken by any
intervening body,  a vacuum is produced by the momentum of the
proceeding current, between it and the intervening body,  as be-
neath the valve of the trumpet-stop above mentioned; and a vi-
bration is, in consequence, produced ; which, with the great faci-
lity which elastic fluids possess of forming eddies, may explain
the production  of sounds, by  blowing through a fissure upon a
sharp edge  in a common organ-pipe or  child's whistle;  which
has always appeared  difficult  to resolve; for the less vibration
an  organ-pipe  itself  possesses, the more  agreeable, I am in-
formed,  is the tone ; as the tone is produced by the vibration of
the air in the  organ-pipe,  and not by  that of the sides  of it;
though the latter, when it exists, may alter the tone though not
the note, like the belly of a harpsichord or violin.
   When a stream of air is blown on the edge of the aperture of
an organ-pipe, about  two-thirds of it are believed to pass on the
outside of this  edge,  and one-third to pass on the inside of it;
but this current of air on the inside forms an eddy, whether the
bottom of the pipe be closed or not; which eddy returns upwards,
and strikes  by quick intervals against the original stream of air,
as it falls on the edge of the aperture, and forces outwards this
current  of air with quick  repetitions, so as to make more than
two-thirds of it, and less than two-thirds alternately pass on the
outside: whence a part  of this stream of air, on each side of
the edge of the aperture, is perpetually stopped by that edge,
and thus a  vacuum and vibration, in consequence, are recipro-
cally produced on each side of the edge of the aperture.
   The quickness or slowness of these vibrations constitute the
higher and lower note^ of music, but they all of them are propa-
gated to distant places in the same time; as  the low notes of a
distant ring of bells are heard in equal times with the higher
 ones: hence, in speaking at a distance from the auditors, thg 
244
Additional Notes,
 clear sounds produced in the larynx, by the quick vibrations of
 its aperture, which form  the vowels;  the tremulous sounds of
 the L, R, M, N, NG, which are owing to vibrations of certain
 apertures of the mouth and nose,  and  are so slow, that the in-
 tervals between them are  perceived; the sibilant sounds, which
 I suppose are occasioned by the air not  rushing into a complete
 vacuum, whence the vibrations produced are defective  in velo-
 city ; and,  lastly, the very high notes made by the quickest vi-
 brations of the lips in whistling; are all heard in due succession
•without confusion; as the progressive motions of all sounds I be-
 lieve travel with equal velocity, notwithstanding the greater or
 less quickness of their vibrations.


           III. Structure  of the  Alphabet.

     Mute and antesonant Consonants, and nasal Liquids.

 P.   If the lips be pressed close together, and some air be con-
      densed in the mouth behind them, on opening the lips the
      mute consonant P begins a syllable: if  the  lips be closed
      suddenly during the passage of a current of air through
      them,  the  air becomes condensed in the mouth behind
      them, and the mute  consonant P terminates a syllable.
 B.  If in  the  above situation of the lips a sound is previously
     produced in the mouth, which may be termed orisonance,
     the semisonant consonant B is produced, which,  like the
     letter P above described, may begin or terminate a Syllable.
 M. In the above situation of the lips,  if a sound is  produced
     through the nostrils, which sound is termed narisonance,
     the nasal letter M is formed; the sound of which may be
     lengthened in pronunciation like those of the vowels.
 T. If the point of the tongue be applied to the fore part of the
     palate, at the roots of the upper teeth, and some air con-
     densed in the mouth behind,  on  withdrawing the tongue
     downwards the mute consonant T is formed; which  may
     begin or terminate a syllable.
 D. If the tongue be placed as above described, and a sound be
     previously  produced in the mouth, the semisonant  con- 
               Analysis of Articulate Sounds.            245

     sonant D is formed; whicli may begin or terminate a syl-
     lable.
 N. If in the above situation of the tongue and palate the sound
     be produced through the nostrils, the nasal letter  N  is
     formed; the sound of which may be elongated like those  of
     the vowels.
 K. If the point of the tongue be retracted,  and applied to the
     middle part of the palate, and  some air condensed in the
     mouth behind, on withdrawing the tongue downwards, the
     mute consonant K is produced;  which may begin or ter-
     minate a syllable.
 G a. If in the above  situation of the tongue and palate a sound
     be previously produced in the mouth behind, the semiso-
     nant consonant G is formed, as pronounced in the word go,
     and may begin or terminate a syllable.
NG. If in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound
     be produced  through  the nostrils,  the  nasal letter n g  is
     produced, as in king and throng; which is  the French  n,
     the sound of which may be elongated  like a vowel, and
     should have an appropriated character, as thus V.
  Three of these letters, P, T, K, are stops  to  the stream  of
vocal air,  and are called mutes by grammarians ; three, B, D,
Ga, are preceded by a little orisonance ;  and three, M, N, NG,
possess  continued narisonance,  and have been called liquids by
grammarians.


                Sibilants and  So?iisibilants,

 W. Of the Germans: if the lips be appressed together,  as  in
     forming the  letter P,  and air from the mouth be forced
     between them,  the   W  sibilant  is produced,  as pro-
     nounced by the Germans, and by some of die inferior peo-
     ple of London,  and ought to have an appropriated cha-
     racter, as thus  \\.
 \\". If in the above situation of the lips a sound be produced  in
     the mouth, as in the letter B,  and  the sonorous air be
     forced  between  them,  the sonisibilant  letter W is pro-
     duced;  which is  the common W of our language. 
246
Additional Notes.
 F.  If the lower lip be appressed to the edges of the upper
     teeth, and air from the mouth  be  forced  between them,
     the sibilant letter F is formed.
 V.  If in the above  situation  of the lip and teeth a sound be
     produced in the mouth,  and the sonorous air be forced
     between them, the sonisibilant letter V is formed.
Th.  Sibilant.   If the point of the tongue be placed between the
     teeth, and air from the  mouth be forced between them,
     the Th sibilant is produced, as in thigh, and  should have
     a proper character, as <J>                        •
Th.  Sonisibilant.  If in the above situation of the tongue and
     teeth a sound be produced in the mouth, and the sonorous
     air be forced between them, the sonisibilant Th is  formed,
     as  in Thee,  and should have an appropriate character,
     as  9.
 S.  If the point of the tongue be appressed to the fore part of
     the palate, as in forming  the letter T,  and air from the
     mouth be forced between them, the sibilant letter  S is
     produced.
 Z.  If in the above situation of the tongue and palate a sound
     be produced in the mouth, as in the letter D, and the sono-
     rous air be forced between them, the sonisibilant letter Z
     is formed.
SH.  If the point of the tongue be retracted and applied to the
     middle part of the palate, as in forming the letter K, and
     air from the mouth be forced between them, the letter Sh
     is produced, which is a simple sound, and ought to have a
     single character, thus y.
  J.  French.  If in the  above situation of the tongue and palate
     a sound be produced in  the mouth, as in the letter Ga,
     and the sonorous air be forced between them,  the J con-
     sonant of the French is formed; which is a sonisibilant let-
     ter, as in the word conclusion, confusion, pigeon: it should
     be called Je, and should have a different character  from
     the vowel i, with which it has an analogy, as thus v.
 H,  If the back part of the tongue be appressed to the pendu-
     lous curtain of the palate and uvula, and  air from behind
     be forced between them,  the .sibilant letter H  is produced.
 Ch. Spanish.  If in the above situation of the tongue and palate 
                Analysis of Articulate Sounds.           247

     a sound be produced behind,  and  the sonorous  air be
     forced between them, the Ch Spanish is formed; which is a
     sonisibilant letter, the same as the Ch Scotch in the words
     Buchanan and locA; it is also perhaps the Welch guttural
     expressed by their double L, as in Lloyd, Lluellen : it is a
     simple sound, and ought to have a single character, as X.
  The sibilant and  sonisibilant  letters may be elongated in pro-
nunciation, like the vowels; the sibilancy is probably occasioned
by the  vibrations of the air being slower than those of the lowest
musical notes.   I  have preferred the  word sonisibilants to the
word semi-vocal sibilants, as the sounds of these sonisibilants are
formed in different apertures of the mouth,  and not  in  the
larynx, like the vowels.

                     Orisonant Liquids,

 R.  If the point of the tongue be appressed to the fore part of
     the palate, as in forming the letters T, D, N, S,  Z, and
     air be pushed between them,  so  as  to produce continued
     sound, the letter R is formed.
 L.  If the retracted tongue be appressed to the middle of the
     palate, as in forming the letters K, Ga, NG, Sh, J French,
     and air be pushed over its edges, so as to produce continued
     sound, the letter L is formed.
  The nasal letters m, n, and ng, are clear  tremulous sounds
like R  and L, and have all of them been called liquids by gram-
marians.   Besides  the R  and  L,  above described,  there is
another orisonant sound produced by the lips  in whistling;
which  is not used in this country as a part of language, and has,
therefore, obtained no  character, but is analogous to the R and
L; it is also possible that another orisonant letter may be  formed
by the back part of the tongue and back part of the palate, as
in pronouncing H and Ch,  which may, perhaps,  be the Welch
 LI in Lloyd, Lluellen.

                   Four Pairs  of Vowels.

  A pronounced like au, as in the word call.  If the aperture,
made by approximating the back part of the tongue to the uvula 
248
Additional Notes.
 and pendulous curtain of the palate, as in forming the sibilant
 letter H, and the sonisibilant letter Ch Spanish, be enlarged just
 so much as to prevent sibilancy, and a continued sound produced
 by the larynx be modulated in passing through it,  the letter A
 is  formed; as in ball, wall,  which is sounded like aw in  the
 word awkward; and is the most  usual sound of the letter A in
 foreign languages;  and to distinguish it from the succeeding A,
 might be  called A micron; as  the aperture of the fauces,
 where it is produced, is less  than in1:he next A.
   A pronounced like ah,  as in the  word hazard.  If the aper-
 ture of the fauces above described, between the back part of the
 tongue and the back part  of the palate,  be enlarged as much as
 convenient, and a continued sound, produced in the larynx, be
 modulated in  passing through it,  the letter A is formed; as in
 animal, army, and ought  to have an appropriated character in
 our language, as thus y.   As this letter A is formed by a larger
 aperture than the former  one, it may be called A mega.
  A pronounced as in the words cake, ale.   If the retracted
 tongue, by approximation  to the middle part of the palate, as in
 forming the letters R,Ga,  NG, Sh, J French, L, leaves an  aper-
 ture just so large as to prevent sibilancy,  and sonorous air from
 the larynx be modulated in passing through it, the letter A is
 produced; as pronounced  in the words whale, sale, and ought to
 have an appropriated character in our language, as thus 9>: this
 is expressed by the letter E in some modern languages, and
 might be termed E micron, as it is formed by a less aperture of
 the mouth than the succeeding E.
  E pronounced like the vowel a, when short, as in the words
emblem, dwelling. If the aperture above described, between the
retracted tongue and the  middle of the palate, be  enlarged as
much as convenient, and sonorous air from the larynx be modu-
lated in passing through it, the letter E is formed; as in the words
egg, herring, and as it is pronounced in most foreign languages,
and might be called E mega,  to distinguish it from  the preced-
ing E.
  I pronounced like e in keel.  If the point  of the tongue, by
approximation to the fore  part of  the palate, as in forming the
letters T, D, N, S, Z, R, leaves an aperture just so large as to
prevent sibilancy, and sonorous air from  the  larynx be modu- 
               Analysis of Articulate Sounds,            249,

 lated in  passing through it, the vowel I is produced,  whicli is,
 in our language, generally represented by e when long, as in the
 word keel;  and by i when short, as in the word it, which is the
 sound of this letter in most foreign languages, and may be called
 E micron, to distinguish it from the succeeding E or Y.
  Y, when it begins a word, as in youth.  If the aperture above
 described,  between the point of the tongue and the fore part of
 the palate, be enlarged as much as convenient,  and sonorous air
 from the larynx be modulated in passing through it, the letter Y
is formed;  which, when it begins  a word, has been called Y
consonant by some, and by others has been thought only a quick
pronunciation of our e, or the i of foreign languages ;  as in the
word year, yellow, and may be termed E mega, as it  is formed
by a larger aperture than the preceding e or i.
  O pronounced like oo, as in the word fool. If the lips, by ap-
proximation to each other,  as in forming the letters P,  B, M, W
sibilant, W sonisibilant, leave an aperture just  so wide as to
prevent sibilancy,  and sonorous air from the larynx  be modu-
lated in  passing through it, the letter O is formed;  as in the
Words cool, school, and ought to have an appropriated character,
 as thus oo,  and may be termed O micron, to distinguish it from
the succeeding o.
 . O pronounced as in the word cold.  If the aperture above de-
 scribed, between the approximated lips, be enlarged as much as
 convenient, and sonorous air  from the larynx be  modulated in
passing through it, the latter O is formed; as in sole, coal, which
 may be termed O mega, as it is formed in a larger aperture than
the preceding one.

                        Conclusion,

  The alphabet appears from this  analysis of it  to consist of
thirty-one letters, which spell all European languages.
  Three mute consonants,  P, T, K.
  Three antesonant consonants,  B, D,  Ga.
  Three narisonant liquids, M, N, NG.
  Six sibilants,  W German, F, Th, S, Sh, H.
  Six sonisibilants, W, V, Th, Z, J French, Ch Spanish.
  Two orisonant liquids, R, L. 
350                  Additional Notes*
  Eight vowels, Aw,  ah, a, e, i, y,  oo, o.
  To these thirty-one characters might perhaps be added one
for the Welsh L, and another for whistling with the lips; and it
is possible, that some savage nations, whose languages are said
to abound with  gutturals, may pronounce  a mute consonant as
well as an antesonant one, and perhaps another narisonant let-
ter, by appressing the back part of the tongue to the back part
of the palate, as in pronouncing  the H, and Ch Spanish.
  The philosophical reader will perceive that these thirty-one
sounds might be expressed by fewer characters referring to the
manner of their production: as suppose  one character was ta
express the antesonance of B, D, Ga ; another the orisonance
of R, L;  another the sibilance  of W, S,  Sh,  H;  another  the
sonisibilance of W, Z, J French, Ch Spanish; another to express*
the more open vowels ; another the less open vowels, for which
the word micron is here used, and for which the word mega is
here used.
  Then the following characters only might be necessary ta
express them all:  P alone, or with antesonance B;  with nariso-
nance  M; with sibilance W German; with sonisibilance W;
with vocality, termed micron OO; with vocality, termed mega.
O.
  T alone, or with the above characters added to it, would, in
the same manner, suggest D, N, S,  Z, EE, Y,  and R with a
mark for orisonance.
  K alone, or with the additional characters, would suggest Ga>
NG, Sh, J French, A, E,  and L with a mark for orisonance.
  F alone, or with a mark for sonisibilance, V.
  Th alone, or with a mark for sonisibilance, Th.
  H alone, or with a mark for  sonisibilance, Ch Spanish, and
with a mark for less open vocality, aw; with another for more
open vocality, ah.
  Whence it appears  that six single characters, for the letters
P,  T, K, F, Th, H, with seven additional marks joined to
them for antesonance, narisonance, orisonance, sibilance, soni-
sibilance,  less  open vocality, and more  open  vocality,  being
in all but thirteen characters, may spell all the European lan-
guages.
  I have found more difficulty in analyzing the vowels than the 
                Analysis of Articulate Sounds.           251

 other letters, as the apertures through which they are modu-
 lated <!o not close;  and it was therefore less easy to ascertain,
 exactly, in what part of die mouth they were modulated; but
 recollecting that those parts of the mouth must be more ready
 to use for the purpose of forming the vowels, which were in the
 habit of being exerted in forming the other letters, I rolled up
 some tin-foil into cylinders about the size  of my finger, and
Speaking the vowels separately through them, found, by the im-
 pressions made on them, in what part of the mouth each of the
 vowels was  formed, With  somewhat greater accuracy,  but not
so as perfectly to satisfy myself.
  The parts of the mouth appeared to mc to be those in which
the letters P,  I,  K, and H, are produced; as those where the
 letters F and Th are formed  do not suit the production  of
mute or antesonant consonants;  as the interstices of the teeth
would occasion some sibilance;  and  these apertures  are not
 adapted to the formation of vowels on the same account.
  The two first vowels, aw and ah, being modulated in the back
part of the  mouth, it is necessary  to open  wide the lips and
other passages of the mouth  in pronouncing them, that those
 passages may not again alter their tone, and that more so in
 pronouncing" ah  than  aw, as the  aperture of  the fauces  is
 opened wider where it is formed; and from the greater or less
 size of these apertures used  in forming the vowels  by different
persons, the tone of all of them may be somewhat altered,  as
 spoken by different orators.
  I have treated, with greater confidence, on the formation of
 articulate sounds, as I many years ago gave considerable atten-
 tion to this subject, for the purpose of improving short-hand:  at
 that time I contrived a wooden  mouth with lips of  soft leather,
 and with a  valve over the  back part of it for  nostrils, both
 which could be quickly opened or closed by the pressure of the
 fingers; the vocality was given by a silk ribbon about  an inch
 long, and a quarter of an inch wide, stretched between two bits
 of smooth wood, a little hollowed, so that when a gentle current
 of air from a bellows was blown on the edge of the  ribbon,  it
 gave an agreeable  tone,  as it vibrated between the wooden
 sides, much like a human voice.   This  head pronounced the
 p, b, m, and  the vowel a, with  so  great nicety, as to deceive 
252
Additional Notes,
all who heard it unseen, when it pronounced the words mama}
papa,  map, and pam;  and had a most plaintive tone when the
lips were gradually closed.  My  other  occupations prevented
me from proceeding in the further construction of this machine;
which might have required but thirteen movements, as shown
in the above analysis, unless some variety of musical note was
to be  added to the vocality produced in the larynx; all of which
movements might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord
or forte piano, and perform the song as well as the accompani-
ment ; or which, if built in a gigantic form, might speak  so
loud as to command an army or instruct a crowd.
  I conclude this with an agreeable hope,  that  now war is
ceased, the active and ingenious of all nations will attend  again
to those sciences which better the condition of human nature;
and that the alphabet will undergo a perfect reformation, which
may,  indeed, make it  more difficult to trace the etymologies
of words, but will  much facilitate the acquisition of modern
languages; which, as science improves and becomes more ge-
nerally diffused,  will gradually become more distinct and accu-
rate than the ancient  ones, as metaphors will cease to  be
necessary in conversation, and only be used as  the ornament?
of poetry.
f HE END. 
                        CONTENTS

                              OF THE

              ADDITIONAL  NOTES.


 NOTE  I—SPONTANEOUS VITALITY OF MICROSCOPIC
                           ANIMALS.

I. SPONTANEOUS vital production  not contrary to scripture; to ba
looked for only in the simplest organic beings; supposed want of ana-
logy no argument against it, as this equally applies to all new discoveries.
II. The power of reproduction distinguishes organic beings,  which are
gradually enlarged and improved by it.   III. Microscopic animals pro-
duced  from all  vegetable and  animal infusions; generate others like
themselves by solitary reproduction;  not produced from eggs; conferva
fontinalis;  mucor.  I'll.  Theory of spontaneous vitality.  Animal nu-
trition ;  vegetable; some organic particles have appetencies to  unite,
others propensities to be united; buds  of trees; sexual  reproduction;
analogy between generation and nutrition; laws of elasticity not under-
stood ; dead animalcules  recover life by  heat and moisture; chaos redi-
vivum; vorticella;  shell  snails; eggs and seeds; hydra.  Classes  of mi-
croscopic animals.  General remarks.


       NOTE II.—FACULTIES  OF THE  SENSORIUM,

   Fibres possess a power of contraction; spirit of animation immediate
cause of their  contracting;  stimulus of external bodies the remote cause;
stimulus produces  irritation;  due contraction occasions pleasure; too
much, or too  little, pain; sensation produces desire or aversion,  which
constitute volition ; associated motions;  irritation; sensation; volition;
association; sensorium.


                   NOTE III.—VOLCANOES.

   Their explosions occasioned by water falling on boiling lava; primeval
 earthquakes of  great extent; more elastic vapours might raise islands
 and continents, or even throw the  moon from the earth;  stones  falling
 from  the  sky; earthquake at Lisbon;  subterraneous fires  under this
 island. 
 254     CONTENTS OF THE ADDITIONAL NOTES.


                    NOTE IV.—MUSQUITO.

   The larva lives chiefly in water; it  may be driven  away by smoke \
 gnats; libellula; aestros bovis; botts; musca chamsekon; vomitoria.


             NOTE V.—AMPHIBIOUS  ANIMALS.

   Diodon  has both lungs and gills;  some amphibious quadrupeds have
 the foramen  ovale open; perhaps it may be kept open in dogs by fre-
 quent immersion so as to render them amphibious; pearl divers; dis-
 tinctions of amphibious animals; lamprey; leech; re mora ; whale.


         NOTE VI.—HIEROGLYPHIC CHARACTERS.

   Used  by the magi of Egypt to record discoveries in science and his-
 torical events; astrology an early superstition; universal characters de-
 sirable ; Grey's Memoria Technica; Bergeret's Botanical Nomenclature;
 Bishop Wilkins's real Character and Philosophical Language.


            NOTE VII.—OLD AGE AND  DEATH.

   I. Immediate cause of the infirmities of age not yet well ascertained;
 must  be sought in the  laws of animal excitability; debility induced by
 inactivity of  many parts of  the  system;  organs of sense become less
 excitable; this ascribed to habit;  may arise from deficient secretion of
 Sensorial power; all parts of the  system not changed as we advance in
 life.  II. Means of preventing old age; warm bath; fishes; cold-blooded
 amphibious animals; fermented  liquors injurious;  also want  of heat,
 food,  and fresh air; variation of stimuli; volition; activity. III. Theory
 of the approach of age; surprise; novelty; why  contagious diseases
 affect  a person but once; debility; death.

               NOTE VIII.—REPRODUCTION.

  I. Distinguishes animation from mechanism; solitary and sexual;
buds and bulbs; aphides; taenia; volvox; polypus; oyster; eel; herma-
phrodites.  II. Sexual.  III.  Inferior vegetables and animals propagate
by solitary  generation  only; next order  by  both; superior by sexual
generation alone.   IV.  Animals  are improved by reproduction; conta-
 gious diseases; reproduction a mystery. 
         CONTENTS OF THE ADDITIONAL NOTES-     255


                      NOTE IX.—STORGE.

   Pelicans; pigeons;  instincts of animals acquired by a previous state;
and transmitted by tradition;  parental love originates from pleasure.


            NOTE X.—EVE FROM ADAM'S RIB.

   Mosaic history of Paradise supposed by some to be an allegory; Egyp-
tian philosophers, and others,  supposed mankind to have been originally
of both sexes united.           ,


            NOTE XL—HEREDITARY  DISEASES.

   Most  affect the offspring of solitary  reproduction; grafted  trees,
strawberries, potatoes; changing seed; intermarriages; hereditary dis-
eases owing  to  indulgence in fermented  liquors;  immoderate use of
common salt; improvement of progeny; hazardous to marry an heiress


NOTE XII.—CHEMICAL THEORY OF ELECTRICITY AND
                         MAGNETISM.

   I.  Attraction and  repulsion.  II. Two kinds of electric ether;  at-
mospheres of electricity surround all separate bodies;  atmospheres of
similar kinds repel, of different kinds attract each other strongly; ex-
plode on uniting; non-conductors; imperfect conductors; perfect con-
ductors ; torpedo, gymnotus, Galvanism.   III. Effect of metallic points^
IV.  Accumulation of electric ethers by contact. V. By vicinity; Volta's
Electrophorus and Bennet's  Doubler.  VI. By heat and by decomposi-
tion; the tourmalin;  cats; Galvanic pile; evaporation of water. VII.
T he spark from the  conductor; electric  light;  not accounted for by
 Franklin's theory.   VIII.  Shock from a coated  jar; perhaps an unre-
strainable ethereal fluid yet  unobserved; electric  condensation.  IX.
 Galvanic electricity.   X. Two magnetic ethers;  analogy between mag-
 netism and electricity; differences between them.  XI. Conclusion.


             NOTE XIII.—ANALYSIS OF  TASTE.

   Taste may signify the pleasures received by any of the senses, but
 not those which simply attend perception;  four sources of pleasure in 
256     CONTENTS OF THE ADDITIONAL NOTES.

vision.  I. Novelty or infrequency of visible objects; surprise.   II. Re.
petition; beating of a drum; dancing;  architecture;  landscapes; pictu-
resque; beautiful; romantic;  sublime.   III. Melody of colours.  IV.
Association of agreeable sentiments with visible objects;  vision tha
language of touch;  sentiment of beauty.


NOTE XIV.—THEORY AND STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE.

   Ideas;  words the names or symbols of ideas.  I.  Conjunctions and
prepositions;  abbreviations of  other  words.   II. Nouns substantive.
III.   Adjectives, articles, participles, adverbs.  IV. Verbs; progressive
production of language.


   NOTE  XV.—ANALYSIS OF ARTICULATE  SOUNDS.

   I. Imperfections  of the present  alphabet; of our  orthography.  II.
Production  of sounds.  III. Structure of the alphabet;  mute and ante-
sonant consonants,  and nasal  liquids;  sibilants and sonisibilants; oriso-
nant  liquids;  four  pairs of vowels;  alphabet consists of thirty-one
letters; speaking figure.
                           ERRATA.

Page 58, line 15, for  " destory" read destroy.
     71,      9, (in a small part of the edition) for " he" read the.
    139,      4, for "  Canto I. 1. 227," read Canto I. 1. 247. 
 
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