PREFACE.
The Poem, which is here offered to the Public, does not pretend to instruct by deep researches of reasoning; its aim is simply to amuse by bringing distinctly to the imagination 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 mythology, are introduced, as the Author hopes, without impropriety into his account of those remote periods of human society.
In the Eleusinian mysteries the philosophy 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,
Jan. 1, 1802.
ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.
CANTO I.
PRODUCTION OF LIFE.
CONTENTS.
[I.] 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 Sculpture [75]. Proteus bound by Menelaus [83]. Bowers of Pleasure [89]. School of Venus [97]. Court of Pain [105]. Den of Oblivion [113]. Muse of Melancholy [121]. Cave of Trophonius [125]. Shrine of Nature [129]. Eleusinian Mysteries [137]. [III]. Morning [155]. Procession of Virgins [159]. Address to the Priestess [167]. Descent of Orpheus into Hell [185]. [IV]. Urania [205]. God the First Cause [223]. Life began beneath the Sea [233]. Repulsion, Attraction, Contraction, 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]. Vegetables and Animals improve by Reproduction [295]. Have all arisen from Microscopic Animalcules [303]. Rocks of Shell and Coral [315]. Islands and Continents raised by Earthquakes [321]. Emigration of Animals from the Sea [327]. Trapa [335]. 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.