Part 9

"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.

[Footnote: _Born to new life_, l. 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 reanimated; which by increasing the number and quantity of living organizations, though many of them exist but for a short time, adds to the sum total of terrestrial happiness.]

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

[Footnote: _Thus sainted Paul_, l. 403. The doctrine of St. Paul teaches the resurrection of the body in an incorruptible and glorified state, with consciousness of its previous existence; he therefore justly exults over the sting of death, and the victory of the grave.]

"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

[Footnote: _And lights the dawn_, l. 410. The sum total of the happiness of organized nature is probably increased rather than diminished, when one large old animal dies, and is converted into many thousand young ones; which are produced or supported with their numerous progeny by the same organic matter. Linneus 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, by age oppress'd, Consumes delighted on his spicy nest; A filial Phoenix from his ashes springs, Crown'd with a star, on renovated wings; Ascends exulting from his funeral flame, And soars and shines, another and the same.

[Footnote: _So when Arabia's bird_, l. 411. The story of the Phoenix 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 Botan. Garden, Vol. I.

## Canto IV. l. 389.]

"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.

[Footnote: _So erst the Sage_, l. 417. It is probable, that the perpetual transmigration of matter from one body to another, of all vegetables and animals, during their lives, as well as after their deaths, was observed by Pythagoras; 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 benevolence, as all creatures thus became related to each other.]

"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,-- 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.

[Footnote: _The marble mountain_, l. 431. From the increased knowledge in Geology during the present century, owing to the greater attention of philosophers to the situations of the different materials, which compose the 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 consisted of granite; and that on this the great beds of limestone were formed from the shells of marine animals during the innumerable primeval 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 surface of the sea by the recrements of vegetables and of terrestrial animals; see on this subject Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Additional Note XXIV.]

"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 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!--

[Footnote: _Are mighty monuments_, l. 450. The reader is referred to a few pages on this subject in Phytologia, Sect. XIX. 7. 1, where the felicity of organic life is considered more at large; but it is probable that the most 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 powers 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.]

[Footnote: _How Life increasing_, l. 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 monuments 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 succession 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 bodies, 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!]

"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 ailes; 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, Thread the broad arch, ascend the winding steep; Through brazen gates along susurrant ailes Stream round their GODDESS the successive files; Curve above curve to golden seats retire, And star with beauty the refulgent quire. 480

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.

[Footnote: _To Chaos next_, l. 489.

Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta Semina terrarumque, animaeque, marisque fuissent; Et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis. VIRG. EC. VI. l. 31.]

Sublimer notes record CELESTIAL LOVE, And high rewards in brighter climes above; 500 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 guilty 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 aile to aile 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 DIVINE! 524

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. 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 Latitudes. 372 Venus rising from the Sea. 392 The Fetus in the Womb. 417 Animals from the Mud of the Nile.

## CANTO II.

1 Shortness of Life. 3 Old Age surprising. 39 Organic and chemical Properties. 43 Immortality of Matter. 47 Adonis emblem of Life. 71 The Truffle, Lycoperdon. 83 Volvox. 85 Polypus. 87 Taenia. 89 Oysters. 90 Coral-Insect. 114 Female Sex produced. 118 Power of Imagination. 122 Mankind were formerly Hermaphrodites and Quadrupeds. 167 Hereditary Diseases of Vegetables. 223 Psyche and Cupid. 268 Some Honey poisonous. 271 Appetency and Propensity. 280 Vallisneria. 288 Lampyris. 302 Insects from Anthers and Stigmas. 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. 434 Of Smiles, and of Laughter.

## CANTO III.

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 Female Bosom. 230 Taste for Sublimity. 237 Poetic Melancholy. 246 Taste for Tragedy. 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 imitate 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 Mankind. 456 If Knowledge produces Happiness. 466 Sympathy the source of Virtue. 485 Maxim of Socrates.

## CANTO IV.

29 Oestrus or Gadfly. 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 Landscape. 178 Pleasure from Music. 242 Ancient Orators spoke disrespectfully of the mechanic Philosophers. 270 Influence of Printing. 299 Associated ideas of three Classes. 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.

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

SPONTANEOUS VITALITY OF MICROSCOPIC ANIMALS.

Hence without parent by spontaneous birth Rise the first specks of animated earth.

## CANTO I. l. 227.

_Prejudices against this doctrine._

I. From the misconception of the ignorant or superstitious, it has been thought somewhat profane to speak in favour of spontaneous 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 improvement; 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 difference in infinity of power!

Another prejudice which has prevailed against the spontaneous production of vitality, seems to have arisen from the misrepresentation of this doctrine, as if the larger animals had been thus produced; as Ovid supposes after the deluge of Deucalion, that lions were seen rising out of the mud of the Nile, and struggling to disentangle their hinder parts. It was not considered, that animals and vegetables have been perpetually improving 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 others by solitary reproduction rather more perfect than themselves 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 complicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired their present perfection by successive generations during an uncounted series of ages. Add to this, that the want of analogy opposes the credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic needle, and coated electric jar, and Galvanic pile; which should therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated before distinct credence is given them; but then the want of analogy must at length yield to repeated ocular demonstration.

_Preliminary observations._

II. Concerning the spontaneous production of the smallest microscopic 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 reproduction 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 generation, 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 perhaps 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 second year than the first, and thus improve till they acquire flowers or sexes; and the aphis, I believe, increases in bulk to the eighth or ninth generation, and then produces a sexual progeny. 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 reproductions.

_Experimental facts._

III. By the experiments of Buffon, 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 gentlemen 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 without sex; and these gradually enlarging and improving for innumerable successive generations. Mr. Ellis in Phil. Transact. V. 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 motions 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. II. These eels were probably at first as minute as other microscopic animalcules; but by frequent, perhaps hourly reproduction, have gradually become the large animals above described, possessing wonderful strength and activity.

To suppose the eggs of the former microscopic animals to float in the atmosphere, and pass through the sealed glass phial, is so contrary to apparent nature, as to be totally incredible! and as the latter are 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 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 become visible to the naked eye; I mean the green matter first attended to by Dr. Priestley, and called by him conferva fontinalis. 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. Ingenhouz 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 oxygen, and laughs at Dr. Priestley for believing that the seeds of this conferva, and the parents of microscopic animals, exist universally in the atmosphere, and penetrate the sides of glass jars; Philos. Magazine 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 process. Some parts of it are however absorbed by the lacteals 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 combinations 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 combinations, are found proper for the purposes of the nutrition of living vegetable and animal bodies, whether these decompositions and new combinations are performed in the stomach or beneath the soil.