The Temple of Nature

By Erasmus Darwin

THE TEMPLE OF NATURE

OR, THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY:
A POEM, WITH PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES.

BY
ERASMUS DARWIN, M.D. F.R.S.
AUTHOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN, OF ZOONOMIA, AND OF PHYTOLOGIA.

Unde hominum pecudumque genus, vitæque volantum,
Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus?
Igneus est illis vigor, & cælestis origo. --VIRG. ÆN. VI. 728.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD,
BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET. 1803.

PREFACE.

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.

• Canto I. Production of Life.
• Canto II. Reproduction of Life.
• Canto III. Progress of the Mind.
• Canto IV. Of Good and Evil.
• Additional Note I. Spontaneous Vitality of Microscopic Animals.
• Additional Note II. The Faculties of the Sensorium.
• Additional Note III
• Additional Note IV
• Additional Note V. Amphibious Animals.
• Additional Note VI. Hieroglyphic Characters.
• Additional Note VII. Old Age and Death.
• Additional Note VIII. Reproduction.
• Additional Note IX. Storge.
• Additional Note X. Eve from Adam's Rib.
• Additional Note XI. Hereditary Diseases.
• Additional Note XII. Chemical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism.
• Additional Note XIII. Analysis of Taste.