The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical NotesDarwin, Erasmus
Philosophy
The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical Notes
Darwin, Erasmus
Cosmology -- Poetry; Life -- Origin -- Poetry
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.
ADDITIONAL NOTES. III.
Next when imprison'd fires in central caves
Burst the firm earth, and drank the headlong waves.
CANTO I. l. 302.
The great and repeated explosions of volcanoes are shown by Mr.
Mitchell in the Philosoph. Transact. to arise from their communication
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 probably
more central, and larger in quantity, before they burst the crust of
the earth then intire, and as the sea covered the whole, it must
rapidly sink down into every opening chink; whence these primeval
earthquakes were of much greater extent, 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 mercury, and even
diamonds; which may be more elastic, and consequently 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 continents 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 by explosion from some distant earthquake,
without sufficient force to cause them to circulate round the earth,
and thus produce numerous small moons or satellites.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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