The temple of nature, or, The origin of society : a poem, with philosophical notes / by Erasmus Darwin, M.D.

  • Darwin, Erasmus, 1731-1802.
Date:
1804
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The temple of nature, or, The origin of society : a poem, with philosophical notes / by Erasmus Darwin, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    With pencil nude 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 sternlv 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 be 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, ivbeii 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 Egyptian king or deify; and Orpheus calls him the principle of ail things, and the must ancient of the gods; and adds, that he keeps the nf Nature, (Dcmet'a Dici.J all which might well accord with a « Representing Time.