The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of
Society, by Erasmus Darwin

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Title: The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society
A Poem, with Philosophical Notes

Author: Erasmus Darwin

Release Date: October 9, 2008 [EBook #26861]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE TEMPLE OF NATURE;

OR,

THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY.

T. Bensley, Printer, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London.

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, vitaeque volantum,
Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus?
Igneus est illis vigor, & caelestis origo.

VIRG. AEn. VI. 728.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD,

BY T. BENSLEY, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET.

1803.

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 Eleusini