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Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. lienee without parcn t hy spontaneous birth Rise the first specks of animated earth; CANTO 1. Fron1 Nature's \Vomb tbe plant or insect swims, And buds or breathes, with microscopic limbs. 250 " IN earth, sea, air, around, below, above, Life's subtle woof in Nature~s loom is wove; their fibres. The attractive and repul ive ethers require only the vicinity of bodies for the xertion of their activity, but the contractive ether requires at first the contact of a goad or stimulus, which appear to draw it off from the contracting fiore, and to excite the sen orial power of irritation. These contractions of animal fibres are afterwards excited or repeated by the sensorial powers of sensation, volition, or association, as explained at large in Zoonomia, Vol. I. There seems nothing more wonderful in the ether of contraction producing the shortening of a fibre, than in the ether of attraction cau ing two bodies to approac:h each other. The former indeed seems in some measure to resemble the latter, as it probably occasions the minute particles of the fibre to approach into absolute or adhesive contact, by withdrawing from them their repulsive atmospheres; whereas. the latter. seems only to cause particles of matter to approach mto what IS popularly called contact, like the particles of fluids; but which are only in the vicinity of each other, and still retain their repulsive atmospheres, a may be seen in riclino- throuo·h b b sl1allow water by the number of minute globules of it thrown up by the horses feet, which roll far on its su1face; and by the difficulty with wh.ich small globule of mercury poured on the surface of a quantity of 1t can be made to unite with it. · Spontaneous birth, L £47. See additional Note, No. I. CANTO I. PRODUCTION OF LIFE. Points glued to points a living line extends, Touch'd by some goad approach the bending ends; Rings join to rings, and irritated tubes Clasp with young lips the nutrient globes or cubes; And urged by appetencies new select, Imbibe, retain, digest, secrete, eject. In branching cones the living web expands, IJymphatic ducts, and convoluted glands; Aortal tubes propel the nascent blood, And lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood; Leaves, lungs, ancl gills, the vital ether breathe On earth's green surface, or the waves beneath. 260' In branching cones, I. £59.. The whole branch of an artery or vein. may be considered as a cone, though each distinct division of it is a cylinder. It is probable that the amount of the areas of all th~ small branclu~s from one trunk may equal that of the trunk, otherwise the velocity of the blood would be greater in some parts than in others, which probably only exists when a part is compressed or i~fla.med. Absorb tlze rifluent flood, I. 26£. The force of the artenal I_mpul_se· appears to cease, after having propelled the blooc~ through the capt~lary vessels; whence the venous circulation is owmg to the extrer~uties of the veins absorbing the blood, as those of the lymphatics absorb the fluids. The o-reat force of absorption is well elucidated b . . . • by Dr. Hales's experiment on the rise of the sap·JUICe m a vme-stump; see Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXIII.. |