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Show 36 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO I. With gills placental seeks· the arterial flood, And drinks pure ether from its Mother's blood. Erewbile the landed Stranger bursts his way, From the warm wave emerging in to day; Feels the chill blast, and piercing light, and tries His tender lungs, and rolls his dazzled eyes; Gives to the passing gale his curling hair, And steps a dry inhabitant of air. " Creative Nile, as taught in ancient song, So charm'd to life his animated throng; O'er his wide realms the slow-subsiding flood Left the rich treasures of organic mud; 400 voluntary power; it then seems to awake, and to stretch its limbs, .and change its posture in some degree, which is termed quickening. With gilts placental, 1. 398. The placenta adheres to any side of the uterus in natural gestation, or of any' other cavity in extrauterine gestation; the extremities of its arteries and _veins probably permeate the arteries of the mother, and absorb from thence through their fine coats the oxygen of the mother~s blood; hence when the placenta is withdrawn, the side of the uterus, where it adhered, bleeds; but not the extremities of its own vessels. 1-Iis daz zled eyes, I. 398. Though the membrana pupillaris descril,>ed by modern anatomists guards the tender retina from too much light ; the young infant nevertheless seems to feel the presence of it by its frequently moving its eyes, before it can distinguish common objects. I • CANTO I. PRODUCTION OF LIFE. While with quick growth young Vegetation yields Her blushing orchards, and her waving fields; Pomona's hand replenish'd Plenty's horn, And Ceres laugh' d amid her seas of corn.- Bird, beast, and reptile, spring from sudden birth, Raise their new forn1s, half-animal, half-earth; 1'he roaring lion shakes his tawny mane, His struggling limbs still rooted in the plain; With flapping wings assurgent eagles toil To rend their talons from the adhesive soil; The impatient serpent lifts his crested head, .And drags his train unfinish'd from the bed.- As Warmth and Moisture blend their magic spells, And brood with mingling \vings the slimy dells; As ~W" armth and moisture, I. 417. In eodem corpore srepe Altera pars vivit; rudis est pars altera tellus. Quippe ubi temperiem sumpsere humorque calorque, Concipiunt; & ab his oriuntur, cuncta duobus. 410 OviD. lVIET. 1. I. 430. This story from Ovid of the production of animals from the mud of the .Nile seems to b.e of ~gyptian origin, and is probably a poetical |