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Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO II· Whose mingling virtues interweave at length 1'he mother's beauty with the father's strength. " So tulip-bulbs emerging from the seed, Year after year unknowl} to sex proceed; Erewhile the stamens and the styles display rrheir petal-curtains, and adorn the day; The beaux and beau ties in each blossom glow With "'redded joy, or amatorial woe. 130 It has been supposed by some, that mankind were formerly quadrupeds as well as hermaphrodites; and that some parts of the body are not yet so convenient to an erect attitude as to a horizontal one; as the fundus of the bladder in an erect posture is not exactly over the insertion of the urethra; whence ~t is seldom completely evacuated, and thus renners mankind more subject to the stone, than if he had preserved his horizontality: these philosophers, with Buffon and Helvetius, seem to imagine, that mankind arose from one family of monkeys on the banks of the Mediterranean; who accidentally had learned to use the adcluctorpollicis, or that strong muscle which constitutes the ball of the thumb, and draws the point of it to meet the points of the fingers; which common monkeys do not; and that this muscle gradually increased in size, strength, and activity, in successive generations; and by this improved use of the sense of touch, that monkeys acquired clear ideas, and gradually became men. Perhaps all the productions of nature are in their progress to gr eater perfection! an idea countenanced by modern discoveries and deductions con cerning the progressive formation of the solid parts of the terraqueous globe, and consonant to the di()'nity of the Creator of all things. 0 CANTO 11. REPRODUCTION OF LIFE. Unmarried Aphides prolific prove For nine successions uninform'd of love· ' New sexes next 'vith softer passions spring, Breathe the fond vow, and woo with quivering wing. " So erst in Paradise creation's LoRn, As the first leaves of holy writ record, From Adam's rib, who press'd the flowery grove, And dreamt delighted of untasted love, To cheer and chann his solitary mind, 55 Form'd a new sex, the MoTHER oF MANKIND. · 140 -Buoy' d on light step the Beauty seen1'd to swirn, And stretch' d alternate every pliant limb; Pleased on Euphrates' velvet margin stood, And view~d her playful image in the flood; 0\vn\l the fine flame of love, as life began, And smiled enchantment on adoring Man. Down her white neck and o'er her bosom roll'd, Flo·w'd in sweet negligence her locks of gold; The mother oj'mankind. 1. 14-0. See Additional Note X. |