2G2 ERASMUS DARWIN. 



almost incompatible 'witli the cool investigations of science." For the 

 last, however, he himself apologises, by observing that theorising, when 

 our knowledge is imperfect, is not without use ; neither is the theoretic 

 distribution of natural objects, as it developes some of their analogies. 

 His poetry few read now, though it is often distinguished by great taste 

 and elegance of description ; in fact, it is the very etiiharras de richesses 

 which is its fault. Though scientific thoughts or pleasing natural objects, 

 sparsely introduced, become giants in poetry in the hands of a Tennyson 

 or a Browning, yet too prodigally used they are worse than ineffective. 



Darwin's poems are annotated by copious remarks which display 

 learning, research, and many of them original views to which we have 

 already alluded. His prophecies of future scientific triumphs have often 

 been noticed as marvellous, and they certainly ax-e remarkable, as, for 

 instance, of steamships and railways ; but then he ventured upon other 

 predictions — as of subaqueous and controllable aerial locomotion, and 

 many other things which at present are not likely to come to pass. His 

 medical and physiological work, " Zoonomia," 1793-6, contains much that 

 was new at the date of its publication, much that has been developed in 

 our age — for instance, in medicine the recommendation of ovariotomy, and 

 more explicitly of lithotrity ; but, at the same time, it displays much of 

 the fanciful and some little of the absurd, though on the whole entitled 

 to a more frequent study. His later poem, entitled " The Temple of 

 Nature, or Origin of Society," unnoticed in some of the biographies, was, 

 we think, published only a few months before his death, in 1802, and has, 

 like the " Botanic Garden," copious philosophical notes. 



Taking his works generally, the " Botanic Garden," the " Temple of 

 Nature," " Phytologia," and the " Zoonomia," for we do not think it neces- 

 sary to specify the particular work, volume, or page, we shall find that, 

 though Erasmus Darwin considers the earth to be still in its juvenile 

 stage (!) he insists upon a vast antiquity, millions of years, for it ; and 

 observes, in accordance with our present geological ideas, that those parts 

 of it which contain the highest mountains are often the newest raised, 

 because they have not existed long enough to be worn down by external 

 agents ; he also teaches that there has been a constant development and 

 differentiation going on in the world, even in the sidereal system ; as of 

 stars out of nebulje, quoting the authority of Sir W. Herschel on this 

 subject. He studied the formation of coral-rocks, and of limestone and 

 chalk, by organic agencies. He observes that inland seas, such as the 

 Mediterranean, would soon become fi-cshwater lakes by a slight change 

 of level, as the rivers flowing through them would wash out the salt. 

 He is a friend to the doctrine of hcterogenesis, and ai-gues for it at length 

 in the notes to the " Temple of Nature," as well as elsewhere — 



Hence without parent by spontaneous birth, 

 Kise the first specks of animated earth. 



He further argues for a foi-mation by apposition, and against the 

 emboitemcnt ot germs, and supposes all organic beings to have originated in 

 simple plasm, and, when continued through generation, by filaments and 

 molecules or organic particles, derived from every region of the parent 

 (pangenesis.) 



