24 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO r. 



So Life's first powers arrest the winds and floods, 

 To bones convert them, or to shells, or woods; 

 Stretch the vast beds of argil, lime, and sand, 

 And from diminish'd oceans form the land! 



" Next the long nerves unite their silver train, 

 And young SENSATION permeates the brain; 270 



Through each new sense the keen emotions dart, 

 Flush the young cheek, and swell the throbbing heart. 



And from diminish' d oceans, 1. 268. The increase of the solid parts 

 of the globe by the recrements of organic bodies, as limestone rocks 

 from shells and bones, and the beds of clay, marl, coals, from de- 

 composed woods, is now well known to those who have attended to 

 modern geology; and Dr. Halley, and others, have endeavoured to 

 show, with great probability, that the ocean has decreased in quantity 

 during the short time which human history has existed. Whence it 

 appears, that the exertions of vegetable and animal life convert the 

 fluid parts of the globe into solid ones; which is probably effected by 

 combining the matter of heat with the other elements, instead of 

 suffering it to remain simply diffused amongst them, which is a 

 curious conjecture, and deserves further investigation. 



And young Sensation, 1. 270. Both sensation and volition consist 

 in an affection of the central part of the sensorium, or of the \vhole 

 of it; and hence cannot exist till the nerves are united in the brain. 

 The motions of a limb of any animal cut from the body, are there- 

 fore owing to irritation, not to sensation or to volition. For the de- 

 finitions of irritation, sensation, volition, and association, see addi- 

 tional Note II. 



