e the youth of human society; whilst the
unchanging state of the societies of some insects, as of the
bee, wasp, and ant, which is usually ascribed to instinct,
seems to evince the longer existence, and greater maturity of
those societies. The juvenility of the earth shows, that it
has had a beginning or birth, and is a strong natural
argument evincing the existence of a cause of its production,
that is of the Deity.]

"Ere Time began, from flaming Chaos hurl'd
Rose the bright spheres, which form the circling world;
Earths from each sun with quick explosions burst,
And second planets issued from the first. 230
Then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth,
Surge over surge, involv'd the shoreless earth;
Nurs'd by warm sun-beams in primeval caves
Organic Life began beneath the waves.

[Footnote: _Earths from each sun_, l. 229. See Botan. Garden,
Vol. I. Cant. I. l. 107.]

"First HEAT from chemic dissolution springs,
And gives to matter its eccentric wings;
With strong REPULSION parts the exploding mass,
Melts into lymph, or kindles into gas.
ATTRACTION next, as earth or air subsides,
The ponderous atoms from the light divides, 240
Approaching parts with quick embrace combines,
Swells into spheres, and lengthens into lines.
Last, as fine goads the gluten-threads excite,
Cords grapple cords, and webs with webs unite;
And quick CONTRACTION with ethereal flame
Lights into life the fibre-woven frame.--
Hence without parent by spontaneous birth
Rise the first specks of animated earth;
From Nature's womb the plant or insect swims,
And buds or breathes, with microscopic limbs. 250

[Footnote: _First Heat from chemic_, l. 235. The matter of
heat is an ethereal fluid, in which all things are immersed,
and which constitutes the general power of repulsion; as
appears in explosions which are produced by the sudden
evolution of combined heat, and by the expansion of all
bodies by the slower diffusion of it in its uncombined state.
Without heat all the matter of the world would be condensed
into a point by the power of attraction; and neither fluidity
nor life could exist. There are also particular powers of
repulsion, as those of magnetism and ele