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See also:DARWIN, See also:ERASMUS (1731-1802) , See also:English See also:man of See also:science and poet, was See also:born at See also:Elton, in See also:Nottinghamshire, on the 12th of See also:December 1731. After studying at St See also:John's See also:College, See also:Cambridge, and at See also:Edinburgh, he settled in 1756 as a physician at Notting-See also:ham, but See also:- MEETING (from " to meet," to come together, assemble, 0. Eng. metals ; cf. Du. moeten, Swed. mota, Goth. gamotjan, &c., derivatives of the Teut. word for a meeting, seen in O. Eng. Wit, moot, an assembly of the people; cf. witanagemot)
meeting with little success he moved in the following See also:year to See also:Lichfield. There he gained a large practice, and did much, both by example and by more See also:direct effort, to diminish See also:drunkenness among the See also:lower classes. In 1781 he removed to See also:Derby, where he died suddenly on the 18th of See also:April 1802. The fame of Erasmus Darwin as .a poet rests upon his Botanic See also:Garden, though he also wrote The See also:Temple of Nature, or the Origin of Society, a Poem, with Philosophical Notes (1803), and The See also:Shrine of Nature (posthumously published). The Botanic Garden (the second See also:part of which—The Loves of the Plants—was published anonymously in 1789, and the whole of which appeared in 1791) is a See also:long poem in the decasyllabic rhymed See also:couplet. Its merit lies in the genuine scientific See also:enthusiasm and See also:interest in nature which pervade it; and of any other poetic quality—except a certain, sometimes felicitous but oftener See also:ill-placed, elaborated pomp of words—it may without injustice be said to be almost destitute. It was for the most part written laboriously, and polished with
unsparing care, See also:line by line, often as he rode from one patient to another, and it occupied the leisure See also:hours of many years. The artificial See also:character of the diction renders it in emotional passages See also:stilted and even absurd, and makes See also:Canning's See also:clever caricature—The Loves of the Triangles—often remarkably like the poem it satirizes: in some passages, however, it is not without a stately appropriateness. See also:Gnomes, sylphs and nereids are introduced on almost every See also:page, and personification is carried to an extra-See also:ordinary excess. Thus he describes the Loves of the See also:Plants according to the Linnaean See also:system by means of a most ingenious but misplaced and amusing personification of each plant, and often even of the parts of the plant. It is significant that botanical notes are added to the poem, and that its eulogies of scientific men are frequent. Erasmus Darwin's mind was in fact rather that of a man of science than that of a poet. His most important scientific See also:work is his Zoonomia (1794–1796), which contains a system of See also:pathology, and a See also:treatise on See also:generation, in which he, in the words of his famous See also:grandson, See also:Charles See also:Robert Darwin, " anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinions of See also:Lamarck." The essence of his views is contained in the following passage, which he follows up with the conclusion " that one and the same See also:kind of living filaments is and has been the cause of all organic See also:life ":
" Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the See also:great length of See also:- TIME (0. Eng. Lima, cf. Icel. timi, Swed. timme, hour, Dan. time; from the root also seen in " tide," properly the time of between the flow and ebb of the sea, cf. O. Eng. getidan, to happen, " even-tide," &c.; it is not directly related to Lat. tempus)
- TIME, MEASUREMENT OF
- TIME, STANDARD
time since the See also:earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the See also:history of mankind,—would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the See also:power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the See also:faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, See also:world without end!"
In 1799 Darwin published his Phytologia, or the See also:Philosophy of See also:Agriculture and Gardening (1799), in which he states his See also:opinion that plants have sensation and volition. A See also:paper on See also:Female See also:Education in Boarding See also:Schools (1797) completes the See also:list of his See also:works.
Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848), his third son by his first See also:marriage, a See also:doctor at See also:Shrewsbury, was the See also:father of the famous Charles Darwin; and Violetta, his eldest daughter by his second marriage, was the See also:mother of See also:Francis See also:Galton.
See See also:Anna See also:Seward, See also:Memoirs of the Life of Dr Darwin (1804) ; and Charles Darwin, Life of Erasmus Darwin, an introduction to an See also:essay on his works by See also:Ernst See also:Krause (1879).
End of Article: DARWIN, ERASMUS (1731-1802)
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