Birth after birth the line unchanging runs, And fathers live transmitted in their sons; Each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds, The same their manners, and the same their minds: Till, as erelong successive buds decay, And insect-shoals successive pass away, Increasing wants the pregnant parent vex With the fond wish to form a softer sex...Erasmus Darwin
About This Quote
This quote is an allegory about the transmission of knowledge and information. Just like in cells, when one generation passes on to the next, the knowledge is passed along with it. The passage of time causes that knowledge to become more diluted; but when two people share the same knowledge, they are both able to pass on that knowledge in the same way. This means that in order for new generations to arise, all previous generations must go extinct so they can be replaced. If each generation were different, then there would be no way for the new ones to learn what they need to know.
Source: The Temple Of Nature
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More Quotes By Erasmus Darwin
- Birth after birth the line unchanging runs, And fathers live transmitted in their sons; Each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds, The same their manners, and the same their minds: Till, as erelong successive buds decay, And insect-shoals successive pass away, Increasing wants the pregnant...
- Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form: Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame, And soars and shines, another and the same.
- The mass starts into a million suns; Earths round each sun with quick explosions burst, And second planets issue from the first.[ The first concept of a 'big bang' theory of the universe.]
- This compassion, or sympathy with the pains of others, ought also to extend to the brute creation, as far as our necessities will admit; for we cannot exist long without the destruction of other animal or vegetable beings either in their mature or embryon state....
- Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten! ' and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!