Yet say these men, If all her organs die,
Then hath the soule no power her powers to vse;
So, in a sort, her powers extinct doe lie,
When vnto act shee cannot them reduce.
And if her powers be dead, then what is shee?
For sith from euery thing some powers do spring,
And from those powers, some acts proceeding bee,
Then kill both power and act, and kill the thing.
ANSWERE.
Doubtlesse the bodie's death when once it dies,
The instruments of sense and life doth kill;
So that she cannot vse those faculties,
Although their root rest in her substance still.
But (as the body liuing) Wit and Will
Can iudge and chuse, without the bodie's ayde;
Though on such obiects they are working still,
As through the bodie's organs are conuayde:
So, when the body serues her turne no more,
And all her Senses are extinct and gone,
She can discourse of what she learn'd before,
In heauenly contemplations, all alone.
So, if one man well on a lute doth play,
And haue good horsemanship, and Learning's skill;
Though both his lute and horse we take away,
Doth he not keep his former learning still?
He keepes it doubtlesse, and can vse it to;
And doth both th' other skils in power retaine;
And can of both the proper actions doe,
If with his lute or horse he meet againe.
So (though the instruments by which we liue,
And view the world, the bodie's death doe kill;)
Yet with the body they shall all reuiue,
And all their wonted offices fulfill.
OBJECTION III.
But how, till then, shall she herselfe imploy?
Her spies are dead which brought home newes before;
What she hath got and keepes, she may enioy,
But she hath meanes to vnderstand no more.
Then what do those poore soules, which nothing get?
Or what doe those which get, and cannot keepe?
Like buckets bottomlesse, which all out-let
Those Soules, for want of exercise, must sleepe.
ANSWERE.
See how man's Soule against it selfe doth striue:
Why should we not haue other meanes to know?
As children while within the wombe they liue,
Feed by the nauill: here they feed not so.
These children, if they had some vse of sense,
And should by chance their mothers' talking heare;
That in short time they shall come forth from thence,
Would feare their birth more then our death we feare.
They would cry out, 'If we this place shall leaue,
Then shall we breake our tender nauill strings;
How shall we then our nourishment receiue,
Sith our sweet food no other conduit brings?'
And if a man should to these babes reply,
That into this faire world they shall be brought;
Where they shall see the Earth, the Sea, the Skie,
The glorious Sun, and all that God hath wrought:
That there ten thousand dainties they shall meet,
Which by their mouthes they shall with pleasure take;
Which shall be cordiall too, as wel as sweet,
And of their little limbes, tall bodies make:
This would they thinke a fable, euen as we
Doe thinke the story of the Golden Age;
Or as some sensuall spirits amongst vs bee,
Which hold the world to come, a fainèd stage:
Yet shall these infants after find all true,
Though then thereof they nothing could conceiue;
As soone as they are borne, the world they view,
And with their mouthes, the nurses'-milke receiue.
So, when the Soule is borne (for Death is nought
But the Soule's birth, and so we should it call)
Ten thousand things she sees beyond her thought,
And in an vnknowne manner knowes them all.
Then doth she see by spectacles no more,
She heares not by report of double spies;
Her selfe in instants doth all things explore,
For each thing present, and before her, lies.