Philosophical poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

While I do purpose with my self to sing
The souls incorporeity, I fear
That it a worse perplexitie may bring
Unto the weaker mind and duller ear;
For she may deem herself 'stroyd quite & clear
While all corporeals from her we expell:
For she has yet not mark'd that higher sphear
Where her own essence doth in safety dwell,
But views her lower shade, like boy at brink of well;

2

Dotes upon sense, ne higher doth arise
Busied about vain forms corporeall;
Contemns as nought unseen exilities,
Objects of virtue Intellectuall,
Though these of substances be principall.
But I to better hope would fainly lead
The sunken mind, and cunningly recall
Again to life that long hath liggen dead.
Awake ye drooping souls! shake off that drousihead!

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3

Why do you thus confide in sleepy sense,
Ill judge of her own objects? who'll believe
The eye contracting Phœbus Orb immense
Into the compasse of a common sieve?
If solid reason did not us relieve,
The host of heaven alwayes would idle stand
In our conceit, nor could the Sun revive
The nether world, nor do his Lords command.
Things near seem further off; farst off, the nearst at hand.

4

The touch acknowledgeth no gustables;
The tast no fragrant smell or stinking sent;
The smell doth not once dream of audibles;
The hearing never knew the verdant peint
Of springs gay mantle, nor heavens light ylent
That must discover all that goodly pride:
So that the senses would with zeal fervent
Condemne each other, and their voice deride
If mutually they heard such things they never try'd.

5

But reason, that above the sense doth sit,
Doth comprehend all their impressions,
And tells the touch its no fanatick fit
That makes the sight of illustrations
So stifly talk upon occasions.
But judgeth all their voyces to be true
Concerning their straight operations,
And doth by nimble consequences shew
To her own self what those wise Five yet never knew.

6

They never knew ought but corporealls:
But see how reason doth their verdict rude
Confute, by loosening materialls
Into their principles, as latitude
Profundity of bodies to conclude.
The term of latitude is breadthlesse line;
A point the line doth manfully retrude
From infinite processe; site doth confine
This point; take site away its straight a spark divine.

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7

And thus unloos'd it equally respects
The bodies parts, not fixt to any one.
Let 't be diflused through all. Thus it detects
The soul's strange nature, operation,
Her independency, loose union
With this frail body. So 's this unity
Great, but without that grosse extension,
Exceeding great in her high energie,
Extended far and wide from her non-quantity.

8

If yet you understand not, let the soul,
Which you suppose extended with this masse,
Be all contract and close together roll
Into the centre of the hearts compasse:
As the suns beams that by a concave glasse
Be strangely strengthned with their strait constraint
Into one point, that thence they stoutly passe,
Fire all before them withouten restraint,
The high arch'd roof of heaven with smouldry smoke they taint.

9

But now that grosnesse, which we call the heart,
Quite take away, and leave that spark alone
Without that sensible corporeall part
Of humane body: so when that is gone,
One nimble point of life, that's all at one
In its own self, doth wonderfully move,
Indispers'd, quick, close with self-union,
Hot, sparkling, active, mounting high above,
In bignesse nought, in virtue like to thundring Jove.

10

Thus maugre all th'obmurmurings of sense
We have found an essence incorporeall,
A shifting centre with circumference,
But she not onely sits in midst of all,
But is also in a manner centrall
In her outflowing lines. For the extension
Of th'outshot rayes circumferentiall
Be not gone from her by distrought distension,
Her point is at each point of all that spread dimension.

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11

This is a substance truly spiritall,
That reason by her glistring lamp hath shown:
No such the sense in things corporeall
Can ere find out. May this perswasion,
O sunken souls! slaves of sensation!
Rear up your heads and chase away all fear
How (when by strong argumentation
I shall you strip of what so doth appear
Corporeall) that you to nought should vanish clear.

12

The naked essence of the body's this
Matter extent in three dimensions
(Hardnesse or softnesse be but qualities)
Withouten self reduplications
Or outspread circling propagations
Of its own presence. These be corporall,
And what with these in such extension
Singly's stretch'd out, is form materiall.
Whether our soul be such now to the test we'll call.

13

If souls be bodies, or inanimate
They be, or else endowed with life. If they
Be livelesse, give they life? if animate,
Then tell me what doth life to them convey?
Some other body? Here can be no stay.
Straight we must ask whether that livelesse be
Or living. Then, what 'lives it. Thus we'll play
Till we have forc'd you to infinity,
And make your cheeks waxred at your Philosophy.

14

Again, pray tell me, is this body grosse
Or fluid, and thin you deem the soul to be?
If grosse, then either strongly it is cross'd
From entring some parts of this rigid tree
And so of life they'll want their 'lotted fee:
Or if it penetrate this bulk throughout,
It breaks and tears and puts to penalty
This sory corse. If 't thin and fluid be thought,
How pulls it up those limbs and again jerks them out?

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15

Besides, if stretchen corporeity
Longs to the soul, then Augmentation
Must likewise thereto appertain. But see
Th'absurdities that this opinion
Will drag on with it: for effluxion
Of parts will spoil the steddy memory,
And wash away all intellection,
Deface the beauty of that imagery
That once was fairly graven in her phantasie.

16

But oft when the weak bodie's worn and wasted
And far shrunk in, the nimble phantasie
(So far she's from being withered and blasted)
More largely worketh, and more glitterandly
Displayes her spreaden forms, and chearfully;
Pursues her sports. Again, the greater corse
Would most be fill'd with magnanimity:
But oft we see the lesse hath greater force,
To fight, or talk; the greater oft we see the worse.

17

All which if weighed well, must ill agree
With bodies natures, which merely consist
In a dull, silent, stupid quantity,
Stretching forth mirksome matter, in what list
Or precincts no man knows. No Naturalist
Can it define, unlesse they adde a form
That easly curbs the thing that no'te resist,
And after her own will can it inform.
It still and stupid stands and thinks nor good nor harm.

18

The man is mad, that will at all agree
That this is soul. Or if forme bodily
Non replicate, extent, not setten free,
But straight stretch'd out in corporeity
(Betwixt these two there's that affinity)
As little wit that man will seem to have.
Which I shall plainly prove by th'energie
Of sense, though that same force seem not so brave,
Yet for the present I'll not climbe to higher stave.

119

19

If Souls be substances corporeall,
Be they as big just as the body is?
Or shoot they out to th'height Æthereall?
(Of such extent are the sights energies)
If they shoot out, be they equally transmisse
Around this body? or but upward start?
If round the body, Nature did amisse
To lose her pains in half of the souls part,
That part can finden nought that through the earth doth dart.

20

Or will you say she is an hemisphere?
But a ridiculous experiment
Will soon confute it: list you but to rear
Your agill heels towards the firmament,
And stand upon your head; that part is bent
Down through the earth, that earst did threat the skie:
So that your soul now upward is extent
No higher then your heels, yet with your eye
The heavens great vastnesse as before you now discry.

21

You'll say, this souls thin spread exility
Turns not at all. How doth it then depend
Upon this body? It has no unity
Therewith, but onely doth of cur'sy lend
It life, as doth the worlds great lamp down send
Both light and warmth unto each living wight;
And if they chance to fail and make an end,
Its nought to him, he shineth yet as bright
As ere he did. This showes the soul immortall quite.

22

But if the soul be justly coextent
With this straight body, nought can bigger be
Then is our body, that she doth present;
'Cording to laws of Corporeity
So must she represent each realty.
Thus tallest Gyants would be oft defied
By groveling Pigmees: for they could not see
The difference, nor mete his manly stride,
Nor ween what matchlesse strength did in his armes reside.

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23

For they must judge him just as their own selves
Of the same stature, of the self-same might:
All men would seem to them their fellow Elves;
Nor little curs would tremble at the sight
Of greater dogs; nor hawks would put to flight
The lesser birds. Th'impression of a seal
Can be no larger then the wax; or right
As big, or lesse it is. Therefore repeal
This grosse conceit, and hold as reason doth reveal.

24

Again, if souls corporeall you ween;
Do the light images of things appear
Upon the surface, slick, bright, smooth and sheen
As in a looking glasse? Or whether dare
They passe the outside and venture so farre
As into the depth of the souls substance?
If this; then they together blended are
That nought we see with right discriminance:
If that, the object gone, away those forms do glance.

25

Thus should we be devoid of memory,
And be all darknesse, till the good presence
Of outward objects doth the soul unty
From heavy sleep. But this experience
Plainly confutes. For even in their absence
We do retain their true similitude:
So lovers wont to maken dalliance
With the fair shade their minds do still include,
And wistly view the grace wherewith she is endude.

26

But now new reasons I will set on foot,
Drawn from the common sense, that's not extense
But like a centre that around doth shoot
Its rayes; those rayes should be the outward sense
As some resemble't. But by no pretence
Would I the outward senses should be thought
To act so in a spread circumference
That the seat of their forms should be distrought,
Or that by reach of quantities dead arms they wrought.

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27

For see how little share hath quantitie
In act of seeing, when we comprehend
The heavens vast compaste in our straitned eye;
Nor may the Ox with the Eagle contend,
Because a larger circle doth extend
His slower lights. So that if outward sense
In his low acts doth not at all depend
On quantity, how shall the common-sense,
That is farre more spirituall, depend from thence?

28

But still more presly this point to pursue;
By th'smelling, odours; voices by the ear;
By th'eye we apprehend the coloured hew
Of bodies visible. But what shall steer
The erring senses? where shall they compear
In controversie? what the difference
Of all their objects can with judgement clear
Distinguish and discern? One common-sense:
For one alone must have this great preeminence.

29

And all this one must know, though still but one;
Else't could not judge of all. But make it two;
Then tell me, doth the soul by this alone
Apprehend this object that the sense doth show,
And that by that; or doth it by both know
Both objects? as this colour and that sound.
If both knew both, then nature did bestow
In vain one faculty, it doth redound:
But if this that, that this, what shall them both compound,

30

And by comparison judge of them both?
Therefore that judge is one. But whether one
Without division, let's now try that troth.
If it be any wise extent, you're gone
By the same reason that afore was shown.
Suppose't a line the least of quantity.
Or sound is here, there colour, or each one
Of the lines parts receive them both. If we
Grant that, again we find a superfluity.

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31

If this part this, and that part that receive,
We are at the same losse we were afore,
For one to judge them both, or we bereave
Our souls of judgement. For who can judge more
Than what he knows? It is above his power.
Therefore it's plain the common sense is one,
One individed faculty. But store
Of parts would breed a strange confusion,
When every part mought claim proper sensation.

32

If not, nor all could exercise the Act
Of any sense. For could a power of sense
Arise from stupid parts that plainly lack'd
That might themselves. Thus with great confidence
We may conclude that th'humane souls essence
Is indivisible, yet every where
In this her body. Cause th'intelligence
She hath of whatsoever happens here:
The aking foot the eye doth view, the hand doth cheer.

33

What tells the hand or head the toes great grief,
When it alone is pinch'd with galling shooes?
Do other parts not hurt call for relief
For their dear mates? Ill messenger of woes
That grieveth not himself. Can they disclose
That misery without impression
Upon themselves? Therefore one spirit goes
Through all this bulk, not by extension
But by a totall Self-reduplication.

34

Which neither body, nor dispersed form,
Nor point of form dispersed e'r could do.
And bodies life or sprite for to transform
Into our soul, though that might this undo,
Yet to so rash conceit to yield unto
Cannot be safe: for if it propagate
It's self and 'ts passions, yet they free may go
Unmark'd, if sense would not them contemplate.
So doth the Mundane sprite not heeded circulate.

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35

Besides, if from that spirit naturall
The nurse of plants, you should dare to assert
That lively inward Animadversall
To springen out, it would surely invert
The order of the Orbs from whence do stert
All severall beings and of them depend.
Therefore the Orb Phantastick must exert
All life phantasticall, sensitive send
The life of sense; so of the rest unto each end.

36

There's nought from its own self can senden forth
Ought better then it self. So nought gives sense
That hath not sense it self, nor greater worth
Then sense, nor sense, nor better springs from thence.
Nor that which higher is can have essence
Lesse active, lesse reduplicate, lesse free,
Lesse spiritall, then that's amov'd from hence,
And is an Orb of a more low degree.
Wherefore that centrall life hath more activitie,

37

And present is in each part totally
Of this her body. Nor we ought diffide,
Although some creatures still alive we see
To stirre and move when we have them divide
And cut in twain. Thus worms in sturdie pride
Do wrigge and wrest their parts divorc'd by knife;
But we must know that Natures womb doth hide
Innumerable treasures of all life;
And how to breaken out upon each hint they strive.

38

So when the present actuall centrall life
Of sense and motion is gone with one part
To manage it, strait for the due relief
Of th'other particle there up doth start
Another centrall life, and tries her art:
But she cannot raigne long, nor yet recure
That deadly wound. The plantall lifes depart,
And flitten or shrunk spright, that did procure
Her company, being lost, make her she'll not endure.

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39

And so at last is gone, from whence she came,
For soon did fade that sweet allurement,
The plantall life, which for a while did flame
With sympathetick fire, but that being spent
Straight she is flown. Or may you this content?
That some impression of that very soul
That's gone, if gone, with plantall spirit meint
The broken corse thus busily may roll.
Long 'tis till water boild doth stranger heat controul.

40

Thus have we prov'd 'cording to our insight
That humane souls be not corporeall
(With reasons drawn from the sensitive might)
Nor bodies, nor spread forms materiall,
Whether you substances list them to call
Or qualities, or point of these. I'll bring
Hereafter proofs from power rationall
In humane souls, to prove the self same-thing.
Mount up aloft, my Muse, and now more shrilly sing.