Page:The Bible of Nature, and Substance of Virtue.djvu/38

And if the soul's immortal, if she lives
Divided from the body, if perceives,
She must enjoy five senses still; for who
Can fancy how the soul can live below,
Unless 'tis thus endow'd? Thus painters please,
And poets too, to draw their souls with these.
But as without the soul, nor eye, nor ear,
Nor either hand, can touch, or see, or hear;
So neither can this soul, this mind perceive,
Without these hands, these eyes, these ears, nor live.
Besides, our vital sense is spread o'er all;
The whole composure makes one animal:
So that if sudden violent strokes divide
This whole, and cast the parts on either side,
The soul and mind too suffer the same fate,
And part remains in this, and part in that.
Now what can be divided, what can lie
And waste in several parts, can likewise die.
Besides, were souls immortal, ne'er began,
But crept into the limbs to make up man,
Why cannot they remember what was done
In former times? Why all their memory gone?
Now, if the mind's frail powers so far can waste,
As to forget those numerous actions past,
'Tis almost dead, and sure can die at last.
Well, then, the former soul must needs be dead.
And that which now informs us, newly made.
But when the body's made, when we begin
To view the light, if then the soul crept in,
How is it likely it should seem to grow,
Increase and flourish, as the members do?
No, it would live confin'd to her close cage,
With powers as great in infancy, as age.
But if they say, that souls expell'd by fate,
To other bodies of like kind retreat;
Then tell me why, Why doth the wisest soul,
When crept into a child, become a fool?
Why cannot new-born colts perform the course
With equal cunning as a full grown horse?
But that the souls are born, increase, and grow,
And rise mature, as all their bodies do.