Nosce Teipsum: Objection III: 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.