But purge the humours, and the rage appease; Which this distemper in the Fancy wrought: Then will the Wit, which never had disease, Discourse and judge discreetly, as it ought. So though the clouds eclipse the Sun's fair light, Yet from his face they do not take one beam: So have our eyes their perfect power of sight, Even when they look into a troubled stream. Then these defects in Sense's organs be, Not in the Soul, or in her working might; She cannot lose her perfect Power to See, Though mists and clouds do choke her window light. These imperfections then we must impute, Not to the Agent, but the Instrument; We must not blame APOLLO, but his Lute, If false accords from her false strings be sent The Soul, in all, hath one intelligence, Though too much moisture in an infant's brain, And too much dryness in an old man's sense Cannot the prints of outward things retain. Then doth the Soul want work, and idle sit: And this we Childishness and Dotage call: Yet hath She then a quick and active Wit, If She had stuff and tools to work withal. For, give her organs fit, and objects fair, Give but the aged man, the young man's sense: Let but MEDEA, ÆSON'S youth repair, And straight She shews her wonted excellence. As a good harper, stricken far in years, Into whose cunning hands, the gout is fall: All his old crotchets, in his brain he bears, But on his harp, plays ill, or not at all. But if APOLLO take his gout away, That he, his nimble fingers may apply; APOLLO'S self will envy at his play, And all the world applaud his minstrelsy! Then Dotage is no weakness of the Mind, But of the Sense; for if the Mind did waste; In _all_ old men, we should this wasting find, When they some certain term of years had past. But most of them, even to their dying hour, Retain a Mind more lively, quick, and strong, And better use their Understanding Power, Than when their brains were warm, and limbs were young. For though the body wasted be and weak, And though the leaden form of earth it bears; Yet when we hear that half-dead body speak, We oft are ravished to the heavenly spheres. [Sidenote: 2. Objection.] Yet say these men, "If all her organs die, Then hath the Soul no power, her Powers to use! So in a sort her Powers extinct do lie, When into Act She cannot them reduce." "And if her Powers be dead, then what is She? For since from everything, some Powers do spring, And from those Powers some Acts proceeding be: Then kill both Power and Act, and kill the Thing." [Sidenote: Answer.]