This doth she, when, from things _particular_, She doth abstract the _universall kinds_; Which bodilesse and immateriall are, And can be lodg'd but onely in our minds: And thus from diuers _accidents_ and _acts_, Which doe within her obseruation fall, She goddesses, and powers diuine, abstracts: As _Nature_, _Fortune_, and the _Vertues_ all. Againe, how can she seuerall _bodies_ know, If in her selfe a _bodie's_ forme she beare? How can a mirror sundry faces show, If from all shapes and formes it be not cleare? Nor could we by our eyes all colours learne, Except our eyes were of all colours voide; Nor sundry tastes can any tongue discerne, Which is with grosse and bitter humors cloide. Nor may a man of _passions_ iudge aright, Except his minde bee from all passions free; Nor can a _Iudge_ his office well acquite, If he possest of either partie bee. If lastly, this quicke power a body were, Were it as swift as is[104] the _winde_ or _fire_; (Whose atomies doe th' one down side-waies beare, And make the other in _pyramids_ aspire:) Her nimble body yet in time must moue, And not in instants through all places slide; But she is nigh, and farre, beneath, aboue, In point of time, which thought cannot deuide: She is sent as soone to _China_ as to _Spaine_, And thence returnes, as soone as shee is sent; She measures with one time, and with one paine, An ell of silke, and heauen's wide spreading tent. As then the _Soule_ a substance hath alone, Besides the Body in which she is confin'd; So hath she not a _body_ of her owne, But is a _spirit_, and _immateriall minde_. [Footnote 103: 'Time but the impression stronger makes As streams their channels deeper wear.' BURNS: to Mary in Heaven.] [Footnote 104: Southey misprints 'in.' G.] THAT THE SOULE IS CREATED IMMEDIATELY BY GOD. _Since body and soule_ haue such diuersities, Well might we muse, how first their match began; But that we learne, that He that spread the skies, And fixt the Earth, first form'd the _soule_ in man. This true _Prometheus_ first made Man of earth, And shed in him a beame of heauenly fire; Now in their mother's wombs before their birth, Doth in all sonnes of men their _soules_ inspire. And as _Minerua_ is in fables said, From _Ioue_, without a mother to proceed; So our true _Ioue_, without a mother's ay'd, Doth daily millions of _Mineruas_ breed. ERRONIOUS OPINIONS OF THE CREATION OF SOULES. Then neither from eternitie before, Nor from the time when _Time's_ first point begun; Made He all _souls_: which now He keepes in store, Some in the moone, and others in the sunne: