Song + 

IV + 

A Psychological Fallacy + 

From the Porch’s murky depths + 

Comes a doctrine sage, + 

That doth liken living mind + 

To a written page; + 

Since all knowledge comes through + 

Sense, + 

Graven by Experience. + 

“As,” say they, “the pen its marks + 

Curiously doth trace + 

On the smooth unsullied white + 

Of the paper’s face, + 

So do outer things impress + 

Images on consciousness.” + 

But if verily the mind + 

Thus all passive lies; + 

If no living power within + 

Its own force supplies; + 

If it but reflect again, + 

Like a glass, things false and vain⁠— + 

Whence the wondrous faculty + 

That perceives and knows, + 

That in one fair ordered scheme + 

Doth the world dispose; + 

Grasps each whole that Sense presents, + 

Or breaks into elements? + 

So divides and recombines, + 

And in changeful wise + 

Now to low descends, and now + 

To the height doth rise; + 

Last in inward swift review + 

Strictly sifts the false and true? + 

Of these ample potencies + 

Fitter cause, I ween, + 

Were Mind’s self than marks impressed + 

By the outer scene. + 

Yet the body through the sense + 

Stirs the soul’s intelligence. + 

When light flashes on the eye, + 

Or sound strikes the ear, + 

Mind aroused to due response + 

Makes the message clear; + 

And the dumb external signs + 

With the hidden forms combines. + 