At first themselves within, then straight in sight
Those motions come, which suddenly do light
Upon the bodies visible, which move
According to the will of th’ inward spright.”
(I. ii. 36.)
In man the self-motion of the soul is present in the activity of reason, whether as the presiding power in all of the operations of the image-making faculty, or as the contemplative and speculative power. (I. ii. 41–44.)
After this account of the nature of the soul as a self-moving substance, More addresses himself to the task of showing that all life is immortal. In a time of despondency a Nymph once came and declared to him,
“All life’s immortall: though the outward trunk
May changed be, yet life to nothing never shrunk.”
(I. iii. 17.)