If universal maxims were innate and placed inside
Then children and the idiots could use them as a guide
But what is this means nothing to a baby in the dark
The physical sensations have to come and leave a mark
The mind is just an empty room completely shut from light
With only little openings to let in sound and sight
It starts out as a white paper devoid of any text
Until experience arrives to tell us what is next
Sensation and reflection are the fountains of the mind
Where simple and compounded elements are left behind
We bind them into complexes, relations and the modes
To build the understanding by empirical codes
The porphyry in darkness has no redness to express
The color is a secondary power nothing less
The bulk and the extension are the primary and real
But secondary qualities are only what we feel
You cannot know the pineapple until you take a bite
A manna causes sickness though the color is so white
The blind man of Molyneux whose vision is restored
Cannot distinguish metal shapes his fingers had explored
Sensation and reflection are the fountains of the mind
Where simple and compounded elements are left behind
We bind them into complexes, relations and the modes
To build the understanding by empirical codes
We postulate a substance but the reasoning is caught
We rest it on a substrate of something I know not
What the Indian philosopher explained where all things stood
The world upon an elephant as everybody should
The elephant upon a tortoise patient broad and stout
And what beneath the tortoise well he could not make it out
We build the whole foundation on a word we cannot see
A prop beneath the qualities a name for mystery
Then what am I and what remains and where does I begin
Suppose the prince’s memories wake up inside the skin
Of some poor local cobbler who was working in the square
The person is the consciousness no matter who was there
The man is one continuous unbroken living frame
But person means whatever self can reach back to the claim
A sleeping Socrates is not the waking man we see
It’s consciousness alone that makes our true identity
Sensation and reflection are the fountains of the mind
Where simple and compounded elements are left behind
We bind them into complexes, relations and the modes
To build the understanding by empirical codes
The nominal and real essence sever in the gold
We name the surface only what’s beneath it’s never told
The candle set within us burns enough to see us through
It isn’t every answer but it’s bright enough to do
The needle drops upon the groove experience will start
The characters are written on the paper of the heart
The needle drops upon the groove experience will start
The characters are written on the paper of the heart