"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
William Wordsworth
Wordsworth's vision is not of a child entering the world blank and unformed, but rather of a soul carrying the remnants of a divine origin. This view challenges Enlightenment ideas, which saw the mind as a tabula rasa, shaped purely by experience. Instead, Wordsworth suggests we arrive with a sacred imprint, a lingering echo of where we truly belong.