knows, is, compared with what one does not know, so little as hardly
to be anything. In order that they might know that it is so, it was
granted that a certain angelic spirit should speak with them, and tell
them generally what they knew and what they did not know, and that
there were infinite things which they did not know, and that eternity
would not suffice for their acquiring even a general knowledge of
things. He spoke by means of angelic ideas much more readily than they
did, and as he disclosed to them what they knew and what they did not
know, they were struck with amazement. Afterwards I saw another angel
speaking with them, who appeared at some height towards the right; he
was from our Earth. He recounted very many things which they did not
know; and afterwards he spoke with them by means of changes of state,
which they said they did not understand. He then told them that every
change of state, and also every smallest part of such change, contains
infinite things. When they heard this, as they had been conceited on
account of their knowledges, they began to humble themselves. Their
humiliation was represented by the sinking downwards of the compact
body (_volumen_) which they formed (for that company appeared at the
time as a compact body, in front towards the left, at a distance,
in the plane of the region below the navel); but the compact body
appeared as it were hollowed in the middle, and raised at the sides;
an alternating motion was also observed therein. They were also told
what that signified, that is, what they thought in their humiliation,
and that those who appeared elevated at the sides were not as yet in
any humiliation; and I saw that the compact body was separated, and
that those who were not in humiliation were sent back towards their
earth, the rest remaining.

38. There once came some spirits of Mercury to a certain spirit from
our Earth, who, during his life in the world, had been most celebrated