for his learning,--he was Christian Wolf--desiring to receive
information from him on various subjects. But when they perceived that
what he said was not elevated above the sensual things of the natural
man, because in speaking he thought of honour, and wanted, as in the
world (for in the other life every one is like his former self),
to connect various things into series, and from these again and
continually to deduce others, and so form several chains of such,
which they did not see or acknowledge to be true, and which therefore
they declared to be chains which neither cohered in themselves nor
with the conclusions, and called them the obscurity of authority, they
ceased to question him, inquiring only _what this was called and what
that_. And because he answered these questions also by material ideas,
and not by any that were spiritual, they departed from him. For in the
other life every one speaks spiritually, or by spiritual ideas, so far
as in the world he had believed in God; and materially, so far as he
had not believed. As an opportunity here offers, I may relate how the
case is, in the other life, with the learned who acquire intelligence
by their own meditation kindled by the love of knowing truths for
the sake of truths, thus for the sake of uses apart from worldly
considerations; and how the case is with those who acquire
intelligence from others without any meditation of their own, as is
the practice of those who desire to know truths merely for the purpose
of acquiring a reputation for learning, and of thereby attaining
honour or gain in the world, and consequently not for the sake of
uses apart from worldly considerations. I may here relate a certain
experience concerning men of this character. There was apperceived a
certain sound penetrating from beneath near the left side as far as
the left ear: I observed that there were spirits who were attempting
to force their way there, but I could not ascertain of what character
they were. When they had forced their way, however, they spoke with