falsities with an appearance of truth, according to their eagerness
to persuade. Consequently for them philosophy is rather a means of
becoming foolish than a means of becoming wise; and therefore they
have darkness instead of light. Afterwards, I conversed with him
on analytical science, saying that a little child, in half an hour,
speaks more philosophically, analytically, and logically, than he
could describe in a volume, because all things of human thought and
consequently of human speech are analytical, and the laws thereof are
from the spiritual world; and that he who wants to think artificially
from terms is not unlike a dancer who wants to learn to dance from
a knowledge of the motory fibres and muscles; if he were to keep
his mind (_animus_) fixed on that knowledge whilst dancing, he would
hardly be able to move a foot, and yet, without that knowledge, he
sets in action all the motory fibres that are scattered throughout the
whole of his body, and, in due measure, the lungs, diaphragm, sides,
arms, neck, and all the other parts, to describe all which volumes
would not suffice; and that the case is just like this with those who
want to think from terms. He approved of these observations, and
said, that if one learns to think in that way one proceeds in inverted
order: adding, that if any one wants to be foolish, he has only to
proceed in that way; and that one should constantly think of use, and
from what is interior. He next showed me what idea he had had of the
Supreme Deity. He had represented Him to himself as having a human
face, and encompassed about the head with a radiant circle; but he now
knew that the Lord is Himself that Man, and that the radiant circle is
the Divine [proceeding] from Him, which inflows not only into heaven
but also into the universe, disposing and ruling both. He added, that
He who disposes and rules heaven, disposes and rules the universe
also, because the one cannot be separated from the other. He also
said, that he believed in only one God, whose attributes and qualities