When I was in a tacit conversation with spirits it was imparted to me that it would be hard for scholars in the world to understand that the natural sciences and human philosophy not only darken, but even entirely conceal and thus extinguish the light of spiritual truths, when yet there are truths in them and they contribute so much in confirming and more or less illustrating spiritual truths. Therefore spirits who were also unable to understand this portrayed natural truths as translucent, with spiritual truths shining through them. So also do the scholars of the world think, nor does anyone grasp the matter in any other way, except he whom the Lord has taught. But I was prompted to reply and to portray symbolically that those truths in themselves are murky darkness, but when illuminated by spiritual truths, which are from the Lord, they then become as if translucent, for there is light within the Lord's spiritual truths, and it makes natural truths shine, and by no means vice versa. For it is contrary to order, as also to all sound reason, that something that is dead in itself, and fog, can give life and light to things that are of life and of light.