3748. There was a certain spirit who during his lifetime had the reputation among ordinary people for being learned. He was well-skilled in the art of confirming falsities, but extremely stupid so far as goods and truths were concerned. He imagined, as he had done previously in the world, that he knew everything, for such people believe that they are very wise and that nothing is hidden from them. And such as they have been during their lifetime, so they are in the next life, for all the things that constitute someone's life, that is, that constitute his love and affection, follow him and are present in him like the soul in its body, since it is from these that he has given form and character to his soul. This person who was now a spirit came and spoke to me, and such being his character I asked him, 'Who understands more, someone who knows many falsities or someone who knows a little truth?' He replied, 'The one who knows a little truth', for he imagined that the falsities which he knew were truths and that in knowing these he was wise.
[2] Then he wanted to reason about the Grand Man and about the influx from it into every individual part of a human being. But since he understood nothing at all about it I asked him how he understood the idea that thought, which belongs to the spirit, moves the whole face and expresses itself in the countenance, and also sets in motion all the organs of speech, and doing this so accurately as to lead to a spiritual perception of that thought. Then how he understood the idea that the will sets in motion the muscles of the whole body and the thousands of fibres spread throughout it, to perform a single activity. What belongs to the spirit therefore is that which sets in motion, and what belongs to the body is that which is set in motion. But he did not know what to say in reply. I then went on to speak about intention. Did he know that intention produced activity and motion, and that intention is present within activity and motion, so that it manifests itself and continues to do so within them? He said that he did not know this. I therefore asked him how in that case could he want to reason about something when he did not even know the first thing about it. And I went on to say that such reasoning is like loose dust scattered about, which falsities drive away until at length nothing is known and so nothing believed.
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