1769. WHOSOEVER IS IN FAITH KNOWS AND PERCEIVES THAT HE DOES NOT LIVE FROM HIMSELF. As relates to perception, see elsewhere; but knowledge teaches the same thing, to wit, that man by no means lives from himself, as I also today demonstrated to spirits by a universal idea; for since man is a mere particle in the Grand Man, and there is nothing in the individual man to which there is not something corresponding in the Grand Man, it obviously follows that he lives not from himself but from the all and singular things of the angels in heaven and in the world of spirits, who excite the things which man thinks; and since all are merely organic beings, and the Lord alone is life, it obviously follows that man lives not from himself. Besides this [it is shown] by living experience, that when they with whom a spirit is most intimately associated are withdrawn, he is then, as it were, dead, and can neither think nor do anything. - 1748 March 28.