3607. THAT THE CELESTIAL GYRES CAN NEVER BE UNDERSTOOD. Spirits who are prompted to inquire into the nature of the celestial gyres, if they do not succeed in comprehending it, are prone to doubt and deny, as they are accustomed to do in regard to every subject which they do not understand. That the celestial gyres are never intelligible, as how [for instance] the thoughts, endeavors, and forces flow, was shown by the courses [fluctiones] of the fibers in our bodies, which it is impossible to trace, as in what manner they proceed [or flow] from their principles or cortical substances, how they attach themselves to the cerebrum, which has the appearance of a mass of jelly, and upon inspection resemble a series of knots, how they are intertwined with the fibers of the medulla oblongata, how with the fibers of the cerebellum, how they are united in the medulla spinalis, and then fill themselves with its fibers; how they afterwards arrange themselves in knots or ganglia, how they thence issue forth united or separate, how they anatomize with each other, and thus unite or separate, how they come into pluriform junctions, and thence flow into the viscera, and how they act in each of the viscera themselves; - since no one can understand how the fact is in regard to these matters, in things corporeal and of a gross nature, how [can the truth be grasped] as to those which exist in the world of spirits, [considered] as to the forms, influxes and effluxes, of thoughts and endeavors? The fibers represent spiritual things, the principles of the fibers, which lie under the cortical substances, represent things celestial, in which there are forms still more indefinite [or numerous]. Wherefore it is to be confessed, that since scarcely anything can be known, upon investigation, on these subjects, there is very little reason why anyone, from mere ignorance, should doubt respecting the things that are of faith. - 1748, October 18.