3724. THAT THE MATERIAL IDEAS OF MEN ARE VESSELS OF ANGELIC IDEAS.* I spoke openly with spirits [remarking] that the Providence of the Lord in ultimates appeared so confused and scattered, that [it seemed] like the materials collected from different quarters for [the erection of] a vast palace, which were calculated by the architect, and then brought together, and thus thrown into different heaps, afterwards to be formed and fitted for the palace; and yet no one but the architect would be able to perceive from the accumulations [that] such a palace [would be the result], while at the same time each single part was numbered, and was such as could be fitted in. * We have endeavored to give, though with some doubts of having succeeded, a correct translation of the several articles under this head. If the reader should find, as we have found, great difficulty in eliciting from them an intelligible sense, we trust he will attribute it to the obscurity of the original, as much as to any defect in the version. Tr.