3730. It was further shown that men do not know what an idea is, for when they are held in thought respecting an idea, [all the ideas] vanished, so that there seemed to be nothing [left], but yet ideas are spoken of, as it is still common in familiar discourse to say, that "such a thing is according to my idea," and "[my] idea is so and so," by which nothing more is signified than thought in general. Hence now it appears that men know nothing concerning interior things, thus concerning the interior man, since they neither know that thought is distinguished into ideas, or composed of ideas, nor yet what thought is, nor can they distinguish it from will; yea, they scarcely know that they have thought, because they do not reflect upon the inner man. Hence they can have no other conception than a most general one, scarcely indeed that they think, although they think otherwise than they speak or than they act, and thence they might know it. Wherefore it was said that an idea is a less thought, that of which thought is composed; this perhaps may be understood. Hence also it appears that interior things are altogether conjoined with external, so that man lives only in the bodily senses and in the body, in which things they are.