3758. As to what pertains to a life truly human, it is not such a life as is common to the beasts, for the beasts, in those things of which they have need, have the faculty of providing them with much more skill than man; but a life truly human is one which has respect to eternal life, and hence to the soul, for a man lives in reference to eternal life, and from those things it is that he is a man, which life consists in understanding truth and willing good, and which with evil spirits is nothing, yea, is dead, as was said. It also appears from those who come into the other life, and who have had very little of spiritual life, as they are like sticks of wood, having scarcely the least of life; yet it is [sometimes] excited with them. - 1748, October 28.