4722. CONCERNING MECHANICIANS. POLHEM. That mechanician, inasmuch as, in the life of the body, he constantly mediated how to construct moving machines, and succeeded therein above others, because he was endowed with such a genius, had, in the life of the body, confirmed himself in the belief that there was no God; that everything was from nature; that the living [soul] in man and beast is something mechanical, which, being filled with air, is thus formed according to its nature and the laws of order; and that those creatures thence live. He did not wish to know what is the life after death, what the internal man, what heaven and hell, what the Divine is other than dead nature, what Providence is other than the blind fate of nature and chance. He had confirmed himself against these. But, because the imaginative power which he possessed in the body still remains, therefore, he learns and teaches, there, how various things can be created, such as birds, mice, cats, also human infants. He does this by a working-up and formation of some mass, and then, by means of ideas of thoughts, there thence appear such things. For, in the other life, thought can represent such things with anyone; but it is a something aerial that appears thus, and nothing real. He was shown that all others, by means of imagination and phantasy, can present a similar effect, and that this is child's play: but, still, he continues, as if stupid, to fashion such things, and new ones, from his mass. He, also, was in the dark chamber, and showed his art; and he was also seen in the dark chamber sitting upon the dead bones which were in the coffin. This, also, was because he was of such a character that he had not acknowledged what was living, but what was dead.