4751. It was observed that he (Charles XII) excelled others in the faculty of taking inward note of things; for, when he was in interior thought, he could, almost with a glance of the eye, go over a hundred things, and examine of what quality they were in relation to his end, which was dominion; also, how he might be able to dispose them, which, too, he did, to suit himself. Hence it was evident what acuteness and, as it were, intellectual power the malignant enjoy, especially the deceitful; but they are vastated to such a degree as to become more foolish than others. Charles XII's end in life was to most obstinately insist on subjugating the Divine, for the sake of his own rule, and this to such a pitch, that he wished to die like Samson; wherefore he cast himself into a cloud, at the hinder part, where were the Anakim, or evil ones of the Most Ancient Church; and he wished to stir them up, and so prevail. In that place, he was then vastated, by them, as to his intellectual faculty; for to be conjoined with them is to perish as to everything intellectual. But as he came only slightly into the cloud, he proceeded, although he was stupid, to pursue the Divine still farther, - for, his resolution or will remained - and this he did over a pond on the right side, which no one can pass over without being suffocated. In that place, he utterly lost the remainder of the intellectual, or of thought, and was at length brought to a cave which is in the confines of both [the cloud and pool], and was there plunged beneath, where he is foolish above others in the degree of the cupidity of ruling, even over the Divine.