5785. SCIENTIFICS AVAIL NOTHING, IF THE RATIONAL HAS NOT BEEN CULTIVATED THEREBY. There was a certain one (Leeuwenhoek)* more celebrated in experimental researches than any man in Europe. He said, in the other life, that he lived a wretched life, because he had only performed experiments there [i.e. on earth], and that with much labor, but cultivated nothing rational by their means. He said, that, in the beginning, he believed that he should be accepted in preference to all others; but that he is still stupid. Angels spoke to each other about this matter, saying, that if man only cultivates the rational in any kind of way, he would still be able in the other life to be amongst such ones as possess some charm of social interaction; since, in the other life, the rational is what speaks, but not the rational as regards the scientific faculty; for then, the memory is closed. They said also that if he is in good and in the affection of truth, his rational is then perfected. * Antony von Leeuwenhoek. --He "was a celebrated Dutch microscopist and maker of microscopes; born at Delft in 1632, died in 1723" (Documents Concerning Swedenborg, Vol. ii., p. 1256). --TR.