591. I also spoke with spirits of another earth on the way they philosophize here, namely, that when they describe spirits, souls, and like things which are invisible, they then remove all things upon which human ideas may affix themselves, as place, parts, figures, and similar things, so that they leave no idea, consequently no word by which to express those things that have regard to spirits and similar things, and call them immaterial, and the like. They so involve them in terms, and at length in occult qualities, that they finally come to doubt whether there is anything within those things which the senses apprehend, which very many deny, at least inwardly. Thus they deny the existence of spirits, they deny the existence of spiritual things, they deny the existence of celestial things, so they suppose that they will die like other animals, from which they do not even know how to distinguish themselves. And yet they still want to be called learned! Moreover, they connect such terms and hence bundle many things together which are mere scholastic terms, which, if unfolded, would exhibit a simple sense easily expressible. The spirits of the planet Jupiter laugh at these and like things, and again called such men insane, and, if their thoughts are such that they are immersed in and entangled or ensnared by such things, dung. 1748, Jan. 28.