682. As also the rainbow, in which nothing except what is most general appears, namely, the planes of successive colors; when yet each single color consists of an indefinite number of rays which flow thither distinctly, and produce this most general plane. The eye only perceives the myriads of rays together, and indeed obscurely. That obscurity appears only by some color, which is something obscure variegated in this way. Since the sight thus perceives myriads of myriads of rays only as one, and that as something obscure, how then can it be otherwise with the natural mind, which is a more interior sight than the sight of the eye? Consequently the natural mind does not understand whence come the ideas of the imagination, which likewise are myriads of more interior things, and unless they flowed forth distinctly from an inmost life, and this from the Lord, nothing distinct in an idea could ever be conceived. Nevertheless, since an imaginative idea is not in itself an intellectual idea, but exists as such from intellectual things, it can thence be understood by means of [intellectual] ideas. Thus it is evident how general, yea most general and most obscure, is that which man supposes to be distinct, acute, wise, and ingenious, which, nevertheless, is anything but intelligent and wise.