767. CONCERNING THE VARIOUS SCIENCES, HOW THEY TAKE HOLD OF AND QUALIFY THE HUMAN MIND I was conversing with spirits about how the various sciences, such as philosophy and other sciences, form human minds. As regards philosophy, every phase of this subject has hitherto done nothing else than darken minds, and so has closed the way to the intuition of interior things and also of universals, for it consists of terms alone, and of disputes concerning them. Contrary to a rational philosophy, it so constrains ideas that the mind sticks fast only in particulars, and thus in dust. Besides which it not only obstructs the way to things interior, but also blinds [the mind] and entirely takes away faith. Therefore, in the other life a philosopher who has cleaved so much to such things and indulged in them, is stupid, and less learned than others.