2369. Certain spirits who had had no preconceived opinion about matter, place, extension, parts without parts, or what substance is, grasped at once that it would be absurd to say that spirits were not basic substances. But those who had been learned, who were also around me and had a preconceived opinion about these matters, could not grasp it as well, clinging, of course, to their own meanings and definitions of such terms. In fact, when I was permitted by a spiritual mental image to separate thought from fine material organic substance, they were indignant, thinking that thus they would vanish into nothing. They want to add that such things are a mockery that those called learned fabricate for themselves in definitions of certain terms, and that they thus close for themselves the way to an understanding of inward matters, remaining in the lowest, sensual and bodily regions. 1748, 20 June.