2295. THAT IDEAS ARE PERCEIVED WITH ALL VARIETY. Something was said by me, which certain spirits afterwards said was not so good as they imagined; but it was given me to reply that it can never happen that one perceives similarly the idea of another; everyone [perceives] according to his disposition, so that the same idea or sense of ideas is never received by one like as by another, as also that everyone receives according to his disposition, and some cannot, because of such quality, [perceive] what there was cheerful and good in the idea; thus they conclude from their own [ideas], for in a single idea are indefinite things; therefore they perceive [each] according to the quality of him who receives. Such is the case with regard to generals as well as singulars, interiors as well as more interior things. This was forthwith shown me. [There were] certain spirits among them who desire to punish, and when they began, I represented plumes in their hands, then palms; they immediately said that we hold in our hands only rods, that is, without leaves, which was done that I might know how ideas are received according to different dispositions. - 1748, June 11.