2301. But it should be closely understood what is meant by entering into spirituals through natural philosophy, to wit, that it is never forbidden to confirm the truths of faith and spirituals by the things that are in nature, because a correspondence of all is given; for then the truth has command, and natural truths serve to confirm it. Human minds are so constituted that they thus may better acknowledge spirituals, for no one can have any idea of purely spiritual things save by the things in the world; even [in regard to] words by which senses are expressed, the ideas thereof are material; for then the Lord leads and inflows, who is Truth itself and thus the Lord illuminates the mind by confirmations. But to believe nothing, or to acknowledge no spiritual truth, as not even to [admit] a heaven, angels, spirits, the life after death, and many [other] things, unless they are seen and perceived by natural philosophy, or as they say, unless they are demonstrated to their senses, this is wholly forbidden; then do they become of such sort who began thus to examine. - 1748, June 11. Wherefore they wish to see spirituals and celestials from naturals, which is impossible. How can that which is compound, as I may say, enter and penetrate those things that are components; this is against all possibility; wherefore if it attempts, would either be burst asunder, and so perish, or be struck blind so as to see nothing at all. But from spirituals, as from components, the compounds may be seen and wholly discerned. - 1748, June 11.