unication of all goods,
inasmuch as heavenly love communicates all its possessions to others;
and hence the angels derive wisdom and happiness, nos. 549, 550, 1390,
1391, 1399, 10130, 10723.]

16. The spirits of Mercury, on account of their knowledges, are more
conceited than others; wherefore they were told that, although they
know innumerable things, there is yet an infinity of things which they
do not know; and that even were the knowledges with them to increase
to eternity, they would still be unable to attain to so much as an
acquaintance with the generals of all things. They were told that they
were conceited and elated of disposition, and that this character
is unbecoming; but they replied, that it is not conceit, but only a
glorying on account of the capacity of their memory. Thus they have
the art of excusing their faults.

17. They are averse to verbal speech, because it is material;
wherefore, when I conversed with them without intermediate spirits, I
could only do so by a kind of active thought. Their memory, because it
is a memory of things, not of purely material images, brings nearer
to the thought its proper objects; for the thought, which is above the
imagination, requires for its objects things abstracted from those
of matter. But notwithstanding that this is the case, the spirits
of Mercury excel but little in the faculty of judgment. They take no
delight in the things which pertain to judgment and to conclusions
from knowledges; for their delight is in the bare knowledges.

18. It was suggested to them, whether they did not wish to make any
use of their knowledges; for it is not enough to be delighted with
knowledges, because knowledges have respect to uses, and uses ought
to be their ends; that from knowledges alone no use results to
themselves, but to others with whom they are willing to share or
communicate them; and that it is not at all meet for a man who wants
to become wise to stand still in knowledges alone, inasmuch as
these are only instrumental causes, meant to be serviceable for the
investigation of matters which ought to belong to the life. But they
replied that they were delighted with knowledges, and that to them
knowledges were uses.

19. Some of them, also, wish to appear, not as men, like the spirits
of other earths, but as crystalline globes. Their wanting to appear
so, although they do not, arises from the circumstance that the
knowledges of immaterial things are in the other