, the more promptly and fully do
they imbibe, and the more perfectly do they retain [what they hear],
and as this [capacity remains] for ever, it is evident that wisdom
is continually growing with them. With the spirits of Mercury, the
science of things is continually growing, yet not therefore wisdom,
because they love knowledges, which are means, but not uses, which are
ends.

30. Furthermore, the character of the genius of the spirits who are
from the planet Mercury may still further appear from the following
facts. It must be known that all spirits and angels without exception
were once men, for the human race is the seminary of heaven; and that
spirits are altogether such as to their affections and inclinations
as they had been when they lived as men in the world, for every one's
life follows him[n]. This being the case, the genius of the men of
every earth may be known from the genius of the spirits who are from
it.

[Footnote n: Every one's life remains with him and follows him after
death, nos. 4227, 7440. The externals of life are kept closed after
death, and the internals of life are opened, nos. 4314, 5128,
6495. All things in general and particular of thought are then made
manifest, nos. 4633, 5128.]

31. Since the spirits of Mercury in the Grand Man have relation to the
memory of things abstracted from material things, therefore when
any one speaks to them of terrestrial, corporeal, and merely worldly
things, they are absolutely unwilling to hear; and if they are forced
to hear of those things, they transmute them into others, and for the
most part into contrary things, so as to avoid them.

32. In order that I might know for certain that such was their genius,
it was allowed to represent to them meadows, fallow-lands, gardens,
woods, and streams. To represent such things is to exhibit before
another in imagination those things which, in the other life, appear
to the life. But they instantly transmuted them; they darkened the
meadows and fallow-lands, and by representations filled them with
snakes; the streams they turned black, so that the water no longer
appeared limpid. When I asked why they did so, they said they did
not want to think of such things, but of realities, which are the
knowledges of things abstracted from terrestrial things, especially of
such as exist in the heavens.

33. I afterwards represented to them birds both large and small,
such as exist on our Earth; for in the other life s