, he would be punished. But
immediately the company from which those spirits had been sent
forth, and which was at a distance, made answer, that if they must be
punished on that account, they must all be punished, inasmuch as, from
continual practice, they could not do otherwise. They said that when
they speak with the men of their own earth, they also do likewise,
not, however, with any intention to deceive, but to inspire the desire
of knowing; for when they present opposite things, and conceal things
in a certain manner, the desire of knowing is excited, and thus from
the zeal of exploring those things, the memory is perfected. I also,
on another occasion, spoke with them on the same subject, and, as
I knew that they spoke with the men of their earth, I asked in what
manner they instructed their inhabitants. They said that they do not
instruct them fully as to how a matter is, but keep insinuating some
apperception of it, in order that from this the desire of exploring
and of acquiring knowledge may be nourished and grow; for if they were
to answer all their questions, the desire would perish. They added,
that they suggest opposites for this reason also, that the truth
(_veritas_) may afterwards appear the better; for all truth appears
from relation to its opposites.

36. It is their custom not to tell another what they know, but still
they want to learn from all others what is known to them. With their
own society, however, they communicate everything, insomuch that
what one knows all know, and what all know each one in the society
knows[l].

37. Inasmuch as the spirits of Mercury abound in knowledges, they are
in a certain kind of conceit; hence they imagine that they know so
much that it is almost impossible to know more. But it was told them
by the spirits of our Earth, that they do not know much but little,
and that the things which they do not know are comparatively infinite;
and that the things which they do not know, are, relatively to those
they do know, as the waters of the largest ocean to those of a very
small fountain; and further, that the first step towards wisdom
consists in knowing, acknowledging, and perceiving that what one
knows, is, compared with what one does not know, so little as hardly
to be anything. In order that they might know that it is so, it was
granted that a certain angelic spirit should speak with them, and tell
them generally what they knew and what they did not know, and that
t