e questions also by material ideas,
and not by any that were spiritual, they departed from him. For in the
other life every one speaks spiritually, or by spiritual ideas, so far
as in the world he had believed in God; and materially, so far as he
had not believed. As an opportunity here offers, I may relate how the
case is, in the other life, with the learned who acquire intelligence
by their own meditation kindled by the love of knowing truths for
the sake of truths, thus for the sake of uses apart from worldly
considerations; and how the case is with those who acquire
intelligence from others without any meditation of their own, as is
the practice of those who desire to know truths merely for the purpose
of acquiring a reputation for learning, and of thereby attaining
honour or gain in the world, and consequently not for the sake of
uses apart from worldly considerations. I may here relate a certain
experience concerning men of this character. There was apperceived a
certain sound penetrating from beneath near the left side as far as
the left ear: I observed that there were spirits who were attempting
to force their way there, but I could not ascertain of what character
they were. When they had forced their way, however, they spoke with
me, saying that they were logicians and metaphysicians, and that they
had immersed their thoughts in such [sciences] without any other
end than that of acquiring a reputation for learning, and thus of
attaining to honours and wealth: they lamented that they now led a
miserable life, because they had studied these sciences for no other
end, and thus had not cultivated their Rational by means of them.
Their speech was slow and muffled. In the meantime there were two
conversing above my head, and when I asked who they were, I was told
that one of them was of the highest distinction in the learned world,
and it was given me to believe that he was Aristotle. Who the other
was, was not stated. He was then let into the state in which he had
been when he lived in the world, for every one can easily be let into
the state of life which he had had in the world, since every state
of his life remains with him. I was surprised to find that he applied
himself to the right ear, and he spoke there, hoarsely, indeed, but
still sensibly. From the purport of what he said I apperceived that he
was of quite a different genius from those Schoolmen who first arose,
namely, that he hatched what he wrote from hi