ye and the ear, and not only constitutes those senses but also employs
them as its instruments in the natural world. As this is not according to
the appearance, they do not perceive even if it is only said that the
natural does not flow into the spiritual, but the spiritual into the
natural. They still think, "What is the spiritual except a finer
natural?" And again, "When the eye beholds something beautiful or the ear
hears something melodious, of course the mind, which is understanding and
will, is delighted." They do not know that the eye does not see of
itself, nor the tongue taste, nor the nose smell, nor the skin feel of
itself, but that it is the man's mind or spirit which has the perceptions
in the sensation and which is affected according to its nature by the
sensation. Indeed, the mind or spirit does not sense things of itself,
but does so from the Lord; to think otherwise is to think from
appearances, and if these are confirmed, from fallacies.

[2] Regarding thought, they say that it is something modified in the air,
varied according to topic, and widened by cultivation; thus that the
ideas in thoughts are images appearing, meteor-like, in the air; and that
the memory is a tablet on which they are imprinted. They do not know that
thought goes on in purely organic substances just as much as sight and
hearing do. Only let them examine the brain, and they will see that it is
full of such substances; injure them and you will become delirious;
destroy them and you will die. But what thought and memory are see above
at n. 279 end.

[3] Regarding life, they know it only as an activity of nature, which
makes itself felt in different ways, as a live body bestirs itself
organically. If it is remarked that nature is alive then, they deny this,
and say it enables to life. If one asks, "Is life not dissipated then on
the death of the body?" they reply that life remains in a particle of air
called the soul. Asked "What then is God? Is He not life itself?" they
keep silence and do not want to utter what they think. Asked, "Would you
grant that divine love and wisdom are life itself?" they answer, "What
are love and wisdom?" For in their fallacies they do not see what these
are or what God is.

These things have been adduced that it may be seen how man is infatuated
by prudence of his own because he draws all conclusions then from
appearances and thus from fallacies.

316.* By one's own prudence one is persuaded and conf