2015. So there can never be one soul exactly like another, which I was also enabled to learn as follows: when I was pondering by a spiritual mental image that if two things should be the same, they could not be distinctly themselves, but would be one thing-when, I say, I merely entertained the thought of several things being one-then the world of spirits and the angelic heaven shuddered at it, so greatly does it go against the real truth. 1748, 20 May.
2015. (Thus there can never by any means be one soul precisely similar to another, which it was given to me to know by the fact that when I thought, in a spiritual idea, that if any two [souls] were one, they could not be conscious to themselves of a distinct existence, but would seem to be one; when, I say, I barely thought of a plurality being one, then the world of spirits and the angelic were so abhorrent to the idea that it was evident it was contrary to the truth of things. - 1748, May 20.)
2015. Ita nequaquam dari potest una anima prorsus similis alteri, quod etiam discere mihi datum etiam per id: cum cogitarem, spirituali idea, quod si bina essent una, non potuissent sibi esse distincte, sed unum-cum 1
inquam cogitarem solum, quod si plura essent unum-tunc 2
mundus spirituum, et coelum angelicum id abhorruit, ita contrariatur rerum veritati! 3
1748, 20 Maj.
Footnotes:
1. The Manuscript has unum, cum
2. The Manuscript has unum, tunc
3. The Manuscript has veritati