3482. I also was captured by those spirits in that fantasy, but I remembered that it had happened also earlier, but that I had been liberated by the Lord by thinking of infinite space as not space outside of the universe, which is endless, thus as imperceptible. 1So because this is imperceptible, so also is the concept of the eternal before the creation of the universe.
Later also I was led by the Lord into some grasp of forms the notion of which surpasses by far and to the greatest degree the notions taken from geometry. For forms such as the lowest human ones, only of the intestines, so surpass the notion of geometric forms that they cannot be understood by them.
[2] Now since the intestinal coils, and consequently their forms - and even more so, the forms of their workings, are such that their most subtle properties cannot ever be grasped by geometricians and their reckoning of infinities, because they incalculably many times surpass their reckoning of infinities, how then could they grasp by geometry the forms of the more subtle organs, and how then the vital forms, or those accommodated to receiving life, which transcend countlessly many times the organic forms, even that of the sight?
This all shows that such a human race cannot argue about spiritual and heavenly things, indeed about Divine ones, even on the basis of the intestines - scarcely on the basis of the excrement of the intestines, as to how it is discharged, which they likewise do not even perceive by their reckoning of infinities. So they argue from the excrements of excrements, the dirtiest and most vile of all things.
Footnotes:
1. I.e., beyond understanding.
3482. I was also [as remarked above] held by them in that phantasy, though still recollecting my former state, but I was delivered from it by the Lord by thinking of infinite space as not being space beyond the universe, which is without bound. The idea thus falls into the inconceivable, and as this is true of the thought of space, so also of that of an eternity before the creation of the world. I was afterwards led by the Lord himself into a certain perception of forms, the idea of which exceeded immensely all the ideas received by geometricians, for even the lowest human forms, as those of the intestines, so vastly surpass the forms apprehended by geometrical ideas, that they can by no means be perceived by them. And as this is true of the intestinal spires, and their consequent forms, so also far more are the forms of their operations such that the most subtle of them cannot possibly be conceived from geometry and its calculus of infinites, as they indefinitely transcend all such calculus. What then can be conceived from geometry of the forms of the still more subtle organs, and what of the vital forms, or those adapted to the reception of life, which immensely transcend the organic forms and [baffle] the sight? Hence it appears in what manner the human mind acts upon spiritual, celestial, and divine subjects; that it cannot reason even from the excretions of the intestines, [and show] how they are separated, which it cannot perceive from their calculus of infinites; wherefore they reason from the very dregs of these excretions, the most vile and sordid of all things.
3482. Tenebar etiam ego ab iis in phantasia ista, sed recordatus quod prius quoque, sed inde liberatus a Domino, per id quod cogitaverim de infinito spatio ut non spatio extra universum, quod absque fine, ita in imperceptibile, sic quia hoc imperceptibile, etiam quoque istud, de aeterno ante mundi creationem: postea etiam a Domino ductus sum in aliquam perceptionem formarum, quarum notio excedit multis et quam maxime notiones captas ex geometricis, nam formae ut humanae infimae, modo intestinorum, excedunt ita formarum geometricarum notionem, ut nequaquam ab iis percipi queant, et cum intestinales spirae, et inde formae, magis earum operationum formae tales sint, ut nequaquam subtilissima geometricis et calculo eorum infinitorum usque concipi possunt, quia calculum eorum infinitorum, indefinities transcendunt, quid tunc percipere possunt a geometricis formas organorum subtiliorum, et quid tunc formas vitales, seu vitae recipiendae accommodatas, quae indefinities transcendunt formas organicas, etiam visus! Exinde constat quod tale genus humanum de spiritualibus et coelestibus, imo de Divinis, ne quidem ratiocinari possint ab intestinis, vix ab excrementis intestinorum, quomodo separantur, quod nec quidem percipiat ex calculo eorum infinitorum, quare ratiocinantur ex excrementorum excrementis sordissimis et omnium vilissimis.