888. As for that inward memory, and how spiritual knowledge is instilled into spirits, this cannot be understood except from things that take place in the life of the body, as that a person from early childhood learns to speak, learns to think, and this little by little, and does not know at all how these abilities, still less the faculties of understanding, thinking, judging, forming conclusions, are instilled into us. Likewise, an adult person in learning languages; or, as I have noticed in my own case, that I have been instructed in this same way in the duties of my office, so that they became fixed in my mind by experience alone, without any memory of particular [methods]. (The latter instance is mentioned only so that it can be understood what the nature of that memory is, not so as to insert something about myself.) 1748, 20 February.
888. What pertains to that interior memory and how cognitions are insinuated in spirits cannot be known except from those things which happen in the life of the body. For example, from his infancy man learns to speak and to think, and this more and more, yet he never knows how these things are insinuated, still less how the faculties of understanding, thinking, judging and concluding are insinuated; in like manner neither does the adult man when he learns languages. Also, as in my own case, I am acquainted with the functions of my office from experience alone without the memory of particulars. I have been instructed in this manner in order that these things might be fixed in my mind. (These things are said only that thereby it can be understood what that memory is like, not that the things concerning myself are to be inserted.) 1748, Feb. 20.
888. Quod ad memoriam illam interiorem, et quomodo insinuantur cognitiones spiritibus, non aliter sciri potest, quam ab iis quae contingunt in vita corporis, sicut homo ab infantia discit loqui, discit cogitare, et sic magis magisque, nec usquam novit quomodo haec insinuata sint, minus quomodo facultates intelligendi, cogitandi, judicandi, concludendique insinuatae 1
sunt; similiter homo adultus quum linguas discit, tum sicut apud me novi, quod [de] 2
officii mei partibus per solam experientiam, absque memoria 3
particularium, ut ea infigerentur, simili modo instructus sum (haec solum dicta, ut inde intelligi possit, qualis est memoria illa, non ut inserantur de me). 1748, 20 Febr.
Footnotes:
1. This is how it appears in J.F.I. Tafel's edition; the Manuscript has insinuata
2. sic in J.F.I. Tafel's edition
3. The Manuscript has mememoria