Obituary.

Cave and Sever, Printers, 18, St. Ann's-street, Manchester.

It is a universal rule concerning the life after death, that every one has his allotment according to the ends [he had] in the life of the body.

798. It is known that the universe is created only as a complex of means to the end of ends, which is the Lord, because he is heaven; mediate ends proceed from the lowest by their series and degrees of order to superior things, and thus to supreme. The arrangement of these means and ends is Order.

799. Such, therefore, as is the medium, or such as man is in his ends, as a mediate end, such is the nature (indoles) he assumes, and such becomes his life first after the life of the body, and such also he is in the grand body, or heaven; thus in the [grand] Man Himself, that is, he has his seat allotted to him in the Lord. Moreover, in respect to things still more and more interior, even to inmost things, man does not penetrate them, but the Lord alone; nor consequently [does he know] where his future inheritance will be, because these things are more interior than that they can be opened to human eyes, which are most obscure.

800. From the ends which man proposes to himself in the life of the body in every thing which concerns himself, the general community, heaven, and the Lord, he is so disposed [or arranged] that he may become a member, after life, of [that] Body.

801. That ends dispose or [arrange] men, may be evident from this, that man's life consists in the ends which he has, and which are, for the most part, loves; and his ends taken together are, as it were, his soul, and of such a nature his soul becomes. For the soul of man only regards ends, it being the complex of ends; thus man forms to himself a soul in the life of the body, which is his nature and instinct. 802. That ends dispose [or arrange] may also be evident from thisN. S. NO. 71.—VOL. VI.

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that if any one regards a private end, as himself, and the like, although he may act well for the general community, namely, that hence the common good may result, he is, notwithstanding, never hence remunerated, for he has not the common [good] as an end, but his own private [good]. As when devils intend evil and the destruction of man, of society, and of the human race, and the Lord turns that evil into good and salvation; nevertheless he who intended evil, and who had the worst end in view, remains a devil, and becomes worse.

803. The worst of all ends is that, which a man has, when he has self for an end; then general and universal [principles] are concentrated in himself; and then he has the injury [of others] as an end.

That ends in the life of the body induce a nature and instinct, which man takes with him into the other life.

804. Some examples were shewn to me this day, how the ends which a man has had in the life of the body, have induced a nature upon him, and have formed his instinct.

805. A certain spirit thought and conversed about nothing else than about something ingenious, [or clever], in expressions or words. ever occurred [in conversation] he so turned it, that something ingenious should shine forth from every expression. I wondered who he was, because he could not be distinguished from other spirits, except by the termination of his speech and thoughts in such things. But I was instructed, that such are they who in the life of the body had nothing else as an end but those studies which treat of merely external things, (particularia)* and have loved such studies, as [verbal] criticism, the various readings of classical authors, and of the Sacred Scripture; whose delight only consisted in making dictionaries, and who, in common life, loved nothing more than elegance of words, and double meanings, or the play of words [punning]. It was shewn to me of what quality the life of this person was, and also of others like him;

* The term particularia does not here mean particulars, as the constituents of generals, but merely material or external things. The author very often in the Diary employs the term particularia in this sense, and in 353 he defines expressly what he means by the "memoria particularium” as being "the memory of material ideas." In A. C. there are two or three passages in which the author uses the same term in the same sense (see A. C. 1526, and note to the edition of 1831,-see also 1639). Lord Bacon uses the same term in the same sense in the following passage :—“ 'Cogitavit," says Bacon of himself, cam esse opinionem, sive æstimationem humidam et damnosam, minui nempe majestatem mentis humanæ, si in experimentis et rebus particularibus sensui subjectis, et in materia terminatis diu ac multum versetur," &c.— He thought that was a confused and injurious opinion or estimation, and that the majesty of the human mind was lessened if it remained long and much in material things (rebus particularibus) subject to the senses, and terminated in matter."-TB.

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they were of such a character that I could perceive nothing, as it were, of life in them but mere words, and scarcely any thing besides words. They were, however, of a ready mind, and could talk much; but their thought inhered in every particular expression; and, from such things their speech was formed, which was as though it had no life in it, or, as it were, a thing in which there was but extremely little life. This spirit, however, was not evil because he could have no extension of thought, but there was a general coarctation, [or contraction of his thoughts] to something especially existing in the words, and also to particular features of the speech; hence he appeared as something not similar to life, but spoke as something artificially sculptured.

806. There are some who have loved such things only, and made them essentials, whereas they are only the lowest means [of attaining intelligence.] Such persons always imagine, that they are things of supreme importance, as the vulgar commonly suppose, because they are mediate causes to things more and more interior. These persons can

not ascend by thoughts above such things, because they love them, and the phantasies hence derived; still less can they ascend to universal [principles,] and consequently they have no end of performing ulterior uses thereby.

807. He who only loves the things of the memory, and places wisdom therein, and has for a rule that a man is wise in proportion as he retains things in his memory;-such a man has his thought, as before stated, covered, as it were, with a certain callous [substance], and when it is removed he grieves, thinking that he has lost all his life, and that he has nothing left remaining. But, as it appeared to me, man is then first in a state that he can be perfected. For such [a substance] appeared to me, because, as I believe, he had something good within, so that something good might have, as it were, transuded.-1748, Feb. 16.

On the determination of souls to certain ends, and also on their formation in the other life; and on the interior memory.

885. Such as men are formed in the life of the body, and indeed such as they hence are at the time of death, such they remain. Those things first recur which existed at the point of death, and in the disease, or in the extremity of life; and they are then inserted into various societies of good spirits, whose business it is to explore their quality as to their natural inclinations. This office they perform as though it were their own [peculiar occupation], they can scarcely know otherwise. Thus as souls are examined they are either received into better societies, or they are remanded to worse; every thing is done conformably to the natural genius of spirits, and consequently by a mode of consent or

of love, or of aversion, all which, even to the minutest particulars, are arranged by the Lord. I have been taught these things from manifold experience, for I have seen, heard, and perceived them. They told me of what quality they were in this state, and of what quality in that. They are also at first much actuated by the opinions and persuasions they had contracted; but experience teaches them, whether they are of this or of that quality. In the meantime they are in their own fune tion, and, as it were, in their own life, when they are thus, according to their own various methods, proving, [or examining] the spirits thus coming to them. There are various causes why they do this, besides that which prevails amongst spirits, namely, that of being curious and desirous of knowing of what quality they are, and what it is [that makes their life], for, knowledges in general are spiritual food. These desires and cupidities correspond to the bodily appetites of eating and drinking; hence knowledges are called spiritual food, and hence the interior significations of bread, fruit, wheat, milk, water, &c.

886. Moreover I have observed, that whilst souls are kept in a universal state, they think almost nothing; but general [principles] are revolved without any distinct idea, almost in like manner as men when they appear to themselves to think nothing. Nevertheless, this general speculation, as it were, has its determinations, and thus its variations, not known to man; they are, however, known in heaven. But in this state I could observe, as was also confirmed by spirits, that in this manner, as to externals, the soul could not be reformed before it is reduced to a state determinated to those ideas which are familiar to it, or which were its prevalent ideas during life; when first those things which are conducive [to its improvement] can be insinuated and fixed.

887. The memory of spirits, or of souls, is, as was said, interior, but not the memory of external, or corporeal things (particularium), such as man has; because the memory of external things is necessary for man, inasmuch as it is suitable to those things which his life in the body and the world requires. But the memory of spirits is interior, not known to souls. Wherefore as often as I conversed with souls about it, they thought it was nothing, and this very often; for in their lifetime they were ignorant of it; and their phantasies and similar things which they love, belong to that memory. Cupidities are those things which flow from the imaginary harmony of phantasies, and some are delighted with this harmony, uot unlike those who are delighted with instruments that do not

* See note above, 805.

The author here, as in many other places in the Diary, makes a distinction between souls and spirits, meaning by the former those who have recently come into the other life, and who are as yet scarcely conscious of the change; and by the latter those who are initiated into societies, and are conscious of their change of state.-TR.