335. The fourth memorable occurrence. Once when I woke up in the early light before dawn, I saw ghostly shapes of various kinds before my eyes. Later on, when it was morning, I saw a faint, deceptive light taking various forms [in the sky]. Some of the forms were like sheets of parchment covered in writing that kept folding in on themselves until they looked like shooting stars falling through the air and disappearing. Others were like open books, some of which shone like little moons, while others burned like candles. Some of the books went higher and higher until they passed out of sight, while others fell down to the earth and smashed into powder. On the basis of these visions, I conjectured that there were people standing below these aerial phenomena and that the people were having a dispute over things that were figments of their imagination, but that they nevertheless thought were very important. In the spiritual world, phenomena like this appear in the atmospheres because of the false reasoning of the people standing below them.
Soon the sight of my spirit was opened and I noticed a number of spirits whose heads were ringed with laurel leaves and who were wearing togas with a floral pattern - signs that they were spirits who had been famous scholars in our world. Because I was in the spirit, I went over and mingled with the group. I could hear then that they were having a sharp and ardent dispute about innate ideas. At issue was whether people are born with innate ideas the way animals are. The spirits who thought that people are not born with innate ideas were turning away from the spirits who thought that people are. Eventually the two groups were squared off against each other like the ranks of two armies about to battle with swords, except that since they had no swords they were battling with sharply pointed words.
[2] At that point an angelic spirit suddenly stood among them and spoke out in a loud voice, saying, "From not too far away I could hear that you are having a blazing dispute with one another about innate ideas and whether people have them the way animals do; but I say to you, People have no innate ideas, and animals have no ideas at all. This means that what you are fighting about is actually nothing or, as the saying goes, goats wool or beards in a clean-shaven age. "
When the spirits heard this, they were all outraged and shouted, "Throw him out! What he is saying goes against common sense. "
When they tried to throw the angelic spirit out, however, they saw him surrounded with a heavenly light. Because he was an angelic spirit, they could not break through the light. They backed up and moved a little farther away from him.
After the light drew back, he said to them, "Why did you get angry? Hear me out first. Put together the reasons I am about to give; then you yourselves draw a conclusion based on them. I foresee that those of you who have outstanding judgment will accede, and the storms that have arisen in your minds will grow calm. "
In response, although the spirits still sounded annoyed, they said, "Speak then, and we will hear you out. "
[3] Then the angelic spirit rose to speak and said, "You believe that animals have innate ideas. You have drawn this conclusion from the fact that their actions seem to be based on thought. Yet they have no thought at all; and if they have no thought, they cannot be said to have ideas. A sign that thought processes are active is that people behave in one way or another for one reason or another.
"Ponder, then, whether a spider that is weaving a web with the utmost skill is thinking in its tiny head, 'I am going to lay out threads in this sequence and then stabilize them with perpendicular threads so that my web doesn't fall apart when the air shakes it violently. At the outermost ends of threads that run in to the center I will fashion a seat for myself. There I will sense if anything comes in and will hurry to the center. For example, if a fly flies in and gets caught, I will quickly go in and wrap it up and it will become my food. '
"Does a bee think in its tiny head, 'I am going to fly away. I know where the fields are that have flowers in them. There I will extract wax from some flowers and honey from others. With the wax I will build adjacent cells one after the other, laid out in such a way that my colleagues and I can easily get in and out on passageways. Later we will put lots of honey away in the cells so that there will be enough to prevent our death over the coming winter?' Not to mention other miraculous behaviors that not only emulate human political and economic prudence but even outdo it in some respects [see above].
[4] "Again, does a hornet think in its tiny head, 'My colleagues and I will build a little home out of thin paper. We will curve its inside walls into a labyrinth and fashion the heart of it into a gathering place with a way in and a way out so cleverly designed that no other living thing that is not part of our clan will be able to find the way to the center where we are gathered?'
"Again, is a silkworm during its caterpillar phase thinking in its tiny head, 'Now is the time for me to get ready to spin silk. My goal is that when I have finished spinning silk I will fly off, and in the air - a place I have never been able to reach before - I will play with my friends and ensure that I will have offspring?' The same with other caterpillars that crawl along walls and then become chrysalises, pupas, nymphs, and finally butterflies. Does a fly ever have an idea about breeding with another fly, that the breeding should take place here and not over there?
[5] "It is the same for creatures with larger bodies as it is for these insects - for example, when birds and winged creatures of all kinds mate, build nests, lay eggs in them, incubate the eggs, hatch young, give them food, raise them until they fly away, and then drive them from the birds' nests as if they weren't the birds' own offspring, not to mention countless other phenomena. It is the same for animals, snakes, and fish.
"From what I have said, you can all see that the spontaneous actions of living creatures do not flow from any thought, and that ideas come into play only where there is thought. The mistaken concept that animals have ideas comes solely from the false belief that animals think just as people do and only verbalization differentiates them. "
[6] After that the angelic spirit looked around. Since he saw that the spirits were still undecided on the issue of whether animals think or not, he continued his speech and said, "I sense that you are still stuck with an imaginary idea about brute animals thinking, since they have actions that are similar to human actions. I will tell you then where animals' actions come from.
"Every animal, every bird, every fish, reptile, and insect has its own earthly, sensory, and physical love. These loves dwell in the brains inside their heads. The spiritual world flows directly through their brains into their physical senses and uses those senses to determine their actions. This is why their bodily senses are far more refined than human senses. This inflow from the spiritual world is what is known as instinct. It is called instinct because it comes about without the help of thought. Instinct is also supplemented by the development of habits.
"The love animals have is a love solely for nutrition and propagation. A determination to act comes from the spiritual world through that love. They have no love for knowledge, intelligence, or wisdom, which are the means of developing higher levels of love in human beings.
[7] "As for people having no innate ideas, this is obvious from the fact that people have no innate thinking. Where there is no thinking, there are no ideas, for thinking and ideas go hand in hand. This conclusion can be reached by studying newborn babies. They are unable to do anything except nurse and breathe. They are able to nurse not from anything innate but from continually sucking while they are in their mother's womb. They are able to breathe because they are alive - breathing is universal to life. Their physical senses are in extreme darkness; by [encountering external] objects they climb out of that obscurity bit by bit. Similarly, their ability to move develops through habitual movement. As they learn to babble words and sound them out, at first without any idea, a dim form of visualization gradually arises. As this becomes clearer, a dim form of imagination develops, and this leads to a dim form of thought. As this state gradually develops, ideas develop, which as I said go hand in hand with thought. Thought grows out of no thought as a result of education. This is how people have ideas. Ideas are formed; they are not innate. From these ideas flow people's words and actions. "
On the point that people have nothing else innate except a faculty for knowing, understanding, and becoming wise, as well as a tendency to love not only knowledge, understanding, and wisdom but also their neighbor and their God, see above in the memorable occurrence at 48, and also a memorable occurrence below [692].
After that I looked around and saw Leibniz and Wolff nearby. They were paying close attention to the reasoning put forward by the angelic spirit. Leibniz then acceded and expressed his agreement, but Wolff went away both denying it and affirming it. Wolff's inner judgment was not as well developed as Leibniz's.
