The real source of Swedenborg's inspirations will be tolerably obvious--to all, at least, who are not Swedenborgians. But our account of his visions would not be complete in a psychological sense without a brief reference to the personal allusions which the spirits and angels made during their visits or his wanderings. His distinguished rival, Christian Wolf, was encountered as a spirit by spirits from Mercury, who 'perceived that what he said did not rise above the sensual things of the natural man, because in speaking he thought of honour, and was desirous, as in the world (for in the other world every one is like his former self), to connect various things into series, and from these again continually to deduce others, and so form several chains of such, which they did not see or acknowledge to be true, and which, therefore, they declared to be chains which neither cohered in themselves nor with the conclusions, calling them the obscurity of authority;' so they ceased to question him further, and presently left him. Similarly, a spirit who in this world had been a 'prelate and a preacher,' and 'very pathetic, so that he could deeply move his hearers,' got no hearing among the spirits of a certain earth in the starry heavens; for they said they could tell 'from the tone of the voice whether a discourse came from the heart or not;' and as his discourse came not from the heart, 'he was unable to teach them, whereupon he was silent.' Convenient thus to have spirits and angels to confirm our impressions of other men, living or dead.