5874. 'And the Egyptians heard' means right through to last and lowest [mental images]. This is clear from the meaning of 'hearing' - hearing the voice given forth in weeping - as a perception of mercy and joy; and from the representation of 'the Egyptians' as factual knowledge, dealt with in 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462, thus the last and lowest [mental images], for the facts a person knows form the lowest level [of his mind]. It is not evident to a person that such facts form this lowest level, that is, the lowest level of his memory and conscious thought, for they seem to him to compose the whole of his intelligence and wisdom. But they do not. Facts are merely vessels in which matters of intelligence and wisdom are stored; and indeed they are last and lowest vessels, for they link with sensory impressions received through the body. The fact that they are last and lowest is evident to anyone who stops to reflect on the way he thinks. When he investigates some truth the facts he knows are at that time present yet not apparent; for his thought at that time draws out ideas contained within those facts. He draws those ideas out of great numbers of known facts scattered in this direction and that, as well as ones deeply hidden, and by doing this arrives at some conclusion. And the deeper his thought goes, the further away he gets from those facts. This may be seen quite plainly from the consideration that when a person enters the next life and becomes a spirit he does indeed take his factual knowledge with him, but is not allowed to use it, for a number of reasons, 2476, 2477, 2479; yet his thought and utterances about what is true and good are far clearer and more perfect than when he was in the world. From all this one can see that factual knowledge serves a person in the formation of his understanding; but once this has been formed his factual knowledge forms the last and lowest level, and he no longer thinks on this level but on a level above it.