4434. THAT SPIRITS CAN DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, AND THUS THAT THEY ARE NOTHING. I spoke with spirits concerning the circumstance that they think themselves able to do anything from themselves, for they are generally boastful, and because it is permitted them to act according to their phantasies and cupidities, they think they can do much. But it was given to reply to them, that they know that everything they think flows in, thus that they cannot think from themselves as from themselves, and because they cannot think from themselves as from themselves, that consequently they could not [so] act, because everything that is acted comes from thought, inasmuch as nothing could be acted by them without their [first] thinking and thus willing it, because they could not deny that everything they thought flowed in, neither could they deny that they were unable to do anything from themselves, unless they willed it like something inanimate, or brutish, which continually acts from a certain cupidity or affection.