839. Finally we talked about the interior and exterior man. It was said that men who perceive things interiorly are in the light of truth, which is the light of heaven, while those who perceive things exteriorly are in no light of truth, because they are in the light of the world only; thus interior men are in intelligence and wisdom, but exterior men are in insanity and in distorted vision (n. 345); that interior men are spiritual because they think from the spirit exalted above the body, and therefore see truths in light; while exterior men are sensual-natural because they think from the fallacies of the bodily senses; therefore they see truths as in a thick cloud, and when they reflect upon them in themselves they see fallacies as truths; that internal men are like those standing on a mountain in the midst of a plain, or on a tower in a city, or on a lighthouse at sea; while external men are like those standing in a valley at the foot of a mountain, in a vault beneath a tower, or in a boat at the foot of a lighthouse, seeing only what lies nearest to them. Moreover, internal men are like those who live in the second or third story of a house or palace, the walls of which are a continuous window of clear glass, who look round about upon the city in its whole extent and recognize every cottage in it; while external men are like those who live in the lowest story, the windows of which are made of pasted pieces of paper, who cannot see even a single street outside of the house, but only what is within it, and not even that, except by the light of a candle or of the fire. And again, internal men are like eagles soaring aloft and seeing all things spread out beneath them; while external men, on the other hand, are like cocks standing on a post and crowing aloud before the hens that are walking on the ground. Furthermore, internal men perceive that what they know compared with what they do not know is like water in a pitcher as compared to that in a lake; while external men have no other thought than they know everything. The Africans were delighted with these remarks, because from the interior vision in which they excel they recognized that it was so.