4578. HOW WORTHLESS ARE THE MODERN SCIENCES, BY VIRTUE OF WHICH MAN PASS FOR WISE. I spoke with spirits concerning the modern sciences whereby men seem wise. In general, sciences are nothing else than means of becoming wise, or of forming one's rational mind; just as languages are means of developing thought. They who are in truths, are able, by means of sciences, to acquire many confirmations, and so to fill up their ideas. They who are in falses are also able, by means of the same sciences, to have confirmations, and so to fill up their ideas with falses. The useful sciences are physics, optics, chemistry, pharmacy, anatomy, mathematics, astronomy, architecture, botany, metallurgy, history, the governments of kingdoms, and the like, by all of which, as means, every one is able to become rational. But there are some [sciences] which utterly destroy the faculty of thinking, and annihilate the rational: as, for instance, scholastics, namely, when they describe one plain matter, intelligible to almost any one, by means of many scholastic terms, until no one understands it. Philosophy, when a judgment is formed by means of a train of inferences-from definitions of terms, and conclusions thence, -which, when they are linked together, set forth such things as can be understood by no one; nor what is their connection. They take away all reason; when, nevertheless, they comprise nothing else than may be so simply explained, that it may be understood by any one who pleased Logic, which analyzes verities, and assigns them a place amongst things doubtful; and still more when, by means of many [propositions], a single matter is to be unfolded, which is then involved. The conclusion, on many occasions, is such that it is intelligible without any syllogism. These are also circumstanced like Geometry and Algebra, when simple verities are demonstrated by these; and then the thing, thus mixed up, is expressed by angular, circular and curved figures, and explained according to them, so that it is intelligible to no one. Such sciences, and the applications of such sciences, bring it about, that man loses common-sense and becomes insane.