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CHRISTIAN VON WOLF. 619
to know them to make himself great, and to gain wealth ; and it was
shown him how this is done, and how such in the world appear to be
influenced by a feigned zeal; besides several other things." In
No. 4727, we read, “ Wolf was first a naturalist, but when, after his
return [to Halle], he was admonished, he simulated piety and a con
fession of faith from the heart, to such a degree, that people scarcely
knew otherwise than that he was a good converted Christian. It
appeared, however, from his confession before good spirits in the
other life, that this profession came simply from the lips, and that
in his heart he believed the opposite; before them he was brought
into such a state, that he spoke from his own thought, which he
had had in the world, and not from dissimulation . He then acknow
ledged that he had never believed in any God, but maintained that
nature is everything. His reasons he stated to be these: 1. That
God was never seen, nor heard, and that He has been hidden away
now for many centuries; that if there was a God, He would have
shown himself to men, so that they would have believed. 2. That
nothing of the Divine Providence is presented to view. 3. That the
soul is nothing but a breath, which has its existence as such from
the interior organism , and that when this dies, the soul dies also,
because it is simply like something atmospherical. 4. That brute
animals think and will just as well as man, and some of them , as
bears, dogs, mice, and foxes, more shrewdly and more intelligently
than he ; and that the difference between the two is so small, that
it scarcely deserves to be mentioned, as, for instance, language, which
they do not possess, because their organism is different: parrots
and similar birds nevertheless speak in the same manner and know
what they say. 5. That the last judgment has been expected for
so many centuries in vain, and that it is false that the stars will
then fall from heaven upon the earth, because they are larger than
the earth, and likewise the sun, which nevertheless is immovable in
the centre, besides several other things. These things Wolf confessed
before the good spirits, although he had spoken otherwise with his
lips *** He was also told that he had believed he would not live
after death, when yet he perceived now that he was living, and thus
that he had formerly thought wrongly on this subject." See also
" Intercourse," No. 19 ; " True Christian Religion ," Nos. 90, 335, 696,
and “ Spiritual Diary,” Nos. 4744, 4851, 6018, 6049.
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