4617. How much more perfect are the ideas of thought than the words of speech, may be evident from this: that a man is able to think more things in a moment, than he could utter or describe in an hour. Speech, after death, is distinguished into ideas, and consists of ideas, which, amongst spirits, take the place of words and sound; for sound, amongst spirits, corresponds to thought, which, in itself, is tacit speech, but to spirits it is audible. From hence it is evident of what nature the speech of spirits is; namely, that it is more perfect than human speech, just as thought surpasses verbal speech. It was granted to observe what is its nature, inasmuch as I spoke with spirits, by means of ideas: and when with words at the same time, then did the ideas present much more than the words, and wonderfully filled up the sense. Sometimes, they presented things which could not be uttered in words.