608.
When internal respiration ceased, external respiration gradually succeeded, almost like that of the present day; and with external respiration a language of words, or of articulate sound into which the
ideas of thought were determined. Thus the state of man was entirely changed, and became such that he could no longer have similar perception, but instead of perception another kind of dictate which
may be called conscience, for it was like conscience, though a kind of intermediate between perception and the conscience known to some at this day. And when such determination of the ideas of thought
took place, that is to say, into spoken words, they could no longer be instructed, like the most ancient man, through the internal man, but through the external. And therefore in place of the revelations
of the Most Ancient Church, doctrinal things succeeded, which could first be received by the external senses, and from them material ideas of the memory could be formed, and from these, ideas of
thought, by which and according to which they were instructed. Hence it was that this church which followed possessed an entirely different genius from that of the Most Ancient Church, and if the Lord
had not brought the human race into this genius, or into this state, no man could have been saved.