2485. THAT EVIL SPIRITS ARE WORSE THAN BRUTES. I spoke with certain ones around me in the other life, who reflected upon the state of spirits, especially of the evil; and it was perceived very manifestly by a spiritual idea that evil spirits are like brute animals, resembling wasps and bees, which, when [they act] from their natural disposition, conceive [cogitent], and do nothing but evil, and that they are worse than brutes in this, that they act from a faculty of reasoning which they abuse, to think and do evil; therefore [act] worse than brutes, and that from that faculty they act against spirituals and celestials, or those things which belong to faith, which brute animals, because destitute of such a faculty, cannot [do]. - 1748, July 2.