The spirits answered, they could not exactly tell; but if it were so, then certainly animal lives must leave their bodies behind them, otherwise the bodies would make the spiritual world a mixed world, that is, partly material, and partly immaterial; but the truth is, said they, spirits being immaterial, cannot properly make a world; for a world belongs to material, not to immaterial creatures. If this be so, replied the Empress, then certainly there can be no world of lives and forms without matter? No, answered the spirits; nor a world of matter without lives and forms; for natural lives and forms cannot be immaterial, no more than matter can be immovable. And therefore natural lives, forms and matter, are inseparable. Then the Empress asked, whether the first man did feed on the best sorts of the fruits of the earth, and the beasts on the worst?

Then she begged the spirits to pardon her presumption; for, said she, it is the nature of mankind to be inquisitive. Natural desire of knowledge, answered the spirits, is not blameable, so you do not go beyond what your natural reason can comprehend. Then I’ll ask no more, said the Empress, for fear I should commit some error; but one thing I cannot but acquaint you withal: What is that, said the spirits? I have a great desire, answered the Empress, to make a Cabbala. What kind of Cabbala, asked the spirits? The Empress answered, the Jews’ Cabbala.

The spirits answered, that unless the beasts of the field were barred out of manured fields and gardens, they would pick and choose the best fruits as well as men; and you may plainly observe it, said they, in squirrels and monkeys, how they are the best choosers of nuts and apples; and how birds do pick and feed on the most delicious fruits, and worms on the best roots, and most savoury herbs; by which you may see, that those creatures live and feed better than men do, except you will say, that artificial cookery is better and more wholesome than the natural. Again, the Empress asked, whether the first man gave names to all the several sorts of fishes in the sea, and fresh waters? No, answered the spirits, for he was an earthly, and not a watery creature; and therefore could not know the several sorts of fishes. Why, replied the Empress, he was no more an airy creature than he was a watery one, and yet he gave names to the several sorts of fowls and birds of the air. Fowls, answered they, are partly airy, and partly earthly creatures, not only because they resemble beasts and men in their flesh, but because their rest and dwelling places are on earth; for they build their nests, lay their eggs, and hatch their young, not in the air, but on the earth.