Part 14 (1/2)

400. (2) Love or the will strives unceasingly towards the human form and all things of that form. This is evident from the correspondence of heart and will. For it is known that all things of the body are formed in the womb, and that they are formed by means of fibers from the brains and blood vessels from the heart, and that out of these two the tissues of all organs and viscera are made; from which it is evident that all things of man have their existence from the life of the will, which is love, from their first principles, out of the brains, through the fibers; and all things of his body out of the heart through the arteries and veins. From this it is clearly evident that life (which is love and the will therefrom), strives unceasingly towards the human form. And as the human form is made up of all the things there are in man, it follows that love or the will is in a continual conatus and effort to form all these. There is such a conatus and effort towards the human form, because G.o.d is a Man, and Divine Love and Divine Wisdom is His life, and from His life is everything of life. Any one can see that unless Life which is very Man acted into that which in itself is not life, the formation of anything such as exists in man would be impossible, in whom are thousands of thousands of things that make a one, and that unanimously aspire to an image of the Life from which they spring, that man may become a receptacle and abode of that Life. From all this it can be seen that love, and out of the love the will, and out of the will the heart, strive unceasingly towards the human form.

401. (3) Love or the will is unable to effect anything by its human form without a marriage with wisdom or the understanding. This also is evident from the correspondence of the heart with the will. The embryo man lives by the heart, not by the lungs. For in the fetus the blood does not flow from the heart into the lungs, giving it the ability to respire; but it flows through the foramen ovale into the left ventricle of the heart; consequently the fetus is unable to move any part of its body, but lies enswathed, neither has it sensation, for its organs of sense are closed.

So is it with love or the will, from which the fetus lives indeed, though obscurely, that is, without sensation or action. But as soon as the lungs are opened, which is the case after birth, he begins to feel and act, and likewise to will and think. From all this it can be seen, that love or the will is unable to effect anything by means of its human form without a marriage with wisdom or the understanding.

402. (4) Love or the will prepares a house or bridal chamber for its future wife, which is wisdom or the understanding. In the created universe and in each of its particulars there is a marriage of good and truth; and this is so because good is of love and truth is of wisdom, and these two are in the Lord, and out of Him all things are created. How this marriage has existence in man can be seen mirrored in the conjunction of the heart with the lungs; since the heart corresponds to love or good, and the lungs to wisdom or truth (see above, n. 378-381, 382-385). From that conjunction it can be seen how love or the will betroths to itself wisdom or the understanding, and afterwards weds it, that is, enters into a kind of marriage with it. Love betroths to itself wisdom by preparing for it a house or bridal chamber, and marries it by conjoining it to itself by affections, and afterwards lives wisely with it in that house. How this is cannot be fully described except in spiritual language, because love and wisdom, consequently will and understanding, are spiritual; and spiritual things can, indeed, be expressed in natural language, but can be perceived only obscurely, from a lack of knowledge of what love is, what wisdom is, what affections for good are, and what affections for wisdom, that is, affections for truth, are. Yet the nature of the betrothal and of the marriage of love with wisdom, or of will with understanding, can be seen by the parallel that is furnished by their correspondence with the heart and lungs. What is true of these is true of love and wisdom, so entirely that there is no difference whatever except that one is natural and the other spiritual. Thus it is evident from the heart and lungs, that the heart first forms the lungs, and afterwards joins itself to them; it forms the lungs in the fetus, and joins itself to them after birth. This the heart does in its abode which is called the breast, where the two are encamped together, separated from the other parts of the body by a part.i.tion called the diaphragm and by a covering called the pleura. So it is with love and wisdom or with will and understanding.

403. (5) Love or the will prepares all things in its own human form, that it may act conjointly with wisdom or the understanding. We say, will and understanding, but it is to be carefully borne in mind that the will is the entire man; for it is the will that, with the understanding, is in first principles in the brains, and in derivatives in the body, consequently in the whole and in every part (see above, n. 365-367). From this it can be seen that the will is the entire man as regards his very form, both the general form and the particular form of all parts; and that the understanding is its partner, as the lungs are the partner of the heart. Beware of cheris.h.i.+ng an idea of the will as something separate from the human form, for it is that same form. From this it can be seen not only how the will prepares a bridal chamber for the understanding, but also how it prepares all things in its house (which is the whole body) that it may act conjointly with the understanding. This it prepares in such a way that as each and every thing of the body is conjoined to the will, so is it conjoined to the understanding; in other words, that as each and everything of the body is submissive to the will, so is it submissive to the understanding. How each and every thing of the body is prepared for conjunction with the understanding as well as with the will, can be seen in the body only as in a mirror or image, by the aid of anatomical knowledge, which shows how all things in the body are so connected, that when the lungs respire each and every thing in the entire body is moved by the respiration of the lungs, and at the same time from the beating of the heart. Anatomy shows that the heart is joined to the lungs through the auricles, which are continued into the interiors of the lungs; also that all the viscera of the entire body are joined through ligaments to the chamber of the breast; and so joined that when the lungs respire, each and all things, in general and in particular, partake of the respiratory motion. Thus when the lungs are inflated, the ribs expand the thorax, the pleura is dilated, and the diaphragm is stretched wide, and with these all the lower parts of the body, which are connected with them by ligaments therefrom, receive some action through the pulmonic action; not to mention further facts, lest those who have no knowledge of anatomy, on account of their ignorance of its terms should be confused in regard to the subject. Consult any skillful and discerning anatomist whether all things in the entire body, from the breast down be not so bound together, that when the lungs expand by respiration, each and all of them are moved to action synchronous with the pulmonic action. From all this the nature of the conjunction prepared by the will between the understanding and each and every thing of the human form is now evident.

Only explore the connections well and scan them with an anatomical eye; then, following the connections, consider their cooperation with the breathing lungs and with the heart; and finally, in thought, subst.i.tute for the lungs the understanding, and for the heart the will, and you will see.

404. (6) After the nuptials, the first conjunction is through affection for knowing, from which springs affection for truth. By the nuptials is meant man's state after birth, from a state of ignorance to a state of intelligence, and from this to a state of wisdom. The first state which is one of pure ignorance, is not meant here by nuptials, because there is then no thought from the understanding, and only an obscure affection from the love or will. This state is initiatory to the nuptials. In the second state, which belongs to man in childhood, there is, as we know, an affection for knowing, by means of which the infant child learns to speak and to read, and afterwards gradually learns such things as belong to the understanding. That it is love, belonging to the will, that effects this, cannot be doubted; for unless it were effected by love or the will it would not be done. That every man has, after birth, an affection for knowing, and through that acquires the knowledge by which his understanding is gradually formed, enlarged, and perfected, is acknowledged by every one who thoughtfully takes counsel of experience.

It is also evident that from this comes affection for truth; for when man, from affection for knowing, has become intelligent, he is led not so much by affection for knowing as by affection for reasoning and forming conclusions on subjects which he loves, whether economical or civil or moral. When this affection is raised to spiritual things, it becomes affection for spiritual truth. That its first initiatory state was affection for knowing, may be seen from the fact that affection for truth is an exalted affection for knowing; for to be affected by truths is the same as to wish from affection to know them, and when found, to drink them in from the joy of affection.

(7) The second conjunction is through affection for understanding, from which springs perception of truth. This is evident to any one who is willing by rational insight to examine the matter. From rational insight it is clear that affection for truth and perception of truth are two powers of the understanding, which in some persons harmonize as one, and in others do not. They harmonize as one in those who wish to perceive truths with the understanding, but do not in those who only wish to know truths. It is also clear that every one is in perception of truth so far as he is in an affection for understanding; for if you take away affection for understanding truth, there will be no perception of truth; but give the affection for understanding truth, and there will be perception of truth according to the degree of affection for it. No man of sound reason ever lacks perception of truth, so long as he has affection for understanding truth. That every man has a capacity to understand truth, which is called rationality, has been shown above.

(8) The third conjunction is through affection for seeing truth, from which springs thought. That affection for knowing is one thing, affection for understanding another, and affection for seeing truth another, or that affection for truth is one thing, perception of truth another, and thought another, is seen but obscurely by those who cannot perceive the operations of the mind as distinct, but is seen clearly by those who can. This is obscurely seen by those who do not perceive the operations of the mind as distinct, because with those who are in affection for truth and in perception of truth, these operations are simultaneous in the thought, and when simultaneous they cannot be distinguished. Man is in manifest thought when his spirit thinks in the body, which is especially the case when he is in company with others; but when he is in affection for understanding, and through that comes into perception of truth, he is then in the thought of his spirit, which is meditation. This pa.s.ses, indeed, into the thought of the body, but into silent thought; for it is above bodily thought, and looks upon what belongs to thought from the memory as below itself, drawing therefrom either conclusions or confirmations. But real affection for truth is perceived only as a pressure of will from something pleasurable which is interiorly in meditation as its life, and is little noticed. From all this it can now be seen that these three, affection for truth, perception of truth, and thought, follow in order from love, and that they have existence only in the understanding. For when love enters into the understanding, which it does when their conjunction is accomplished, it first brings forth affection for truth, then affection for understanding that which it knows, and lastly, affection for seeing in the bodily thought that which it understands; for thought is nothing but internal sight. It is true that thought is the first to be manifest, because it is of the natural mind; but thought from perception of truth which is from affection for truth is the last to be manifest; this thought is the thought of wisdom, but the other is thought from the memory through the sight of the natural mind. All operations of love or the will not within the understanding have relation not to affections for truth, but to affections for good.

405. That these three from the will's love follow in order in the understanding can, indeed, be comprehended by the rational man but yet cannot be clearly seen and thus so proved as to command belief. But as love that is of the will acts as one with the heart by correspondence, and wisdom that is of the understanding acts as one with the lungs (as has been shown above) therefore what has been said (in n. 404) about affection for truth, perception of truth, and thought, can nowhere be more clearly seen and proved than in the lungs and the mechanism thereof.

These, therefore, shall be briefly described. After birth, the heart discharges the blood from its right ventricle into the lungs; and after pa.s.sing through these it is emptied into the left ventricle: thus the heart opens the lungs. This it does through the pulmonary arteries and veins. The lungs have bronchial tubes which ramify, and at length end in air-cells, into which the lungs admit the air, and thus respire. Around the bronchial tubes and their ramifications there are also arteries and veins called the bronchial, arising from the vena azygos or vena cava, and from the aorta. These arteries and veins are distinct from the pulmonary arteries and veins. From this it is evident that the blood flows into the lungs by two ways, and flows out from them by two ways.

This enables the lungs to respire non-synchronously with the heart. That the alternate movements of the heart and the alternate movements of the lungs do not act as one is well known. Now, inasmuch as there is a correspondence of the heart and lungs with the will and understanding (as shown above), and inasmuch as conjunction by correspondence is of such a nature that as one acts so does the other, it can be seen by the flow of the blood out of the heart into the lungs how the will flows into the understanding, and produces the results mentioned just above (n. 404) respecting affection for and perception of truth, and respecting thought.

By correspondence this and many other things relating to the subject, which cannot be explained in a few words, have been disclosed to me.

Whereas love or the will corresponds to the heart, and wisdom or the understanding to the lungs, it follows that the blood vessels of the heart in the lungs correspond to affections for truth, and the ramifications of the bronchia of the lungs to perceptions and thoughts from those affections. Whoever will trace out all the tissues of the lungs from these origins, and disclose the a.n.a.logy with the love of the will and the wisdom of the understanding, will be able to see in a kind of image the things mentioned above (n. 404), and thereby attain to a confirmed belief. But since a few only are familiar with the anatomical details respecting the heart and lungs, and since confirming a thing by what is unfamiliar induces obscurity, I omit further demonstration of the a.n.a.logy.

406. (9) Through these three conjunctions love or the will is in its sensitive life and in its active life. Love without the understanding, or affection which is of love without thought, which is of the understanding, can neither feel nor act in the body; since love without the understanding is as it were blind, and affection without thought is as it were in thick darkness, for the understanding is the light by which love sees. The wisdom of the understanding, moreover, is from the light that proceeds from the Lord as a sun. Since, then, the will's love, without the light of the understanding, sees nothing and is blind, it follows that without the light of the understanding even the bodily senses would be blind and blunted, not only sight and hearing, but the other senses also, - the other senses, because all perception of truth is a property of love in the understanding (as was shown above), and all the bodily senses derive their perception from their mind's perception.

The same is true of every bodily act; for action from love without understanding is like man's action in the dark, when he does not know what he is doing; consequently in such action there would be nothing of intelligence and wisdom. Such action cannot be called living action, for action derives its esse from love and its quality from intelligence.

Moreover, the whole power of good is by means of truth; consequently good acts in truth, and thus by means of truth; and good is of love, and truth is of the understanding. From all this it can be seen that love or the will through these three conjunctions (see above, n. 404) is in its sensitive life and in its active life.

407. That this is so can be proved to the life by the conjunction of the heart with the lungs, because the correspondence between the will and the heart, and between the understanding and the lungs, is such that just as the love acts with the understanding spiritually, so does the heart act with the lungs naturally: from this, what has been said above can be seen as in an image presented to the eye. That man has neither any sensitive life nor any active life, so long as the heart and the lungs do not act together, is evident from the state of the fetus or the infant in the womb, and from its state after birth. So long as man is a fetus, that is, in the womb, the lungs are closed, wherefore he has no feeling nor any action; the organs of sense are closed up, the hands are bound, likewise the feet; but after birth the lungs are opened, and as they are opened man feels and acts; the lungs are opened by means of the blood sent into them from the heart. That man has neither sensitive life nor active life without the co-operation of the heart and the lungs, is evident also in swoons, when the heart alone acts, and not the lungs, for respiration then ceases; in this case there is no sensation and no action, as is well known. It is the same with persons suffocated, either by water or by anything obstructing the larynx and closing the respiratory pa.s.sage; it is well-known that the man then appears to be dead, he feels nothing and does nothing; and yet he is alive in the heart; for he returns to both his sensitive and his active life as soon as the obstructions to the lungs are removed. The blood, it is true, circulates in the meantime through the lungs, but through the pulmonary arteries and veins, not through the bronchial arteries and veins, and these last are what give man the power of breathing. It is the same with the influx of love into the understanding.

408. (10) Love or the will introduces wisdom or the understanding into all things of its house. By the house of love or the will is meant the whole man as to all things of his mind; and as these correspond to all things of the body (as shown above), by the house is meant also the whole man as to all things of his body, called members, organs, and viscera.

That the lungs are introduced into all these things just as the understanding is introduced into all things of the mind, can be seen from what has been shown above, namely, that love or the will prepares a house or bridal chamber for its future wife, which is wisdom or the understanding (n. 402); and that love or the will prepares all things in its own human form, that is, in its house, that it may act conjointly with wisdom or the understanding (n. 403). From what is there said, it is evident that each and all things in the whole body are so connected by ligaments issuing from the ribs, vertebrae, sternum, and diaphragm, and from the peritonaeum which depends on these, that when the lungs respire all are likewise drawn and borne along in alternate movements. Anatomy shows that the alternate waves of respiration even enter into the very viscera to their inmost recesses; for the ligaments above mentioned cleave to the sheaths of the viscera, and these sheaths, by their extensions, penetrate to their innermost parts, as do the arteries and veins also by their ramifications.

From this it is evident that the respiration of the lungs is in entire conjunction with the heart in each and every thing of the body; and in order that the conjunction may be complete in every respect, even the heart itself is in pulmonic motion, for it lies in the bosom of the lungs and is connected with them by the auricles, and reclines upon the diaphragm, whereby its arteries also partic.i.p.ate in the pulmonic motion.

The stomach, too, is in similar conjunction with the lungs, by the coherence of its oesophagus with the trachea. These anatomical facts are adduced to show what kind of a conjunction there is of love or the will with wisdom or the understanding, and how the two in consort are conjoined with all things of the mind; for the spiritual and the bodily conjunction are similar.

409. (11) Love or the will does nothing except in conjunction with wisdom or the understanding. For as love has no sensitive nor any active life apart from the understanding; and as love introduces the understanding into all things of the mind (as was shown above, n. 407, 408), it follows that love or the will does nothing except in conjunction with the understanding. For what is it to act from love without the understanding?

Such action can only be called irrational; for the understanding teaches what ought to be done and how it ought to be done. Apart from the understanding love does not know this; consequently such is the marriage between love and the understanding, that although they are two, they act as one. There is a like marriage between good and truth, for good is of love and truth is of the understanding. In every particular thing of the universe as created by the Lord there is such a marriage, their use having relation to good, and the form of their use to truth. From this marriage it is that in each and every thing of the body there is a right and a left, the right having relation to the good from which truth proceeds, and the left to truth from good, thus to their conjunction.

From this it is that there are pairs in man; there are two brains, two hemispheres of the brain, two ventricles of the heart, two lobes of the lungs, two eyes, ears, nostrils, arms, hands, loins, feet, kidneys, t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, etc.; and where there are not pairs, there is a right and a left side, all this for the reason that good looks to truth that it may take form, and truth looks to good that it may have being. It is the same in the angelic heavens and in their several societies. On this subject more may be seen above (n. 401), where it is shown that love or the will is unable to effect anything by its human form without a marriage with wisdom or the understanding. Conjunction of evil and falsity, which is opposite to the conjunction of good and truth, will be spoken of elsewhere.

410. (12) Love or the will conjoins itself to wisdom or the understanding, and causes wisdom or the understanding to be reciprocally conjoined to it.

That love or the will conjoins itself to wisdom or the understanding is plain from their correspondence with the heart and lungs. Anatomical observation shows that the heart is in its life's motion when the lungs are not yet in motion; this it shows by cases of swooning and of suffocation, also by the fetus in the womb and the chick in the egg.

Anatomical observation shows also that the heart, while acting alone, forms the lungs and so adjusts them that it may carry on respiration in them; also that it so forms the other viscera and organs that it may carry on various uses in them, the organs of the face that it may have sensation, the organs of motion that it may act, and the remaining parts of the body that it may exhibit uses corresponding to the affections of love. From all this it can now for the first time be shown that as the heart produces such things for the sake of the various functions which it is afterwards to discharge in the body, so love, in its receptacle called the will, produces like things for the sake of the various affections that const.i.tute its form, which is the human form (as was shown above). Now as the first and nearest of love's affections are affection for knowing, affection for understanding, and affection for seeing what it knows and understands, it follows, that for these affections love forms the understanding and actually enters into them when it begins to feel and to act and to think. To this the understanding contributes nothing, as is evident from the a.n.a.logy of the heart and lungs (of which above). From all this it can be seen, that love or the will conjoins itself to wisdom or the understanding, and not wisdom or the understanding to love or the will; also from this it is evident that knowledge, which love acquires to itself by the affection for knowing, and perception of truth, which it acquires by the affection for understanding, and thought which it acquires by the affection for seeing what it knows and understands, are not of the understanding but of love. Thoughts, perceptions, and knowledges therefrom, flow in, it is true, out of the spiritual world, yet they are received not by the understanding but by love, according to its affections in the understanding. It appears as if the understanding received them, and not love or the will, but this is an illusion. It appears also as if the understanding conjoined itself to love or the will, but this too, is an illusion; love or the will conjoins itself to the understanding, and causes the understanding to be reciprocally conjoined to it. This reciprocal conjunction is from love's marriage with wisdom, wherefrom a conjunction seemingly reciprocal, from the life and consequent power of love, is effected. It is the same with the marriage of good and truth; for good is of love and truth is of the understanding. Good does everything and it receives truth into its house and conjoins itself with it so far as the truth is accordant. Good can also admit truths which are not accordant; but this it does from an affection for knowing, for understanding, and for thinking its own things, whilst it has not as yet determined itself to uses, which are its ends and are called its goods. Of reciprocal conjunction, that is, the conjunction of truth with good, there is none whatever. That truth is reciprocally conjoined is from the life belonging to good. From this it is that every man and every spirit and angel is regarded by the Lord according to his love or good, and no one according to his intellect, or his truth separate from love or good. For man's life is his love (as was shown above), and his life is qualified according as he has exalted his affections by means of truth, that is, according as he has perfected his affections by wisdom. For the affections of love are exalted and perfected by means of truths, thus by means of wisdom. Then love acts conjointly with its wisdom, as though from it; but it acts from itself through wisdom, as through its own form, and this derives nothing whatever from the understanding, but everything from a kind of determination of love called affection.

411. All things that favor it love calls its goods, and all things that as means lead to goods it calls its truths; and because these are means they are loved and come to be of its affection and thus become affections in form; therefore truth is nothing else than a form of the affection that is of love. The human form is nothing else than the form of all the affections of love; beauty is its intelligence, which it procures for itself through truths received either by sight or by hearing, external and internal. These are what love disposes into the form of its affections; and these forms exist in great variety; but all derive a likeness from their general form, which is the human. To the love all such forms are beautiful and lovely, but others are unbeautiful and unlovely. From this, again, it is evident that love conjoins itself to the understanding, and not the reverse, and that the reciprocal conjunction is also from love.

This is what is meant by love or the will causing wisdom or the understanding to be reciprocally conjoined to it.

412. What has been said may be seen in a kind of image and thus corroborated by the correspondence of the heart with love and of the lungs with the understanding (of which above). For if the heart corresponds to love, its determinations, which are arteries and veins, correspond to affections, and in the lungs to affections for truth; and as there are also other vessels in the lungs called air vessels, whereby respiration is carried on, these vessels correspond to perceptions. It must be distinctly understood that the arteries and veins in the lungs are not affections, and that respirations are not perceptions and thoughts, but that they are correspondences, that is, they act correspondently or synchronously; likewise that the heart and the lungs are not the love and understanding, but correspondences: and inasmuch as they are correspondences the one can be seen in the other. Whoever from anatomy has come to understand the whole structure of the lungs can see clearly, when he compares it with the understanding, that the understanding does not act at all by itself, does not perceive nor think by itself, but acts wholly by affections which are of love. These, in the understanding, are called affection for knowing, for understanding, and for seeing truth (which have been treated of above). For all states of the lungs depend on the blood from the heart and from the vena cava and aorta; and respirations, which take place in the bronchial branches, proceed in accordance with the state of those vessels; for when the flow of the blood stops, respiration stops. Much more may be disclosed by comparing the structure of the lungs with the understanding, to which the lungs correspond; but as few are familiar with anatomical science, and to try to demonstrate or prove anything by what is unknown renders it obscure, it is not well to say more on this subject. By what I know of the structure of the lungs I am fully convinced that love through its affections conjoins itself to the understanding, and that the understanding does not conjoin itself to any affection of love, but that it is reciprocally conjoined by love, to the end that love may have sensitive life and active life. But it must not be forgotten that man has a twofold respiration, one of the spirit and another of the body; and that the respiration of the spirit depends on the fibers from the brains, and the respiration of the body on the blood-vessels from the heart, and from the vena cava and aorta. It is evident, moreover, that thought produces respiration; it is evident, also, that affection, which is of love, produces thought, for thought without affection is precisely like respiration without a heart, a thing impossible. From this it is clear that affection, which is of love, conjoins itself to thought, which is of the understanding (as was said above), in like manner as the heart does in the lungs.