Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom

by Emanuel Swedenborg

(5) By means of this correspondence many arcana relating to the will and understanding, thus also to love and wisdom, may be disclosed.

(6) Man's mind is his spirit, and the spirit is the man, while the body is the external by means of which the mind or spirit feels and acts in its world.

(7) The conjunction of man's spirit with his body is by means of the correspondence of his will and understanding with his heart and lungs, and their separation is from non-correspondence.

372. (1) All things of the mind have relation to the will and understanding, and all things of the body to the heart and lungs. By the mind nothing else is meant than the will and understanding, which in their complex are all things that affect man and all that he thinks, thus all things of man's affection and thought. The things that affect man are of his will, and the things that he thinks are of his understanding. That all things of man's thought are of his understanding is known, since he thinks from the understanding; but it is not so well known that all things of man's affection are of his will, this is not so well known because when man is thinking he pays no attention to the affection, but only to what he is thinking; just as when he hears a person speaking, he pays no attention to the tone of the voice but only to the language. Yet affection is related to thought as the tone of the voice is to the language; consequently the affection of the one speaking is known by the tone, and his thought by the language. Affection is of the will, because all affection is of love, and the will is the receptacle of love, as was shown above. He that is not aware that affection is of the will confounds affection with understanding, for he declares it to be one with thought, yet they are not one but act as one. That they are confounded is evident from the common expression, I think I will do this, meaning, I will to do it. But that they are two is also evident from a common expression, I wish to think about this matter; and when one thinks about it, the affection of the will is present in the thought of the understanding, like the tone in speech, as was said before. That all parts of the body have relation to the heart and lungs is known, but that there is a correspondence of the heart and lungs with the will and understanding is not known. This subject will therefore be treated in what follows.

373. Because the will and understanding are the receptacles of love and wisdom, these two are organic forms, or forms organized out of the purest substances; for such they must be to be receptacles. It is no objection that their organization is imperceptible to the eye; it lies beyond the reach of vision, even when this is increased by the microscope. The smallest insects are also too small to be seen, yet they have organs of sense and motion, for they feel, walk, and fly. That they have brains, hearts, pulmonary pipes, and viscera, acute observers have discovered from their anatomy by means of the microscope. Since minute insects themselves are not visible, and still less so their component viscera, and since it is not denied that they are organized even to each single particle in them, how can it be said that the two receptacles of love and wisdom, called will and understanding, are not organic forms? How can love and wisdom, which are life from the Lord, act upon what is not a subject, or upon what has no substantial existence? Without organic forms, how can thought inhere; and from thought inherent in nothing can one speak? Is not the brain, where thought comes forth, complete and organized in every part? The organic forms themselves are there visible even to the naked eye; and the receptacles of the will and understanding, in their first principles, are plainly to be seen in the cortical substance, where they are perceptible as minute glands (On which see above, n. 366). Do not, I pray, think of these things from an idea of vacuum. Vacuum is nothing, and in nothing nothing takes place, and from nothing nothing comes forth. (On the idea of vacuum, see above, n. 82.)

374. (2) There is a correspondence of the will and understanding with the heart and lungs, consequently a correspondence of all things of the mind with all things of the body. This is new: it has hitherto been unknown because it has not been known what the spiritual is, and how it differs from the natural; therefore it has not been known what correspondence is; for there is a correspondence between things spiritual and things natural, and by means of correspondence they are conjoined. It is said that heretofore there has been no knowledge of what the spiritual is, or of what its correspondence with the natural is and therefore what correspondence is; yet these might have been known. Who does not know that affection and thought are spiritual, therefore that all things of affection and thought are spiritual? Who does not know that action and speech are natural, therefore that all things of action and speech are natural: who does not know that affection and thought, which are spiritual, cause man to act and to speak? From this who cannot see what correspondence is between things spiritual and things natural? Does not thought make the tongue speak, and affection together with thought make the body act? There are two distinct things: I can think without speaking, and I can will without acting; and the body, it is known, neither thinks nor wills, but thought falls into speech, and will descends into action. Does not affection also beam forth from the face, and there exhibit a type of itself? This everyone knows. Is not affection, regarded in itself, spiritual, and the change of countenance, called the expression, natural? From this who might not conclude that there is correspondence; and further, a correspondence of all things of the mind with all things of the body; and since all things of the mind have relation to affection and thought, or what is the same, to the will and understanding, and all things of the body to the heart and lungs, - that there is a correspondence of the will with the heart and of the understanding with the lungs? Such things have remained unknown, though they might have been known, because man has become so external as to be unwilling to acknowledge anything except the natural. This has become the joy of his love, and from that the joy of his understanding; consequently it has become distasteful to him to raise his thought above the natural to anything spiritual separate from the natural; therefore, from his natural love and its delights, he can think of the spiritual only as a purer natural, and of correspondence only as a something flowing in by continuity; yea, the merely natural man cannot think of anything separate from the natural; any such thing to him is nothing. Again, these things have not heretofore been seen and known, because everything of religion, that is, everything called spiritual, has been banished from the sight of man by the dogma of the whole Christian world, that matters theological, that is, spiritual, which councils and certain leaders have decreed, are to be believed blindly because (as they say) they transcend the understanding. Some, therefore, have imagined the spiritual to be like a bird flying above the air in an ether to which the sight of the eye does not reach; when yet it is like a bird of paradise, which flies near the eye, even touching the pupil with its beautiful wings and longing to be seen. By the sight of the eye intellectual vision is meant.

375. The correspondence of the will and understanding with the heart and lungs cannot be abstractly proved, that is, by mere reasonings, but it may be proved by effects. It is much the same as it is with the causes of things which can be seen rationally, yet not clearly except by means of effects; for causes are in effects, and by means of effects make themselves visible; and until causes are thus made visible, the mind is not assured respecting them. In what follows, the effects of this correspondence will be described. But lest any one should fall into ideas of this correspondence imbibed from hypotheses about the soul, let him first read over carefully the propositions in the preceding chapter, as follows: Love and wisdom, and the will and understanding therefrom, make the very life of man (n. 363, 365). The life of man is in first principles in the brains, and in derivatives in the body (n. 365). Such as life is in first principles, such it is in the whole and in every part (n. 366). By means of these first principles life is in the whole from every part, and in every part from the whole (n. 367). Such as the love is, such is the wisdom, consequently such is the man (n. 368).

376. It is permitted to introduce here, in the way of evidence, a representation of the correspondence of the will and understanding with the heart and lungs which was seen in heaven among the angels. By a wonderful flowing into spiral movements, such as no words can express, the angels formed the likeness of a heart and the likeness of lungs, with all the interior structures therein; and in this they were falling in with the flow of heaven, for heaven from the inflowing of love and wisdom from the Lord strives to come into such forms. They thus represented the conjunction of the heart and lungs, and at the same time the correspondence of these with the love of the will and with the wisdom of the understanding. This correspondence and union they called the heavenly marriage; saying that in the whole body, and in its several members, organs, and viscera, it is the same as in the things belonging to the heart and lungs; also that where the heart and lungs do not act, each in its turn, there can be no motion of life from any voluntary principle, and no sensation of life from any intellectual principle.

377. Inasmuch as the correspondence of the heart and lungs With the will and understanding is treated of in what now follows, and upon this correspondence is based that of all parts of the body, namely, the members, the organs of the senses, and the viscera throughout the body, and inasmuch as the correspondence of natural things with spiritual has been heretofore unknown, and yet is amply shown in two works, one of which treats of Heaven and Hell and the other, the Arcana Coelestia, of the spiritual sense of the Word in Genesis and Exodus, I will here point out what has been written and shown in those two works respecting correspondence. In the work on Heaven and Hell: The correspondence of all things of heaven with all things of man (n. 87-102). The correspondence of all things of heaven with all things on earth (n. 103-115). In the Arcana Coelestia, the work on the spiritual sense of the Word in Genesis and Exodus: The correspondence of the face and its expressions with the affections of the mind (n. 1568, 2988, 2989, 3631, 4796, 4797, 4800, 5165, 5168, 5695, 9306). The correspondence of the body, its gestures and actions, with things intellectual and things voluntary (n. 2988, 3632, 4215). The correspondence of the senses in general (n. 4318-4330). The correspondence of the eyes and of their sight (n. 4403- 4420). The correspondence of the nostrils and of smell (n. 4624-4634). The correspondence of the ear, and of hearing (n. 4652-4660). The correspondence of the tongue and of taste (n. 4791-4805). The correspondence of the hands, arms, shoulders and feet (n. 4931-4953). The correspondence of the loins and organs of generation (n. 5050-5062). Thy correspondence of the internal viscera of the body, especially of the stomach, thymus gland, the receptacle and ducts of the chyle and lacteals, and of the mesentery (n. 5171-5180, 5181, 5189). The correspondence of the spleen (n. 9698). The correspondence of the peritonaeum, kidneys and bladder (n. 5377-5385). The correspondence of the liver, and of the hepatic, cystic and pancreatic ducts (n. 5183-5185). The correspondence of the intestines (n. 5392-5395, 5379). The correspondence of the bones (n. 5560-5564). The correspondence of the skin (n. 5552-5559). The correspondence of heaven with man (n. 911, 1900, 1982, 2996-2998, 3624-3649, 3741-3745, 3884, 4051, 4279, 4403, 4423, 4524, 4525, 6013, 6057, 9279, 9632). All things that exist in the natural world and in its three kingdoms correspond to all things which appear in the spiritual world (n. 1632, 1831, 1881, 2758, 2990-3003, 3213-3227, 3483, 3624-3649, 4044, 4053, 4116, 4366, 4939, 5116, 5377, 5428, 5477, 8211, 9280). All things that appear in the heavens are correspondences (n. 1521, 1532, 1619-1625, 1807, 1808, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 2299, 2601, 3213-3226, 3349, 3350, 3475-3585, 3748, 9481, 9570, 9576, 9577). The correspondence of the sense of the letter of the Word and of its spiritual sense is treated of in the Arcana Coelestia throughout; and on this subject see also the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture (n. 5-26, 27-65).

378. (3) The will corresponds to the heart. This can not be seen so clearly taken by itself as when the will is considered in its effects (as was said above). Taken by itself it can be seen by this, that all affections, which are of love, induce changes in the heart's pulsations, as is evident from the pulse of the arteries, which act synchronously with the heart. The heart's changes and pulsations in accordance with the love's affections are innumerable. Those felt by the finger are only that the beats are slow or quick, high or low, weak or strong, regular or irregular, and so on; thus that there is a difference in joy and in sorrow, in tranquillity of mind and in wrath, in fearlessness and in fear, in hot diseases and in cold, and so on. Because the two motions of the heart, systolic and diastolic, change and vary in this manner according to the affections of each one's love, many of the ancient and after them some modern writers have assigned the affections to the heart, and have made the heart their dwelling-place. From this have come into common language such expressions as a stout heart, a timid heart, a joyful heart, a sad heart, a soft heart, a hard heart, a great heart, a weak heart, a whole heart, a broken heart, a heart of flesh, a heart of stone; likewise being gross, or soft, or tender in heart; giving the heart to a thing, giving a single heart, giving a new heart, laying up in the heart, receiving in the heart, not reaching the heart, hardening one's heart, a friend at heart; also the terms concord, discord, folly [vecordia], and other similar terms expressive of love and its affections. There are like expressions in the Word, because the Word was written by correspondences. Whether you say love or will it is the same, because the will is the receptacle of love, as was explained above.