The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love / To Which is Added The Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining To Scortatory Love

by Emanuel Swedenborg

489. IX. ADULTERIES COMMITTED BY SUCH PERSONS ARE IMPUTATORY, ACCORDING AS THE UNDERSTANDING AFTERWARDS FAVORS THEM OR NOT. So far as the understanding favors evils, so far a man appropriates them to himself and makes them his own. Favor implies consent; and consent induces in the mind a state of the love of them: the case is the same with adulteries, which in the beginning were committed without the consent of the understanding, and are favored: the contrary comes to pass if they are not favored. The reason of this is, because evils or adulteries, which are committed in the blindness of the understanding, are committed from the concupiscence of the body; and such evils or adulteries have a near resemblance to the instincts of beasts: with man (homo) indeed the understanding is present, while they are committing, but in a passive or dead potency and not in active and living potency. From these considerations it follows of course, that such things are not imputed, except so far as they are afterwards favored or not. By imputation we here mean accusation after death, and hence judication, which takes place according to the state of a man's spirit: but we do not mean inculpation by a man before a judge; for this does not take place according to the state of a man's spirit, but of his body in the deed; and unless there was a difference herein, those would be acquitted after death who are acquitted in the world, and those would be condemned who are condemned in the world; and thus the latter would be without any hope of salvation.

490. X. ADULTERIES OF THE THIRD DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF THE REASON, WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO WITH THE UNDERSTANDING CONFIRM THEMSELVES IN THE PERSUASION THAT THEY ARE NOT EVILS OF SIN. Every man knows that there exist such principles as the will and the understanding; for in his common speaking he says, "This I will, and this I understand;" but still he does not distinguish them, but makes the one the same as the other; because he only reflects upon the things which belong to the thought grounded in the understanding, and not upon those which belong to the love grounded in the will; for the latter do not appear in light as the former. Nevertheless, he that does not distinguish between the will and the understanding, cannot distinguish between evils and goods, and consequently he must remain in entire ignorance concerning the blame of sin. But who does not know that good and truth are two distinct principles, like love and wisdom? and who cannot hence conclude, while he is in rational illumination, that there are two faculties in man, which distinctly receive and appropriate to themselves those principles, and that the one is the will and the other the understanding, by reason that what the will receives and reproduces is called good, and what the understanding receives is called truth; for what the will loves and does, is called truth, and what the understanding perceives and thinks, is called truth? Now as the marriage of good and truth was treated of in the first part of this work, and in the same place several considerations were adduced concerning the will and the understanding, and the various attributes and predicates of each, which, as I imagine, are also perceived by those who had not thought at all distinctly concerning the understanding and the will, (for human reason is such, that it understands truths from the light thereof, although it has not heretofore distinguished them); therefore, in order that the distinctions of the understanding and the will may be more clearly perceived, I will here mention some particulars on the subject, that it may be known what is the quality of adulteries of the reason and the understanding, and afterwards what is the quality of adulteries of the will. The following points may serve to illustrate the subject: 1. That the will of itself does nothing; but whatever it does, it does by the understanding. 2. On the other hand also, that the understanding alone of itself does nothing; but whatever it does, it does from the will. 3. That the will flows into the understanding but not the understanding into the will; yet that the understanding teaches what is good and evil, and consults with the will, that out of those two principles it may choose and do what is pleasing to it. 4. That after this there is effected a twofold conjunction; one, in which the will acts from within, and the understanding from without; the other in which the understanding acts from within, and the will from without: thus are distinguished the adulteries of the reason, which are here treated of, from the adulteries of the will, which are next to be treated of. They are distinguished, because one is more grievous than the other; for the adultery of the reason is less grievous than that of the will; because in adultery of the reason, the understanding acts from within, and the will from without; whereas in adultery of the will, the will acts from within, and the understanding from without; and the will is the man himself, and the understanding is the man as grounded in the will; and that which acts within has dominion over that which acts without.

491. XI. THE ADULTERIES COMMITTED BY SUCH PERSONS ARE GRIEVOUS, AND ARE IMPUTED TO THEM ACCORDING TO CONFIRMATIONS. It is the understanding alone that confirms, and when it confirms, it engages the will to its party, and sets it about itself, and thus compels it to compliance. Confirmations are affected by reasonings, which the mind seizes for its use, deriving them either from its superior region or from its inferior; if from the superior region, which communicates with heaven, it confirms marriages and condemns adulteries; but if from the inferior region, which communicates with the world, it confirms adulteries and makes light of marriages. Every one can confirm evil just as well as good; in like manner what is false and what is true; and the confirmation of evil is perceived with more delight than the confirmation of good, and the confirmation of what is false appears with greater lucidity than the confirmation of what is true. The reason of this is, because the confirmation of what is evil and false derives its reasonings from the delights, the pleasures, the appearances, and the fallacies of the bodily senses; whereas the confirmation of what is good and true derives its reasons from the region above the sensual principles of the body. Now, since evils and falses can be confirmed just as well as goods and truths, and since the confirming understanding draws the will to its party, and the will together with the understanding forms the mind, it follows that the form of the human mind is according to confirmations, being turned to heaven if its confirmations are in favor of marriage, but to hell if they are in favor of adulteries; and such as the form of a man's mind is such is his spirit; consequently such is the man. From these considerations then it is evident, that adulteries of this degree after death are imputed according to confirmations.

492. XII. THE ADULTERIES OF THE FOURTH DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF THE WILL WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO MAKE THEM LAWFUL AND PLEASING, AND WHO DO NOT THINK THEM OF IMPORTANCE ENOUGH TO CONSULT THE UNDERSTANDING RESPECTING THEM. These adulteries are distinguished from the foregoing from their origins. The origin of these adulteries is from the depraved will connate to man, or from hereditary evil, which a man blindly obeys after he is capable of exercising his own judgement, not at all considering whether they are evils or not; wherefore it is said, that he does not think them of importance enough to consult the understanding respecting them: but the origin of the adulteries which are called adulteries of reason, is from a perverse understanding; and these adulteries are committed by those who confirm themselves in the persuasion that they are not evils of sin. With the latter adulterers, the understanding is the principal agent; with the former the will. The distinctions in these two cases do not appear to any man in the natural world; but they appear plainly to the angels in the spiritual world. In the latter world all are in general distinguished according to the evils which originate in the will and in the understanding, and which are accepted and appropriated; they are also separated in hell according to those evils: those who are in evil from the understanding, dwell there in front, and are called satans; but those who are in evil from the will, dwell at the back, and are called devils. It is on account of this universal distinction that mention is made in the Word of satan and the devil. With those wicked ones, and also those adulterers, who are called satans, the understanding is the principal agent; but with those who are called devils, the will is the principal agent. It is not however possible to explain these distinctions, so as to render them visible to the understanding, unless the distinctions of the will and the understanding be first known; and also unless a description be given of the formation of the mind from the will by the understanding, and of its formation from the understanding by the will. The knowledge of these subjects is necessary, before the distinctions above-mentioned can be seen by reason; but to express this knowledge on paper would require a volume.

493. XIII. THE ADULTERIES COMMITTED BY THESE PERSONS ARE EXCEEDINGLY GRIEVOUS, AND ARE IMPUTED TO THEM AS EVILS OF PURPOSE, AND REMAIN IN THEM AS GUILT. The reason why they are exceedingly grievous, and more grievous than the foregoing, is, because in them the will is the principal agent, whereas in the foregoing the understanding is the principal agent, and a man's life essentially is his will, and formally is his understanding: the reason of this is, because the will acts in unity with the love, and love is the essence of a man's life, and forms itself in the understanding by such things as are in agreement with it: wherefore the understanding viewed in itself is nothing but a form of the will; and since love is of the will, and wisdom of the understanding, therefore wisdom is nothing but a form of love; in like manner truth is nothing but a form of good. That which flows from the very essence of a man's life, thus which flows from his will or his love, is principally called purpose; but that which flows from the form of his life, thus from the understanding and its thought is called intention. Guilt also is principally predicated of the will: hence comes the common observation, that everyone has the guilt of evil from inheritance, but that the evil is from the man. Hence these adulteries of the fourth degree are imputed as evils of purpose, and remain in as guilt.