400. XII. THE SPHERE OF THE LOVE OF PROCREATING ADVANCES IN ORDER FROM THE END THROUGH CAUSES INTO EFFECTS, AND MAKES PERIODS; WHEREBY CREATION IS PRESERVED IN THE STATE FORESEEN AND PROVIDED FOR. All operations in the universe have a progression from ends through causes into effects. These three are in themselves indivisible, although in idea they appear divided; but still the end, unless the intended effect is seen together with it, is not any thing; nor does either become any thing, unless the cause supports, contrives, and conjoins it. Such a progression is inherent in every man in general, and in every particular, altogether as will, understanding, and action: every end in regard to man relates to the will, every cause to the understanding, and every effect to the action; in like manner, every end relates to love, every efficient cause to wisdom, and every effect thence derived to use. The reason of this is, because the receptacle of love is the will, the receptacle of wisdom is the understanding, and the receptacle of use is action: since therefore operations in general and in particular with man advance from the will through the understanding into act, so also do they advance from love through wisdom into use. By wisdom here we mean all that which belongs to judgement and thought. That these three are a one in the effect, is evident. That they also make a one in ideas before the effect, is perceived from the consideration, that determination only intervenes; for in the mind an end goes forth from the will and produces for itself a cause in the understanding, and presents to itself an intention; and intention is as an act before determination; hence it is, that by a wise man, and also by the Lord, intention is accepted as an act. What rational person cannot see, or, when he hears, acknowledge, that those three principles flow from some first cause, and that that cause is, that from the Lord, the Creator and Conservator of the universe, there continually proceed love, wisdom, and use, and these three are one? Tell, if you can, in what other source they originate.
401. A similar progression from end through cause into effect belongs also to the sphere of procreating and of protecting the things procreated. The end in this case is the will or love of procreating; the middle cause, by which the end is effected and into which it infuses itself, is conjugial love; the progressive series of efficient causes is the loving, conception, gestation of the embryo or offspring to be procreated; and the effect is the offspring itself procreated. But although end, cause, and effect successively advance as three things, still in the love of procreating, and inwardly in all the causes, and in the effect itself, they make a one. They are the efficient causes only, which advance through times, because in nature; while the end or will, or love, remains continually the same: for ends advance in nature through times without time; but they cannot come forth and manifest themselves, until the effect or use exists and becomes a subject; before this, the love could love only the advance, but could not secure and fix itself. That there are periods of such progressions, and that creation is thereby preserved in the state foreseen and provided for, is well known. But the series of the love of infants from its greatest to its least, thus to the boundary in which it subsists or ceases, is retrograde; since it is according to the decrease of innocence in the subject, and also on account of the periods.
402. XIII. THE LOVE OF INFANTS DESCENDS, AND DOES NOT ASCEND. That it descends from generation to generation, or from sons and daughters to grandsons and granddaughters, and does not ascend from these to fathers and mothers of families, is well known. The cause of its increase in descent is the love of fructifying, or of producing uses, and in respect to the human race, it is the love of multiplying it; but this derives its origin solely from the Lord, who, in the multiplication of the human race, regards the conservation of creation, and as the ultimate end thereof, the angelic heaven, which is solely from the human race; and since the angelic heaven is the end of ends, and thence the love of loves with the Lord, therefore there is implanted in the souls of men, not only the love of procreating, but also of loving the things procreated in successions: hence also this love exists only with man and not with any beast or bird. That this love with man descends increasing, is in consequence of the glory of honor, which in like manner increases with him according to amplifications. That the love of honor and glory receives into itself the love of infants flowing from the Lord, and makes it as it were its own, will be seen in [article XVI].
403. XIV. WIVES HAVE ONE STATE OF LOVE BEFORE CONCEPTION AND ANOTHER AFTER, EVEN TO THE BIRTH. This is adduced to the end that it may be known, that the love of procreating, and the consequent love of what is procreated, is implanted in conjugial love with women, and that with them those two loves are divided, while the end, which is the love of procreating, begins its progression. That the love called storge is then transferred from the wife to the husband; and also that the love of procreating, which, as we said, with a woman makes one with her conjugial love, is then not alike, is evident from several indications.
404. XV. WITH PARENTS CONJUGIAL LOVE IS CONJOINED WITH THE LOVE OF INFANTS BY SPIRITUAL CAUSES, AND THENCE BY NATURAL. The spiritual causes are, that the human race may be multiplied, and from this the angelic heaven enlarged, and that thereby such may be born as will become angels, serving the Lord to promote uses in heaven, and by consociation with men also in the earths: for every man has angels associated with him from the Lord; and such is his conjunction with them, that if they were taken away, he would instantly die. The natural causes of the conjunction of those two loves are, to effect the birth of those who may promote uses in human societies, and may be incorporated therein as members. That the latter are the natural and the former the spiritual causes of the love of infants and of conjugial love, even married partners themselves think and sometimes declare, saying they have enriched heaven with as many angels as they have had descendants, and have furnished society with as many servants as they have had children.