In cultivating the Imagination, we must be sure to allow Thought to go with it hand in hand; remembering that the two together make up the Understanding. We must be careful to search conscientiously for true thoughts before allowing Imagination to shape them into forms. In order to find the truth, we must love it for its own sake, and must seek it with straightforward earnestness, because we believe it needful to the building up of Character. If we seek it from any less worthy motive, our sight will become morbid, we shall lose the power of knowing it when it is found, and shall be liable to mistake for it some miserable falsehood. If we allow Imagination too much liberty, zeal will run before knowledge; if we allow it too little, knowledge will run before zeal. In the former, case we shall be liable to fanaticism; in the latter, to sluggishness. In the former case we shall be ready to undertake to do anything that attracts us, whether we know how to do it or not; in the latter, we shall not be willing to try to do what we might. The lack of Affection prevents us from desiring to do a thing, the lack of Imagination makes us think we cannot do a thing, the lack of Thought of course makes it impossible to do a thing; for we cannot do a thing till we know that it is to be done.
In our religion, Thought gives us faith, Imagination gives us hope, and Affection gives us charity. Religion does not become a personal matter to us until it takes the form of hope. While it is simply a thing of thought it is cold, barren faith, and we care nothing for it; but when Imagination touches it, faith is changed to hope, and we begin to perceive that religion is a thing to be desired in our own persons. Religious fear, too, is the child of Imagination. Devils believe and tremble, because they hate goodness. Angels believe and hope, because they love it.
Every one has within his mind an imaginary heaven, within and around which all cherished images arrange themselves, according as they are more or less dear. We should search our minds, and learn what are the attributes of our heaven, if we would know whether we are tending towards the true heaven that is prepared for those who order their lives aright. We shall, if we do this, be sure to find that there are certain images rising very often in our minds, into which our thoughts seem to crystallize when disturbed by no interruption from without; and these. images make up all that we believe of heaven; they are the kingdom of heaven within us. We may, with our lips, acknowledge faith in a pure heaven wherein dwelleth righteousness; but unless our ideas fall habitually into forms of purity, there is no genuine faith in such a heavenly kingdom. We truly believe only in what we love. We may learn from books and from instructors a great deal about the science of goodness, and may talk of such knowledge until we fancy that we should be happy in a heaven where goodness reigned triumphant; and yet we may be entirely deceived in this fancy, and our hearts may all the while be fixed on things so entirely apart from the true heaven, that nothing could make us more miserable than the being forced to dwell within its gates. If we would test the quality of our faith, we must watch the images and pictures that rise habitually before our mind's eye in our hours of reverie; for they faithfully represent the secret affections of the heart. If these images are forms of purity and goodness, it is well with us; the kingdom of heaven is truly there; but if they represent only forms of things that belong to this world, if dress and equipage and social distinction haunt our longings, if visions of pride, vain-glory, and luxury are ever prompt to rise,—visions that belong only to the love of self and of the world,—visions that do not beckon us onward to the performance of duty, but only entice us with the allurements of sensuality and self-indulgence; or still worse, if discontent, envy, and malice darken the temple of Imagination with their scowls, the kingdom of heaven is far from us as the antipodes. This imaginary heaven that selfishness and worldliness have built up within us is in truth but an emanation from hell. We may talk of heaven, and observe its outward forms all our lives while harboring this demoniacal crew within; and we shall grow ever harder and colder with intolerance and bigotry under their influence; nor can we ever have that joy in heavenly hope that belongs to those whose hearts cleave to all that is pure and true, and whose souls are therefore filled with the imagery of virtue.
We cannot expect, in this life, to attain to a state of regeneration so entire that no images of evil shall ever come to our souls; but we may hope to become so far advanced that we shall not welcome and entertain them when they come; but shall recognize them at once as often as they appear, and drive them from us. This much, however, we cannot do with our own strength, for that is weakness; but if we strive, looking ever to the Lord, whose strength is freely given to all who devoutly ask his aid, we shall be armed as with the flaming sword of cherubim, turning every way to guard the tree of life.
AFFECTION.
Love is the Life of Man.—SWEDENBORG.
With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.—ST. PAUL.
The Affections are the most interior of all the attributes of man,—they are in fact his spiritual life. The acquisitions of the Understanding truly appertain to man only when the Affections have set their seal upon them. We may store our memories with knowledge and wisdom gathered from every source, but until they are grasped by the Affections they do not belong to us; for till then they do not become part and parcel of ourselves. So long as we merely know a thing we make no use of it. The facts of knowledge, as they lie in the Understanding, may exhibit a rank growth of thoughts and images; but though flowers may adorn them, they will all perish barrenly; while, if the warmth of the Affections is thrown upon them, the rich clusters of fruit speedily appear; not only affording present delight, but promising to be the parents of numerous offspring yet to come.
The Affections cannot be analyzed and comprehended with the same kind of distinctness with which we comprehend Thought and Imagination; because that which belongs to the Understanding can be expressed or described in words, and in that form be passed from one to another; while the Affections exist only in forms of emotion that cannot be distinctly translated into words. A glance of the eye or a touch of the hand often transfers an emotion from one mind to another with a facility and clearness of which words are incapable. There are no things we believe so completely as those which we feel to be true, yet there are none about which we reason so imperfectly.
The motive-power in man is Affection. What he loves he wills, and what he wills he performs. Our Character is the complex of all that we love. We often think we love traits of Character that we cannot possess; but we deceive ourselves. All that we truly love we strive to attain, and all that we strive after rightly we do attain. The cause of self-deception on this point is, that we think we love a certain trait of Character when we only love its reward; or that we hate other traits when we only hate their punishment.