174. V. MAN IS LED AND TAUGHT BY THE LORD IN EXTERNALS TO ALL APPEARANCE AS OF HIMSELF. This takes place in man's externals but not in his internals. No one knows how the Lord leads and teaches man in his internals just as no one knows how the soul operates to cause the eye to see, the ear to hear, the tongue and mouth to speak, the heart to keep the blood in motion, the lungs to breathe, the stomach to digest, the liver and the pancreas to distribute, the kidneys to secrete, and countless other things. These things do not come within man's perception and sensation. The same is true of what is done by the Lord in the interior substances and forms of the mind, which are infinitely more numerous. The Lord's operations in these are not apparent to man; but many of their effects are apparent, as well as some of the causes producing the effects. These are the externals in which man and the Lord are together; and as externals make one with internals, for they cohere in one series, therefore no disposition in the internals can be made by the Lord except in accordance with the disposition in the externals that is made through the agency of man. [2] Everyone knows that man thinks, wills, speaks and acts to all appearance as of himself, and everyone can see that without this appearance man would have no will and understanding, and thus no affection and thought, and also no reception of any good and truth from the Lord. This being so, it follows that without this appearance there would be no rational conception of God, no charity and no faith, consequently no reformation and regeneration, and therefore no salvation. From these considerations it is clear that this appearance is given to man by the Lord for the sake of all these uses; and especially that he might have the power to receive and to reciprocate, whereby the Lord may be conjoined to man and man to the Lord; and that man through this conjunction may live for ever. This is the meaning of appearance to be understood here.