2. II.
THE LORD CREATED WITH MAN AND AFTERWARD FORMS WITH HIM A RECEPTACLE OF LOVE, WHICH IS HIS WILL; AND HE ADJOINS TO THIS A RECEPTACLE OF WISDOM, WHICH IS HIS UNDERSTANDING.
As there are two things in the Lord, love and wisdom, and these two proceed from Him, and as man was created to be a likeness and an image of the Lord, a. likeness through love, and an image through wisdom, so two receptacles were created with man, one for love and the other for wisdom; the receptacle of love is what is called the will, and the receptacle of wisdom is what is called the understanding. Man knows that he has these two, but he does not know that they are joined together in the same way as they are in the Lord, with this difference that in the Lord they are life, but in man receptacles of life. What the forms of these receptacles are cannot be explained because they are spiritual forms, and spiritual things transcend the apprehension. They are forms within forms, ascending even to the third degree, innumerable, separate and yet harmonious, and each particular is a receptacle of love and wisdom. Their origins are in the brains; where they are the beginnings and heads of the fibers through which their endeavors and forces flow down to all things of the body higher and lower, and cause the senses to be present in the sensories, the movements to be present in the moving parts and the functions of nutrition, of chyle-making, of blood-making, of separation, of purification, and of prolification to be present in the other organs, thus their uses in each of the particulars. This having been said it will be seen that:
1. These forms, which are the receptacles of love and of wisdom, first exist with man when he has been conceived and is being produced in the womb.
2. From these, by what is continuous with them, all things of the body, from the head even to the soles of the feet, are led forth and produced.
3. The productions of these are effected according to the laws of correspondence; and in consequence all things of the body, both internal and external, are correspondences.
[[2]] 1. These forms, which are the receptacles of love and of wisdom, first exist with man when he has been conceived and is being produced in the womb.
This becomes evident by experience, and is confirmed by reason. By experience:-from the first rudiments of embryos in the womb after conception, also from the rudiments of chicks in the egg after incubation. The very first forms are not visible to the eye, but only the first productions from these, which constitute the head. It is known that the head is relatively larger in the beginning; also that the web of all things in the body is produced from it. All this makes clear that these forms are the beginnings. By reason:-in that all creation is from the Lord as a sun, which is the Divine love and the Divine wisdom, and the creation of man is from these. The formation of the embryo and of the infant man in the womb is an image of creation, and is called generation, because it is effected by procreation. From this it follows that especially the first forms with man are receptacles of love and wisdom, and that the creation of the other things that constitute the man is effected through these; moreover, no effect exists from itself, but is from a cause prior to it that is called the effecting cause; neither is this from itself, but is from a cause that is called the end, in which is everything that follows in conatus and in idea, in conatus in the Divine love, and in idea in the Divine wisdom, for these are the end of ends. This truth will be more fully established in what follows.
[2] [[3]] 2. From these, by what is continuous, all things of the body, from the head even to the soles of the feet, are led forth and produced.
This, too, becomes evident by experience, and is confirmed by reason. By experience:-in that from these primitive forms fibers are led forth to the sensory organs of the face, which are called the eyes, ears, nostrils and tongue, also to the motor organs throughout the body, which are called muscles, also to all the organized viscera serving various uses in the body. All these are mere tissues of the fibers and nerves that go forth from both brains and from the spinal marrow. And the blood vessels, from which tissues are also formed, are likewise from fibers that spring from the same source. Anyone skilled in anatomy can see that around about the cerebrum, also inwardly in it and in the cerebellum and in the spinal marrow, there are little spheres like molecules, that are called the cortical and cineritious substances and glands, and that all the fibers whatever that are in the brains, and all the nerves that are from them throughout the body, come out of these little spheres or substances and go forth from them. These are the initial forms from which are led forth and produced all things of the body, from the head to the soles of the feet. By reason:-in that fibers are not possible apart from origins, also that the organic parts of the body, produced from fibers variously combined are effects, and effects cannot live, feel, and be moved by themselves, but only from their origins through what is continuous therefrom. This may be illustrated by examples. The eye does not see from itself, but through what is continuous from the understanding; the understanding sees through the eye and moves the eye, directs it to objects and fixes the gaze. Neither does the ear hear from itself, but through what is continuous from the understanding; the understanding hears through the ear; it also directs, incites, and turns it towards sounds. Neither does the tongue speak from itself, but from the thought of the understanding; thought speaks through the tongue and varies the tones and exalts their measures at pleasure. The same is true of the muscles; these are not moved by themselves, but the will together with the understanding moves them, and causes them to act at its beck. All this makes clear that there is nothing in the body that feels and moves from itself; but only from its origins, in which the understanding and will have their seat; and therefore these are the receptacles in man of love and wisdom; and also these are the first forms, and the organs both of sense and motion are forms derived from these; for influx takes place according to formation, and there is influx from these first forms into the latter, and not reversely; for influx from the former into the latter is spiritual influx, while influx from the latter in the former is natural influx, which his all called physical influx.
[3] [[4]] 3. The productions of these are effected according to the laws of correspondence; and in consequence all things of the body, both internal and external, are correspondences.
What correspondence is has not hitherto been known in the world, for the reason that it has not been known what the spiritual is, and that there is a correspondence between what is natural and what is spiritual. When anything from the spiritual as the origin and cause becomes visible and perceptible before the senses, there is a correspondence between them. There is such a correspondence between spiritual and natural things with man; spiritual things are all things pertaining to his love and wisdom, consequently to his will and understanding, and natural things are all things pertaining to his body. Because these have existed and perpetually exist, that is, subsist from spiritual things, they are correspondences; and therefore the two act as one, like end, cause, and effect. Thus the face acts as one with the affections of the mind, the speech with the thought, and the actions of all the members with the will; and the same is true of other things. It is a universal law of correspondences that the spiritual fits itself to use, which is its end, and actuates and modifies the use by means of heat and light, and clothes it by provided means, until there results a form subservient to the end; and in this form the spiritual acts as the end, use as cause, and natural as effect; although in the spiritual world the substantial takes the place of the natural. All things that are in such forms. [[5]] More respecting correspondence will be found in the work on Heaven and Hell, n. 87-102, 103-115; and respecting various correspondences in the Arcana Coelestia; on the correspondence of the face its expressions with the affections of the mind, n. 1568, 2988, 2989, 3631, 4796, 4797, 4800, 5165, 5168, 5695, 9306; on the correspondence of the body as to its gestures actions with things intellectual and voluntary, n. 2988, 3632, 4215; on the correspondence of the sense in general, n. 4318-4330; on the correspondence of the eyes and of their sight, n. 4403-4420; on the correspondence of the nostrils and of smell, n. 4624-4634; on the correspondence of the ears and of hearing, n. 4652-4660; on the correspondence of the tongue and of taste, n. 4791-4805; on the correspondence of the hands, arms, shoulders and feet, n. 4931-4953; on the correspondence of the loins and the members of generation, n. 5050-5062; on the correspondence of the interior viscera of the body, particularly of the stomach, of the thymus gland, of the reservoir and ducts of the chyle, n. 5171-5189; on the correspondence of the spleen, n. 9698; on the correspondence of the peritonaeum, the kidneys, and the bladder, n. 5377-5396; on the correspondence of the skin and the bones, n. 5552-5573; on the correspondence of the ensiform cartilage, n. 9236; on the correspondence of the memory of abstract things, n. 6808; on the correspondence of the memory of material things, n. 7253; on the correspondence of heaven with man, n. 911, 1900, 1928, 2996, 2998, 3624, 3636-3643, 3741-3745, 3884, 4041, 4279, 4523, 4524, 4625, 6013, 6057, 9279, 9632; that with the ancients, especially those of the East, the science of correspondences was the science of sciences, but at the present day it is wholly forgotten, n. 3021, 3419, 3472-3485, 4280, 4749, 4844, 4964, 4965, 5702, 6004, 6692, 7097, 7729, 7779, 9391, 10252, 10407; that without a knowledge of correspondences the Word is not understood, n. 2870-2893, 2987-3003, 3213-3227, 3472-3485, 8615, 10687; that all things which appear in the heavens are correspondences, n. 1521, 1532, 1619-1625, 1807, 1809, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1981, 2299 2601, 3213-3226, 3348, 3350, 3475, 3485, 3745, 9481, 9575, 9576, 9577; that all things in the natural world and in its three kingdoms correspond to all things in the spiritual world, n. 1632, 1881, 2758, 2890-2893, 2987-3003, 3213-3227, 3483, 3624-3649, 4044, 4053, 4116, 4366, 4939, 5116, 5377, 5428, 5477, 8211, 9280. In addition to these passages the correspondence of the natural sense of the Word, which is the sense of its letter, with the spiritual things of love and wisdom that are in the heavens from the Lord, and that constitute its internal sense, is treated of in the Arcana Coelestia; and this correspondence you will also find confirmed in the Doctrine, of the New Jerusalem respecting the Sacred Scripture, n. 5-26, and further, n. 27-69. To gain an idea of the correspondence of the will and of the understanding, consult also what has been said above ([Apocalypse Explained,] n. 366, 367).