4223. But the true position with correspondence is that although the heavens mentioned above do certainly correspond to the organic forms themselves of the human body - on account of which these communities or those angels have been spoken of as belonging to the province of the brain, or to the province of the heart, or to the province of the lungs, or to the province of the eye, and so on - they correspond primarily to the functions belonging to those viscera or organs. The position really is that, like the organs or viscera themselves, their functions make one with their organic forms. For it is impossible to gather any idea of a function except from forms, that is, from substances, since the substances are the subjects from which they exist. It is impossible to gather any idea of sight, for example, except from the eye, or of breathing except from the lungs. The eye is the organic form from which and through which sight exists, and the lungs the organic form from which and through which breathing does so; and the same applies to all other organic forms. It is the functions therefore to which heavenly communities correspond primarily, and then because they correspond to the functions they correspond to the organic forms too; for the one is indivisible from the other and inseparable, so much so that it makes no difference whether you speak about the function or about the organic form through which and from which that function exists. Consequently there is a correspondence with organs, members, and viscera because there is such with the functions. And therefore when the function is brought into action the organ also is stimulated. The same also applies in every single thing a person does. When he wishes to do this or that, and to do so in this or some other way, and is thinking of it, the organs move in response, and so in accordance with the aim of the function or use; for it is the use they serve that governs the forms.
[2] This shows also that the use they serve existed before the organic forms of the body came into being, and that the use produced and adapted those forms to itself, and not the reverse. But once the forms have been produced or the organs adapted, the uses they serve then flow from them, in which event it seems as though the forms or organs were prior to the uses, when that is not in fact the case. For the use flows in from the Lord, doing so by way of heaven, in keeping with order and with the form in which the Lord has arranged heaven, and so in keeping with correspondences. This is the manner in which man is brought into existence and in which he is kept in existence. This again shows the origin of the correspondence of the human being - every single part of him - with the heavens.