Chapter 27

from himself and disposes by himself.

193. ( i ) _All man's thoughts are from affections of his life's love; there are and can be no thoughts apart from them._ It has been shown above in this treatise and also in the one entitled _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom,_ Parts I and V particularly, what the life's love and the affections and the thoughts from them are essentially, and what the sensations and actions arising from them in the body are. Inasmuch as these are the causes from which human prudence issues as an effect, something needs to be said about them here also. For what has been written earlier elsewhere cannot be as closely connected with what is written later as it will be if the same things are recalled and placed with both in view.

[2] Earlier in this treatise, and in that just mentioned about _Divine Love and Wisdom,_ it was shown that in the Lord are divine love and wisdom; that these two are life itself; that from the two man has will and understanding, will from the divine love and understanding from the divine wisdom; that heart and lungs in the body correspond to these two; that this may make plain that as the pulsation of the heart along with the respiration of the lungs rules the whole man as to the body, so the will together with the understanding rules him as to his mind; that thus there are two principles of life in everyone, one natural and the other spiritual, and that the natural principle of life is the heartbeat, and the spiritual is the will of the mind; that each adjoins a consort to itself with which it cohabits and performs the functions of life; and that the heart joins the lungs to itself, and the will the understanding to itself.

[3] Now, as the soul of the will is love, and the soul of the understanding is wisdom, both of them from the Lord, love is the life of everyone and is such life as it has in union with wisdom; or what is the same, the will is the life of everyone and is such life as it has in conjunction with the understanding. More on the subject may be seen above in this treatise and especially in _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom,_ Parts I and V.

194. It was also demonstrated in the treatises mentioned that the life's love produces subordinate loves from itself, called affections; that these are exterior and interior; and that taken together they make one dominion or kingdom as it were, in which the life's love is lord or king. It was also shown that these subordinate loves or affections adjoin consorts to themselves, each its own, the interior affections consorts called perceptions, and the exterior consorts called knowledges, and each cohabits with its consort and performs the functions of its life. In each instance, it was shown, the union is like that of life's very being with life's coming forth, which is such that the one is nothing without the other; for what is life's being unless it is active and what is life's activity if it is not from life's very being? The conjunction in life, it was likewise shown, is like that of sound and harmony, of sound and utterance, too, in general like that of the heart's pulsation and the respiration of the lungs, a union, again, such that one without the other is nothing and each becomes something in union with the other. Union must either be in them or come about by them.

[2] Consider, for example, sound. One who thinks that sound is something if there is nothing distinctive in it is much mistaken. It also corresponds to affection in man, and as something distinctive is always in it the affection of a person's love is known from the sound of his voice in speaking, and his thought is known from the varied sounds which speech is. Hence the wiser angels perceive just from the sound of his voice a man's life's love together with some of the affections which are its derivatives. This has been remarked that it may be known that no affection is possible without its thought, and no thought without its affection. More on the subject can be seen above in this treatise and in _Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom._

195. Inasmuch as the life's love has its enjoyment, and its wisdom its pleasure, and likewise every affection, which is essentially a lesser love derived from the life's love like a stream from its source or a branch from a tree or an artery from the heart, therefore every affection has its enjoyment and the perception or thought from it its pleasure. Consequently these enjoyments and pleasures make man's life. What is life without joy and pleasure? It is not animated at all, but inanimate. Reduce enjoyment and pleasure and you grow cold and torpid; take them away and you expire and die. Vital heat comes from the enjoyments of the affections and the pleasures of the perceptions and thoughts.

[2] As every affection has its enjoyment and the thought thence its pleasure, it may be plain whence good and truth are and what they are essentially. Whatever is the enjoyment of one's affection is one's good, and one's truth is what is pleasant to the thought from that affection. For everyone calls that good which he feels in the love of his will to be enjoyable, and calls that truth which he then perceives in the wisdom of his understanding to be pleasant. The enjoyable and the pleasant both flow out from the life's love as water does from a spring or blood from the heart; together they are like an element or the atmosphere in which man's whole mind is.

[3] The two, enjoyment and pleasure, are spiritual in the mind and natural in the body, and in each make man's life. From this it is plain what it is in man that is called good, and what it is that is called truth; likewise what it is in man that is called evil and false; whatever destroys the enjoyment of his affection is evil to him, and what destroys the pleasure of his thought thence is false to him. It is plain, moreover, that evil on account of the enjoyment in it and falsity on account of the pleasure in it may be called good and truth and believed to be good and truth. Goods and truths are indeed changes and variations of state in the forms of the mind, but they are perceived and have life only through the enjoyments and pleasures they have to give. This is noted to make known what affection and thought are in their life.

196. Inasmuch as it is not the body but man's mind that thinks and that does so from the enjoyment of one's affection, and inasmuch as man's mind is his spirit which lives after death, man's spirit is nothing else than affection and thought therefrom. It is altogether plain from spirits and angels in the spiritual world that thought cannot exist apart from affection, for they all think from the affections of their life's love; the enjoyments of these affections attend each as his atmosphere, and all are united by these spheres exhaled from the affections by their thoughts. The character of each one is known also by the sphere of his life. It may be seen from this that all thought is from an affection and is the form of that affection. The same applies to the relationship between will and understanding, good and truth, and charity and faith.

197. (ii) _The affections of the life's love of man are known to the Lord alone._ Man knows his thoughts and his intentions in them because he sees them in himself, and as all prudence is from them, he sees this, too, within him. Then if his life's love is self-love, he comes to take pride in his own intelligence, ascribes prudence to himself, gathers arguments in support of it, and thus recedes from acknowledging divine providence. Much the same happens if love of the world is his life's love, but he does not then recede to the same extent. It is plain from this that these two loves ascribe all things to man and to his prudence and when interiorly examined ascribe nothing to God and to His providence. When persons who do this happen to hear that the reality is that there is no such thing as human prudence, but that divine providence alone governs all things, they laugh at this if they are outright atheists; if they hold something of religion in remembrance and are told that all wisdom is from God, they assent on first hearing it, but inwardly in their spirit deny it. Such especially are priests who love themselves more than God, and the world more than heaven, or what is the same, worship God for position's or riches' sake, and yet have been preaching that charity and faith, all good and truth, all wisdom, too, and in fact prudence are from God and none of them from man.

[2] In the spiritual world I once heard two priests debating with a certain royal ambassador about human prudence whether it is from God or from man, and the debate was heated. The three believed alike at heart, namely, that human prudence does all and divine providence nothing, but the priests in their theological zeal at the moment asserted that there was nothing of wisdom and prudence from man. When the ambassador retorted that there was nothing of thought then, either, they said "yes, nothing of thought." But as angels perceived that the three believed alike, they bade the ambassador, "Put on priestly robes, believe yourself to be a priest, and then speak." He robed himself, believed he was a priest, and thereupon declared in a deep voice that never could there be wisdom or prudence in man save from God. He defended this with the customary eloquence filled with rational arguments. Then the two priests were told, "Put off your robes, put on those of political ministers, and believe that that is what you are." They did so, thought then from their interior selves, and gave voice to the arguments they had entertained inwardly before in favor of human prudence and against divine providence. Upon this the three, believing alike, became warm friends and set out together on the path of one's own prudence, which leads to hell.

198. It was shown above that man can have no thought except from some affection of his life's love and that the thought is nothing other than the form of the affection. Now, man sees his thought but cannot see his affection, which he feels; it is therefore from sight which dwells on the appearance, and not from affection which does not come into sight but into feeling, that he concludes that one's own prudence does all things. For affection shows itself only in a certain enjoyment of thought and in pleasure ever reasoning about it. This pleasure and enjoyment make one with the thought in those who, from self-love or love of the world, believe in one's own prudence. The thought glides along in its enjoyment like a ship in a river current to which the skipper does not attend, attending only to the sails he spreads.

199. Man can indeed reflect on what his external affection finds enjoyable when it is also an enjoyment of a bodily sense, but he still does not reflect that that enjoyment comes from the enjoyment of his affection in thought. For example, when a lecher sees a lewd woman his eyes light with a lascivious fire and from this he feels a physical pleasure; he does not, however, feel his affection's enjoyment or that of the lust in his thought, only a strong desire more nearly physical. The same is true of the robber in a forest at sight of travelers and of the pirate at sea on sighting vessels, and so on. Obviously a man's enjoyments govern his thoughts, and the thoughts are nothing apart from them; but he thinks he has only the thoughts, when nevertheless these are affections put into forms by his life's love so that they appear in the light; for all affection has heat for its element and thought has light.

[2] The external affections of thought manifest themselves in bodily sensation, and sometimes in the thought of the mind, but the internal affections of the thought from which the external exist never make themselves manifest to man. Of these he knows no more than a rider asleep in a carriage does of the road or than one feels the rotation of the earth. Now, when man knows nothing of the things beyond number that take place in the interiors of his mind, and the few external things which come to the sight of his thought are produced from the interiors, and the interiors are governed by the Lord alone through His divine providence and the few external by the Lord also together with man, how can anyone assert that one's own prudence does all things? Were you to see just one idea laid open, you would see astounding things, more than tongue can tell.

[3] It is clear from the endless things in the body that there are so many things in the mind's interiors that the number cannot be given, and nothing of them comes to sight or sense except only a much simplified action. Yet to the action thousands of motor or muscular fibres contribute, and thousands of nerve fibres, thousands of blood-vessels, thousands of cells in the lungs which must cooperate in every action, thousands in the brains and in the spinal cord, and many more things still in the spiritual man which is the human mind, in which all things are forms of affections and of perceptions and thoughts from the affections. Does not the soul, which disposes the interiors, dispose the actions also which spring from them? Man's soul is nothing else than the love of his will and the resulting love of his understanding; such as this love is the whole man is, becoming so according to the disposition he makes of his externals in which he and the Lord are together. Therefore, if he attributes all things to himself and to nature, self-love becomes the soul; but if he attributes all things to the Lord, love to the Lord becomes the soul; this love is heavenly, the other infernal.

200. Inasmuch as the enjoyments of his affections, from inmosts down through interiors to exteriors and finally to outermost things in the body, bear man along as wave and wind bear a ship; and inasmuch as nothing of this is apparent to man except what takes place in the outermost things of the mind and the body, how can he claim for himself what is divine on the strength merely of the fact that those few outermost things seem to be his own? Even less should he claim what is divine for himself, knowing from the Word that a man can receive nothing of himself unless it is given by heaven; and knowing from reason that this appearance has been granted him in order to live as a human being, see what is good and evil, choose between them, and appropriate his choice to himself that he may be united reciprocally with the Lord, be reformed, regenerated and saved, and live forever. It has been stated and shown above that this appearance has been granted to man in order that he may act in freedom according to reason, thus as of himself, and not drop his hands and await influx. From all this it follows that proposition iii to be demonstrated has been confirmed: _Through His divine providence the Lord leads the affections of the life's love of man and at the same time the thoughts, too, from which human prudence comes._

201. (iv) _By His divine providence the Lord assembles the affections of all mankind into one form--the human form._ In a subsequent paragraph it will be seen that this is the universal effort of divine providence. Those who ascribe everything to nature deny God at heart, and those who ascribe everything to human prudence, at heart deny divine providence; the one cannot be separated from the other. Yet both groups for their reputation's sake and for fear of losing it profess in words that divine providence is universal, but say its details fall to man and in their aggregate are grasped by human prudence.

[2] But consider: what is universal providence when the details are taken from it? Is it anything but just an expression? For that is called universal which consists of the total of details as what is general does of particulars. If, then, you remove details, what is the universal except something empty, thus like a surface with nothing underneath or an aggregate without content? If it should be said that divine providence is a universal government but nothing is governed but only held in connection and items of the government are handled by others, can this be called a universal government? No king has such a government. For if a king gave his subjects the government of everything in his kingdom, he would no longer be king, but would only be called king; he would have the standing in name only and not in fact. In the case of such a king one cannot speak of government, still less of universal government.

[3] God's providence is called man's prudence. As universal prudence cannot be said of a king who has only kept the name so that the kingdom may be called a kingdom and be held together, so one cannot speak of universal providence if human beings provide everything by their own prudence. The same is true of the terms "universal providence" and "universal government" in reference to nature when they mean that God created the universe but endowed nature to produce everything from herself. What is "universal providence" then but a metaphysical term, and nothing but a term? Many of those who attribute everything produced to nature and everything accomplished to human prudence and yet profess orally that God created nature, regard divine providence as an empty expression. But the reality is that divine providence is in the least things of nature and of human prudence also and is thereby universal.

202. The Lord's divine providence is universal by being in the least things in that He created the universe in order that an infinite and eternal creation might come about from Him, and it does as He forms a heaven from mankind which in His sight is like one humanity, His image and likeness. We showed above (nn. 27-45) that heaven formed of human beings is such in His sight; that this was the purpose of creation; and that the divine regards what is infinite and eternal in all that it does (nn. 46-69). The infinite and eternal to which the Lord looks in forming His heaven from mankind is the growth of it to infinity and eternity and thus His dwelling constantly in the purpose of His creation. This infinite and eternal creation the Lord provided for in creating the universe and He pursues it steadily in His divine providence.

[2] Can anyone who knows and believes from the church's doctrine * that God is infinite and eternal be so lacking in reason that he does not agree on hearing it that God can then regard only what is infinite and eternal in the great work of His creation? To what else can He look from His infinite being? To what else in mankind of which He forms His heaven? What else can divine providence then have for its end than the reformation and salvation of mankind? No one can be reformed by himself through his prudence; he is reformed by the Lord through His divine providence. Consequently, unless the Lord leads man every least moment the man lapses from the way of reformation and perishes.

* It is the doctrine of all churches in Christendom that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is infinite, eternal, uncreated and omnipotent, as may be seen in the Athanasian Creed.

[3] Every change or variation in the state of the human mind means a change or variation in a series of things present and to come; what then of progress to eternity? The situation is like that of an arrow shot from a bow, which if it deviated from the target in the least on being aimed would deviate widely at a thousand feet or more. The like would happen if the Lord did not lead the states of the human mind every least moment. The Lord does so according to the laws of His divine providence; it is according to them that it seems to man he leads himself; but the Lord foresees how he leads himself and constantly acts in adaptation. In what follows it will be seen that laws of tolerance are also laws of divine providence, that every man can be reformed and regenerated, and that no other predestination is possible.

203. Since every man lives forever after death and is allotted a place either in heaven or in hell according to his life, and heaven and hell must each be in a form to act as a unit, as we said before, and since no one can be allotted a place in that form other than his own, humanity in all the world is under the Lord's guidance and everyone is led by the Lord from infancy to the close of life in the least things, and his place is foreseen and provided.

[2] Clearly then, the Lord's divine providence is universal by being in the least things, and it is an infinite and eternal creation that He has provided for Himself in creating the world. Man does not espy this universal providence, and if he did, it would look to him like scattered heaps and collections of material for building a house such as passersby see, while the Lord beholds rather a magnificent palace, constantly building and enlarging.

204. (v) _Heaven and hell are in the form described._ That heaven is in the human form has been made known in the work _Heaven and Hell,_ published in London in 1758 (nn. 59-102), also in the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom,_ and here and there in the present treatise. I therefore omit further confirmation. Hell is said to be in the human form also, but it is in a monstrous human form, like that of the devil, by whom hell in its entirety is meant. Hell is in the human form inasmuch as those who are in it were born human beings too; they also possess the two human faculties of liberty and rationality, though they have misused liberty by willing and doing evil, and rationality by thinking and confirming evil.

205. (vi) _Those who have acknowledged nature alone and human prudence alone make up hell, and those who have acknowledged God and His divine providence make up heaven._ All who lead an evil life, inwardly acknowledge nature and human prudence alone. This acknowledgment lies hidden in all evil, however the evil may be veiled by good and truth, which are borrowed raiment, or like wreaths of perishable flowers, put around the evil lest it appear in its nakedness. That all who lead an evil life, inwardly acknowledge nature and human prudence alone is not known because of this general covering hiding it from view. The source and cause of their acknowledgment, however, may make clear that they acknowledge nature and one's own prudence. We shall say, therefore, whence man's own prudence is and what it is; then whence divine providence is and what it is; next who they are respectively, and of what character, who acknowledge divine providence and who acknowledge man's own prudence; and lastly show that those who acknowledge divine providence are in heaven and that those who acknowledge man's own prudence are in hell.

206. _Whence man's own prudence is and what it is._ It is from man's proprium, which is his nature and is called his soul from his parent. This proprium is self-love and the accompanying love of the world, or it is love of the world and the accompanying self-love. Self-love by nature regards self only and others as cheap or of no account. If it regards any it does so as long as they honor and do it homage. Inmostly in that love, like the endeavor in seed to fructify and propagate, there lies hidden the desire to become great and if possible a king and then possibly a god. A devil is such, for he is self-love itself; he adores himself and favors no one unless he also adores him; another devil like himself he hates, because he in turn wants alone to be adored. Since no love is possible without its consort and the consort of love or of the will in man is called the understanding, when self-love breathes itself into its consort, the understanding, it becomes pride there, which is the pride of self-intelligence, and from this comes man's own prudence.

[2] Inasmuch as self-love wants to be the one lord of the world and thus a god, the lusts of evil which are derived from it have their life from it, so have the perceptions of the lusts, which are schemes; likewise the enjoyments of the lusts, which are evils, and the thoughts of the lusts, which are falsities. All these are like slaves and ministers of their lord, responding to his every nod, unaware that they do not act but are acted upon; they are actuated by self-love through the pride of self-intelligence. Hence man's own prudence because of its origin lies concealed in every evil.

[3] The acknowledgment of nature alone is also hidden in it, for self-love has closed the window overhead through which heaven is plain and the side windows, too, in order not to see or hear that the Lord alone governs all things, that nature in herself is lifeless, and that man's proprium is infernal and consequently love of it is diabolical. With the windows shuttered, self-love is in darkness, builds itself a hearth fire at which it sits with its consort, and the two reason amicably in favor of nature as against God and in favor of man's own prudence as against divine providence.

207. _Whence and what divine providence is._ It is the divine activity in the man who has removed self-love. For, as was said, self-love is the devil, and lusts with their enjoyments are the evils of his kingdom, which is hell. On the removal of self-love the Lord enters with the affections of neighborly love, opening the overhead window and then the side windows, thus enabling man to see that there is a heaven, a life after death and eternal happiness. By the spiritual light and at the same time the spiritual love which then flow in, the Lord causes him to acknowledge that God governs all things by His divine providence.

208. _Who and of what nature those in each group are._ Those who acknowledge God and His divine providence are like the angels of heaven, who are averse to being led by themselves and love to be led by the Lord. It is a sign that they are led by the Lord that they love the neighbor. Those, however, who acknowledge nature and one's own prudence are like the spirits of hell, who are averse to being led by the Lord and love to be led by themselves. If they were powerful persons in a kingdom or prelates in the church they want to dominate all things. If they were judges, they pervert judgment and exercise power over the laws. If they were learned, they apply scientific information to confirm nature and man's proprium. If they were merchants they act like robbers, and if husbandmen like thieves. All are enemies of God and scoffers at divine providence.

209. It is amazing that when heaven is opened to such men and they are told that they are insane, and this is made plain to their very perception by influx and enlightenment, still they angrily shut heaven away from them and look to the earth beneath which is hell. This is done with such men while they are still outside hell. It makes plain how mistaken those are who think, "If I see heaven and hear angels speaking with me, I shall acknowledge." Their understanding makes the acknowledgment, but if the will does not at the same time, they still do not acknowledge. For the love of the will inspires in the understanding what it wills (it is not the other way about); indeed, it destroys everything in the understanding which is not from itself.

210. _All this can be effected only as it appears to man that he thinks from himself and disposes by himself._ In what precedes we have shown fully that unless it seemed to man that he lives of himself and thus thinks and wills, speaks and acts of himself, he would not be man. Consequently, unless he could in his own prudence make the disposition of all pertaining to his function and life, he could not be led and guided by divine providence. He would be like one with his hands hanging limp, his mouth open, his eyes shut, holding his breath in expectation of influx. He would divest himself of the human which he has from the perception and sensation that he thinks, wills, speaks and acts as it were of himself. At the same time he would divest himself of the two faculties, liberty and rationality, distinguishing him from the beasts. Above in this treatise and in the treatise _Divine Love and Wisdom_ it was shown that without this appearance a man would not have the power to receive or reciprocate nor have immortality then.

[2] If then you desire to be led by divine providence, use prudence as a servant and minister that faithfully dispenses his master's goods. This prudence is the talent given to the servants to trade with, of which they were to give account (Lu 19:13-28; Mt 25:14-31). It seems to man to be his own, and he believes it is his own as long as he holds shut up within him the bitterest enemy God and divine providence have, the love of self. This dwells in the interiors of every man by birth; if you do not recognize it (and it wishes not to be recognized), it dwells securely and guards the door lest man open the door and the Lord cast it out. The door is opened by man through shunning evils as sins as if of himself with the acknowledgment that he does so from the Lord. With this prudence divine providence acts as one.

211. Divine providence operates so secretly that scarcely anyone is aware it exists in order that man may not perish. For man's proprium, which is his will, never acts at one with divine providence, against which it has an inborn enmity. The proprium is the serpent which seduced the race's parents of which it is said,

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed, and It shall bruise your head (Ge 3:15).

The serpent is evil of every sort; its head is self-love. The seed of the woman is the Lord, and the enmity set is between the love of man's proprium and the Lord, thus between man's own prudence and the Lord's divine providence. For man's own prudence is constantly exalting that head, and divine providence is constantly abasing it.

[2] If man felt this, he would be enraged and wrought-up against God and would perish. While he does not feel it, he may be enraged and wrought-up against others or himself or against fortune without perishing. Therefore the Lord leads man by His divine providence in freedom always, and the freedom seems to man to be utterly his own. To lead a man freely in opposition to himself is like raising a heavy and resisting weight from the ground by means of screws through the power of which weight and resistance are not felt. And it is as though someone is unknowingly with an enemy who means to kill him and a friend leads him away quietly and only afterwards tells him the enemy's intention.

212. Who does not talk of fortune? Who does not acknowledge it by speaking of it and know something of it by experience? Yet who knows what it is? One cannot deny that it is something, for it exists and occurs, and a thing cannot exist and occur without being caused; but the cause of this something, fortune, is not known. Lest fortune be denied merely because the cause is unknown, consider dice or playing cards and play yourself or ask the players; do any deny that fortune exists? For they play with it and it plays with them surprisingly. Who can repulse it if it opposes him? Does it not laugh then at prudence and wisdom? When you shake the dice or shuffle the cards, does fortune not seem to know and direct the turns and twists of the wrists in favor of one player rather than another for some cause? Can the cause have any other source than divine providence in outermost things where it works along with human prudence in a wonderful way, constant or changeful, concealing itself at the same time?

[2] We know that pagans of old acknowledged Fortune and built a temple to her, as Italians did at Rome. It has been granted me to learn many things which I am not permitted to make public about this fortune, which, as was said, is divine providence in outmosts. These made it plain to me that fortune is not an illusion of the mind nor a sport of nature nor something without a cause, for this has no reality, but is visible evidence that divine providence is over the least things in human thought and action. As divine providence occurs in these least things which are insignificant and trifling, why should it not in the significant and important matters of peace and war in the world and of salvation and life in heaven?

213. I know, however, that human prudence bears the rational faculty its way more than divine providence does its way, for the latter does not show itself and the former does. It can be accepted more readily that there is only one life, namely God, and that all men are recipients of life from Him, as we have shown many times, yet this amounts to saying that prudence is from Him, for prudence is part of life. What man, speaking in favor of nature and of human prudence in his reasoning, is not speaking from the natural or external man? And what man, speaking in favor of divine providence and of God in his reasoning, is not speaking from the spiritual or internal man? But, "Pray, write two books," I say to the natural man, "and fill them with plausible, likely and lifelike reasons which in your judgment are solid ones, the one book in favor of one's own prudence, and the other in favor of nature. Then hand them to any angel. I know he will write down on them these few words: `All this is appearance and fallacy.'"

XI. DIVINE PROVIDENCE LOOKS TO WHAT IS ETERNAL, AND TO THE TEMPORAL ONLY AS THIS ACCORDS WITH THE ETERNAL

214. That divine providence looks to what is eternal and to the temporal only so far as this makes one with the eternal, will be demonstrated in this order: