The case is nearly similar when he enters into
marriage; on this occasion a man becomes a more complete man, because he
is joined with a consort, with whom he acts as one man: but this, in the
first state spoken of above, is effected only in a sort of image: in
like manner he then commences from what is corporeal, and proceeds to
what is natural as to conjugial life, and thereby to a conjunction into
a one. Those who, in this case, love corporeal natural things, and
rational things only as grounded therein, cannot be conjoined to a
consort as into a one, except as to those externals: and when those
externals fail, cold takes possession of the internals; in consequence
whereof the delights of that love are dispersed and driven away, as from
the mind so from the body, and afterwards as from the body so from the
mind; and this until there is nothing left of the remembrance of the
primeval state of their marriage, consequently no knowledge respecting
it. Now since this is the case with the generality of persons at this
day, it is evident that love truly conjugial is not known as to its
quality, and scarcely as to its existence.
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