This is in
consequence of the conjugial love in which I have lived with my wife;
and I can affirm, that the above faculty has been and is perpetual with
me; and because I perceive that you believe this to be impossible, I
will talk with you on the subject from a ground of rational argument
according to the light of your understanding. You do not know anything
of the primeval state of man, which you call a state of integrity. In
that state all the interiors of the mind were open even to the Lord; and
hence they were in the marriage of love and wisdom, or of good and
truth; and as the good of love and the truth of wisdom perpetually love
each other, they also perpetually desire to be united; and when the
interiors of the mind are open, the conjugial spiritual love flows down
freely with its perpetual endeavour, and presents the above faculty. The
very soul of a man (_homo_), being in the marriage of good and truth, is
not only in the perpetual endeavour of that union, but also in the
perpetual endeavour of the fructification and production of its own
likeness; and since the interiors of a man even from the soul are open
by virtue of that marriage, and the interiors continually regard as an
end the effect in ultimates that they may exist, therefore that
perpetual endeavor for fructifying and producing its like, which is the
property of the soul, becomes also of the body: and since the ultimate
of the operation of the soul in the body with two conjugial partners is
into the ultimates of love therein, and these depend on the state of the
soul, it is evident whence they derive this perpetuality.
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