AC 10227 - being wise

AC 10227 [2-3]
All have the capacity to understand and to be wise;
but the reason one person is wiser than another
is that they do not in like manner ascribe to the Lord
all things of intelligence and wisdom,
which are all things of truth and good.
They who ascribe all to the Lord are wiser than the rest,
because all things of truth and good,
which constitute wisdom,
flow in from heaven, that is, from the Lord there.
The ascription of all things to the Lord
opens the interiors of a person toward heaven,
for thus it is acknowledged
that nothing of truth and good is from himself;
and in proportion as this is acknowledged,
the love of self departs,
and with the love of self
the thick darkness from falsities and evils.
In the same proportion also
the person comes into innocence,
and into love and faith to the Lord,
from which comes conjunction with the Divine . . .
and enlightenment.

By the capacity to be wise
is not meant the capacity to reason
about truths and goods from memory-knowledges,
nor the capacity to confirm whatever one pleases;
but the capacity to discern what is true and good,
to choose what is suitable,
and to apply it to the uses of life.
They who ascribe all things to the Lord
do thus discern, choose, and apply;
while those who do not ascribe to the Lord,
but to themselves,
know merely how to reason about truths and goods;
nor do they see anything except what is from others;
and this not from reason,
but from the activity of the memory.
As they cannot look into truths themselves,
they stand outside, and confirm whatever they receive,
whether it be true or false.
They who can do this
in a learned way from memory-knowledges
are believed by the world to be wiser than others;
but the more they attribute all things to themselves,
thus the more they love what they think from themselves,
the more insane they are;
for they confirm falsities rather than truths,
and evils rather than goods,
and this because they have light from no other source
than the fallacies and appearances of the world,
and consequently from their own light,
which is called natural light,
separated from the light of heaven;
and which light when thus separated
is mere thick darkness
in respect to the truths and goods of heaven.