DW 5 - The Receptacle of Love and the Receptacle of Wisdom

DW 5

WITH MAN AFTER BIRTH
THE WILL BECOMES THE RECEPTACLE OF LOVE
AND THE UNDERSTANDING
THE RECEPTACLE OF WISDOM.

It is known that there are two faculties of life in man,
the will and the understanding,
for man can will and he can understand;
he can even understand what he does not will;
from which it is clear
that the will and the understanding
are two distinct things in man,
and that the will is the receptacle of love
and the understanding the receptacle of wisdom.
This also makes clear that love is of the will,
for what a man loves that he also wills,
and that wisdom is of the understanding,
for that in which in a man is wise,
or which he knows,
he sees with the understanding;
the sight of the understanding is thought.
So long as man remains in the womb
he does not have these two faculties;
as . . . nothing whatever of will or of understanding
belongs to the fetus in its formation.

From this it follows
that the Lord has prepared two receptacles,
one for the will of the future man,
and the other for his understanding,
the receptacle called the will for the reception of love,
and the receptacle called the understanding
for the reception of wisdom;
also that He has prepared these
by means of His love and His wisdom;
but these two do not pass into the man
until he has been fully formed for birth.
Moreover, the Lord has provided means
for the more and more full reception in these
of love and wisdom from Himself
as man matures and grows old.

The will and understanding are called receptacles
because the will is not an abstract spiritual thing,
but is a subject substantialized and formed
for the reception of love from the Lord;
and the understanding is not an abstract spiritual thing,
but is a subject substantialized and formed
for the reception of wisdom from the Lord;
for these actually exist;
and although hidden from the sight
they are interiorly in the substances
that constitute the cortex of the brain,
and also here and there i
n the medullary substance of the brain,
especially in the striated bodies,
also interiorly in the medullary substance of the cerebellum,
and in the spinal marrow,
of which they constitute the nucleus.
Thus there are not merely two but innumerable receptacles,
each one doubled and of three degrees,
as has been said above.

That these are receptacles
and that they are there
is clearly evident from this,
that they are the beginnings and heads of all the fibers
out of which the whole body is woven,
and that all the organs of sense and motion
are formed out of fibers that extend from these,
for these are their beginnings and ends.
The sensory organs feel and the motor organs
are moved solely by reason
of their being extensions and continuations
of these dwelling-places of the will and the understanding.
With infants these receptacles are small and tender;
afterwards they receive increase and are perfected
according to knowledges and affections for knowledges;
they are perfected
according to intelligence and the love of uses;
they are made soft according to innocence
and love to the Lord;
and they grow solid and hard from the opposites of these.
Their changes of state are affections;
their variations of form are thoughts;
memory is the existence and permanence of both of these;
and recollection is their reproduction.
The two taken together are the human mind.