EU 96 - What Love Leads Us to Know

EU 96

. . . those alone have spiritual life who are in heavenly love,
and in knowledges therefrom;
and that a love contains in itself all the power
of knowing which is of that love.
For example, the animals of the earth,
and also the animals of the air, or the birds,
have the knowledge of all things that are of their loves.
These loves are, to nourish themselves,
to dwell in safety,
to propagate offspring, to bring up their young,
and with some, to provide for themselves against winter.
Consequently they have all the requisite knowledge,
for this is in those loves,
and it flows into them as into its very receptacles;
which knowledge with some animals is such,
that person cannot but be astonished.
The knowledge is innate with them, and is called instinct;
but it is of the natural love in which they are.
If a person were in his love,
which is love to God and toward the neighbor
(for this love is man's proper love,
by which he is distinguished from the beasts,
and is heavenly love),
a person would then be
not only in all requisite knowledge,
but also in all intelligence and wisdom;
for these would flow into those loves from heaven,
that is, through heaven from the Divine.
But because a person is not born into those loves,
but into the opposite ones,
namely, into the loves of self and the world,
for that reason he cannot but be born
into all ignorance and lack of knowledge.
But by Divine means he is led on
to something of intelligence and wisdom,
yet not actually into anything of it,
unless the love, of self and the world are removed,
and the way is thus opened
for love to God and the neighbor.
That love to God and love toward the neighbor
have in them all intelligence and wisdom,
may be evident from those
who in the world have been in these loves.
When after death they come into heaven,
they there come into such knowledge and wisdom
as they had never known before;
indeed, they think and speak there,
as do the rest of the angels,
such things as the ear has never heard,
nor the mind has ever known,
and which are ineffable (too great).
The reason is,
that those loves have in them
the faculty of receiving such things.