AC 1487, 1489 - The Use of Childhood Memory-knowledges

AC 1487

As regards memory-knowledges the case is this.
In childhood they are acquired
for no other end than that of knowing;
with the Lord,
they were acquired from
the delights and affection of truth.
The memory-knowledges acquired in childhood
are very numerous,
but are disposed by the Lord into order
so as to serve for use;
first, to give the ability to think;
then that they may be of use by means of thought;
and lastly that this may take effect,
that is to say that the very life may consist in use,
and be a life of uses.
These are the things performed by
the memory-knowledges that are acquired in childhood;
and without them the external person
can never be conjoined with the internal,
and at the same time become use.
When a person becomes use, that is,
when he thinks all things from the end of use,
and does all things for the end of use --
if not by clear reflection,
still by tacit reflection
from a nature acquired by so doing --
then the memory-knowledges
which have served the first use --
that the person may become rational --
being no longer of service,
are destroyed; and so on.
These are the things here meant by the words
"Jehovah smote Pharaoh with great plagues."

AC 1489

. . . unless the knowledges which in childhood
have performed the use of making the person rational,
are destroyed, so that they are as nothing,
truth can never be conjoined with what is celestial.
These first memory-knowledges
are for the most part earthly, corporeal, and worldly.
However Divine may be the precepts that a child learns,
he still has no other idea concerning them
than that which is obtainable from such knowledges;
and therefore,
so long as those lowest knowledges cling to him,
from which are his ideas,
his mind cannot be elevated.
With the Lord it was the same,
because He was born as are other men,
and was to be instructed as are others,
but according to Divine order,
which is such as has been stated.
In these things which are said
concerning Abram in Egypt,
there is described the Divine order --
how in the Lord
the external man was conjoined with the internal,
so that the external also might become Divine.