DLW 410 - The Life Belonging to Love, to Good

DLW 410 [2-6]

Now because the first and most immediate
affections of love
are an affection for knowing,
an affection for understanding,
and an affection for seeing
that which it knows and understands,
it follows that love
forms for them the intellect,
and that it enters into these affections actually
when it begins to feel sensation and to act,
and when it begins to think.

That the intellect contributes nothing to this effort
follows from the parallel with the heart and lungs . . ..

It can be seen from this that love or the will
joins itself to wisdom or the intellect,
and not wisdom or the intellect to love or the will.
And it follows from this as well
that the knowledge which love acquires for itself
from an affection for knowing,
and the perception of truth which it acquires
from an affection for understanding,
and the thought that it acquires
from an affection for seeing
that which it knows and understands,
are not properties of the intellect,
but are the properties of love.

Thoughts, perceptions, and consequently knowledge
do indeed flow in from the spiritual world.
But still they are received
not by the intellect,
but by love
in accordance with its affections in the intellect.
It appears as though the intellect receives them,
and not love or the will,
but that is a fallacious appearance.

It also appears
as though the intellect joins itself to love or the will,
but that, too, is a fallacious appearance.
Love or the will joins itself to the intellect
and causes the intellect to be joined to it in return.
That the intellect is joined to it in return
is owing to the marriage of love with it.
Because of that marriage
a seemingly reciprocal conjunction is formed
by the life and consequent power of love.

The like is the case
with the marriage of good and truth,
for goodness is a property of love,
and truth a matter of the intellect.
Goodness initiates everything,
and it receives truth into its home
and unites itself with it
in the measure that it accords.
Goodness can also admit truths that do not accord,
but it does so because of its affection
for knowing, understanding and thinking,
when it has not yet
determined itself to useful applications
which are its ends and which it calls its goods.

A reciprocal conjunction,
or one of truth with good,
does not occur at all.
That truth is joined to good in return
is owing to the life belonging to good.

It is because of this
that every person, and every spirit and angel,
is regarded by the Lord
in accordance with his love or goodness,
and no one
in accordance with his intellect or truth
apart from his love or goodness.
For a person's life is his love . . .
and his life is what it is
according as he has elevated his affections by truths,
that is, according as he has perfected his affections
in accord with wisdom.
For love's affections
are elevated and perfected by truths, thus by wisdom;
and love then acts in conjunction with wisdom,
as though prompted by it,
but doing so of itself through wisdom,
as through a form its own,
which takes nothing whatever
of its quality from the intellect,
but everything from some determination of love,
called affection.