134. (C.L.)
"A man is not born knowledge, as a beast is; but he is born faculty and inclination; faculty to know, and inclination to love; and he is born faculty not only to know but also to understand and be wise; he is likewise born the most perfect inclination to love not only the things relating to self and the world, but also those relating to God and heaven; consequently a man, by birth from his parents, is an organ which lives merely by the external senses, and at first by no internal senses, to the end that he may successively become a man, first natural, afterwards rational, and lastly spiritual; which could not be the case if he was born into knowledges and loves, as the beasts are: for connate knowledges and affections set bounds to that progression; whereas connate faculty and inclination set no such bounds; therefore a man is capable of being perfected, in knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom to eternity."
Those on the SOUTH next took up the debate, and expressed their sentiments as follows: "It is impossible for a man to take any knowledge from himself, since he has no connate knowledge; but he may take it from others; and as he cannot take any knowledge from himself, so neither can he take any love; for where there is no knowledge there is no love; knowledge and love being undivided companions, and no more capable of separation than will and understanding, or affection and thought; yea, no more than essence and form: therefore in proportion as a man takes knowledge from others, so love joins itself thereto as its companion. The universal love which joins itself is the love of knowing, of understanding, and of growing wise; this love is peculiar to man alone, and not to any beast, and flows in from God. We agree with our companions from the west, that a man is not born into any love, and consequently not into any knowledge; but that he is only born into an inclination to love, and thence into a faculty to receive knowledges, not from himself but from others, that is, by others: we say, by others, because neither have these received any thing of knowledge from themselves, but from God.
The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love
Author: Emanuel Swedenborg
