Divine Love and Wisdom (Rogers) n. 407

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407. The reality of this can be empirically confirmed from the conjunction of the heart with the lungs, because there is such a correspondence between the will and the heart, and between the intellect and the lungs, that the way love interacts with the intellect spiritually is the way the heart interacts with the lungs naturally. Consequently the foregoing observations can be seen in the heart and the lungs as in an image visible to the eye. The fact that a person is not in the enjoyment of any sensory life or any active life as long as the heart and the lungs do not operate together is evident from the state of a fetus or baby in the womb and its state after birth. As long as the person is a fetus or in the womb, the lungs are closed. Therefore he is without any sensation and incapable of any action. His sensory organs are closed, his hands are held bound, and so also his feet. But after birth the lungs are opened, and as these are opened the person begins to feel sensation and to act. The lungs are opened by blood transmitted from the heart. [2] The fact that a person is not in the enjoyment of any sensory life or any active life without the joint operation of the heart and the lungs is apparent also from cases of fainting. During periods of fainting the heart alone acts, and not the lungs, for the respiration is then stopped. People know that during these periods a person is without any sensation and incapable of any action. The case is the same with a person being suffocated, whether by water or by something that obstructs the air passage and closes the way for the lungs' respiration. People know that the person then appears as though dead, without sensation and incapable of action, and yet as regards the heart is still alive. For he returns into both his sensory life and his active life as soon the obstructions of the lungs are removed. The blood, indeed, does meanwhile circulate through the lungs, but through the pulmonary arteries and veins, and not through the bronchial arteries and veins; and it is the latter which give a person the ability to breathe. The case is the same with the influx of love into the intellect.


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