432. The rudimentary form of the human being and its nature from conception. The nature of the rudimentary or initial form of the human being in the womb after conception is something no one can know, because it cannot be seen. Moreover, it also originates from a spiritual essence, which in natural light does not fall within the scope of the eye. Now because some people in the world are of a temperament to direct their minds even to an investigation of the elemental form of the human being or paternal seed that occasions conception, and because many of them have fallen into the error of thinking that the human being exists in its complete form from its first origin or commencement, and is afterward perfected by growing, I have had disclosed to me the nature of that commencement or first origin in its true form. This was disclosed to me by angels who had it revealed to them by the Lord; and because they incorporated it into their wisdom, and it is the delight of their wisdom to communicate to others what they know, therefore they were given permission to present before my eyes in the light of heaven a model of the human being's initial form, the nature of which was as follows. [2] I saw what looked like the tiny image of a brain, having the faint outline of an undefined face in front, without any appendage. The upper, convex part of this rudimentary form had a structure composed of contiguous little globular or spherical masses, and each little spherical mass was composed of ones still more minute, and each of these in like manner of ones the most minute of all. Thus it consisted of three degrees. It was in the concave part of this toward the front that I saw the undefined outline of a face. The convex part was covered with a very thin membrane or meninx, which was transparent. The convex part, which was the model of a cerebrum in miniature, was also divided into two, shall I say, prominences, as the cerebrum in its larger form is divided into two hemispheres. And I was told that the right prominence was a recipient vessel of love, and the left prominence a recipient vessel of wisdom, and that through marvelous interconnections they were as though consorts and domestic partners. [3] Furthermore I was shown in the light of heaven that shone upon it that the structure of the image's little cerebellum was, in respect to its inner orientation and continuous motion, in the order and form of heaven, and that its outer structure was in conflict with it in opposition to that order and form. [4] After I had seen and been shown the foregoing, the angels told me that the two inner degrees, which were in the order and form of heaven, were recipient vessels of love and wisdom from the Lord, and that the outer degree, which was in conflict with them in opposition to the order and form of heaven, was the recipient vessel of hellish love and insanity-the reason being that a person is born by a hereditary defect into evils of every kind, and that these evils are seated in the outermost constituents there. Moreover, they said that this defect is not removed unless the higher degrees are opened, which, as we said, are recipient vessels of love and wisdom from the Lord. So then, because love and wisdom are the essence of what it is to be human-since love and wisdom in their essence are the Lord, and this initial form of a person is their recipient vessel-it follows that this initial form has within it a continual effort toward the human form, which it also gradually assumes.