Divine Love and Wisdom (Harleys) n. 407

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407. That it is so can be confirmed to the life from the conjunction of the heart with the lungs, because the correspondence between the will and the heart, and between the understanding and the lungs, is such that just as love acts with the understanding spiritually, so does the heart act with the lungs naturally; hence what has been said above may be seen as in an image presented to the eye. That man neither has any sensate life nor any active life so long as the heart and lungs do not act together, is evident from the state of the embryo or of the infant in the womb, and from its state after birth. As long as man is an embryo, or in the womb, the lungs are closed; consequently he possesses neither feeling nor action; the organs of sense are sealed up, the hands are bound and the feet likewise; but after birth the lungs are opened, and in proportion as they are opened so man feels and acts; the lungs are opened by the blood sent into them from the heart. That man has neither sensate nor active life without the co-operation of the heart and lungs is evident also in swoons, when the heart alone acts and not the lungs, for breathing is then suspended. In these cases it is well known that there is no sensation and no movement. The same is true of a man suffocated, whether it be by water, or by something blocking the larynx and closing the breathing passage of the lungs. The man appears at the time to be dead, he feels nothing and does nothing, and yet is alive at heart, as is well known, for he returns to both his sensate and active life, as soon as the obstruction of the lungs is removed. It is true the blood circulates in the meantime through the lungs, but through the pulmonary arteries and veins, and not through the bronchial arteries and veins, which give man the power to breath. It is the same with the influx of love into the understanding.


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