26. The Word*
I have examined the way spiritual angels frame the words of their speech, and I discovered that they frame them and utter them according to and in consequence of ideas having to do with the things they symbolize. For example, when they say or pronounce "horse and carriage," they then use an expression that carries the symbolic meanings of these things, such as using a word for horse that comes from ideas having to do with the intellect, and a word for carriage that comes from ideas having to do with doctrine from the Word. And so on with the rest of their expressions. Thus they speak according to the correspondence about the things they see, even as people do. In short, they give names to things in accordance with their correspondence.
[2] It has consequently now been revealed to these angels that they use correspondences in the words of their speech. This they did not know before, but they discovered it when they were in a natural state with me, by examining in that state the ideas they had of things in a spiritual state. In a word, the expressions of their speech or language are all formed in accordance with correspondences.
[3] I asked the angels how they would write "horses harnessed to a carriage." They said they would write simply l, and that this letter would express it. I then asked how they would write "understanding of doctrine." They said they would do so likewise by writing l, only then they would have a higher thought of it. This, too, made it apparent that the expressions of their language involve correspondences. But few of them had paid any attention to this, just as few in this world give any thought to spiritual light when the light of the intellect is referred to, or when enlightenment and seeing the light are mentioned, or as few give any thought to spiritual fire and heat when heavenly fire is alluded to as the fire that burns in the heart, not knowing that fire and its heat correspond to love in the heart, that is, in the will, and that light corresponds to truth in the intellect. * The remaining numbers, 20-26, were written later, partly in the form of notes. See Translator's Remarks.
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