Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 496

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

496. There are three degrees of the natural man. In the first degree are those who love only the world, setting their heart upon riches; these properly are meant by the natural. In the second degree are those who love only the delights of the senses, setting their heart upon luxuries and Pleasures of every kind; these properly are meant by the sensual. In the third degree are those who love only themselves, setting their heart on the quest of honor. These properly are meant by the corporeal, and this because they immerse all things of their will and hence of their understanding in the body, seeing themselves backward from others, and loving only what is their own. But the sensual immerse all things of their will and hence of their understanding in the allurements and fallacies of the senses, indulging in these alone; while the natural expend the whole of their will and understanding on the world, avariciously and fraudulently acquiring wealth, and looking to no other use in it and from it beyond the mere possession. The adulteries named above turn men into these degenerate degrees, one into this degree, another into that, each according to the desired pleasure from which his genius has its being.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church