361. I must disclose the real reason why a person is fired by having his love attacked. The human form at its innermost level is by creation a form of love and wisdom. A person has all the affections of his love, and so all the perceptions of his wisdom, arranged in the most perfect order, so that together they make a harmonious whole, and so a unity. Affections and perceptions are given substance, for there are substances on which they act. Seeing therefore that the human form is composed of these, it is obvious that, if love is attacked, the whole form together with all its details is there immediately or simultaneously attacked. Since all living creatures have implanted from creation the will to retain their own form, its details induce the whole complex to will this, and the whole induces the details to do the same. So when love is attacked, it uses its intellect to defend itself; the intellect defends itself by means of reasoning and the power of imagination, which allow it to picture to itself the result; and especially by means of the things which act in unison with the love under attack. If this did not happen, that whole form would collapse as the result of being deprived of that love.
[2] This then is the reason why, in order to oppose attacks, love hardens the substances which compose its form and as it were raises them to form so many crests or spikes; that is, it bristles. That is the nature of the outburst of love we call zeal. So if there is no opportunity for love to resist, anxiety and pain are felt, because it foresees the extinction of its inner life, together with its pleasures. But if, on the other hand, love is well treated and soothed, the form relaxes, softens and spreads out, and the substances composing its form become smooth, agreeable, mild and attractive.