Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 3001

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3001. There is but one and no more life - the Lord's. This life flows in and brings life to man, to both good and evil alike. This becomes clear from what has been stated and shown in the explanation of the Word, in 1954, 2021, 2536, 2658, 2706, 2886-2889. To that life recipient objects correspond which are given life by means of that Divine influx, and indeed in such a way that these recipients seem to themselves to live of themselves. This correspondence is a correspondence of life with the recipients of life. Recipient objects have life insofar as they are recipients. Such correspondence exists with those who have love and charity within them, for they are fitted to receive and do receive that life as is adequate for them. But that correspondence does not exist with those who have the reverse of love and charity within them, for life itself is not received adequately by them. These therefore have but an appearance of life, the nature of which is the same as they are in themselves. This may be exemplified in a number of ways, for example, from the motor and the sensory organs of the body into which life Bows by way of the soul. The nature of those organs determines that of the actions and sensations in them. The same may also be exemplified by objects on to which light from the sun falls- the nature of the forms receiving it determines the colours seen in them. But in the spiritual world all the variations which result from the influx of life are spiritual, and this is the origin of such differences in intelligence and wisdom.


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