Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 179

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

179. XX. THAT, REGARDED IN ITSELF, LOVE TRULY CONJUGIAL IS A UNION OF SOULS, A CONJUNCTION OF MINDS, AND AN EFFORT TO CONJUNCTION IN BREASTS AND THENCE IN THE BODY. That it is a union of souls and a conjunction of minds may be seen above (no. 158). That it is an effort to conjunction in the breast is because the breast is a place of assembly and a royal court, as it were, with the body as a populous city around it. That the breast is as a place of assembly is because everything determined from the soul and mind into the body flows first into the breast. That it is a royal court, as it were, is because the breast is the seat of dominion over all things of the body; for there, are the heart and lungs, and these reign everywhere, the heart by the blood, and the lungs by the respiration. That the body is as a populous city round about, is apparent. When, therefore, the souls and minds of partners are united--and it is love truly conjugial that unites them--it follows that this loving union flows into their breasts and through these into their bodies and causes a striving to conjunction, and this the more, because, for the fulfillment of its blissful pleasures, conjugial love determines this striving to its ultimates; and since the breast is the place where the two ways meet, it is clear whence it is that conjugial love has there found the seat of its delicate sense.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church