220. XI. THAT MEN HAVE ABUNDANCE ACCORDING TO THEIR LOVE OF PROPAGATING THE TRUTHS OF [THEIR] WISDOM, AND ACCORDING TO THEIR LOVE OF PERFORMING USES. That such is the case is one among the arcana which were known to the ancients and which are now lost. The ancients knew that every least thing done in the body is done from a spiritual origin; as for instance, that actions flow from the will which in itself is spiritual; that speech flows from thought which is likewise spiritual; also that natural sight is from spiritual sight which is understanding, natural hearing from spiritual hearing which is the attention of the understanding and at the same time the compliance of the will, and natural smell from spiritual smell which is perception, and so on. The ancients saw that virile semination is likewise from a spiritual origin; and from many testimonials of both reason and experience, they concluded that it is from the truths of which the understanding consists. They said further that from the spiritual marriage which inflows into every single thing of the universe, being the marriage of good and truth, nothing else is received by males but truth and that which relates to truth; that in its progress into the body, this is formed into seed, and that thence it is that seeds, spiritually understood, are truths. [2] As regards the formation, they said that the masculine soul, being intellectual, is truth, the intellectual being nothing else; and, therefore, when the soul descends, truth also descends; that this comes to pass by reason of the fact that, from an implanted endeavor to propagate itself, the soul, which is the inmost of man and of every animal and in its essence is spiritual, follows in the descent and wills to procreate itself; that when this takes place, the whole soul forms and clothes itself and becomes seed; and that this can be done thousands and thousands of times because the soul is a spiritual substance which has not extension but impletion and from which there is no taking away of a part but a production of the whole without any loss thereof. Thence it is that it is fully present in its least receptacles which are seeds just as in its greatest receptacle which is the body. [3] Since therefore the truth of the soul is the origin of seed, it follows that men have abundance according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom. That it is also according to their love of performing uses is because uses are the goods which truths produce. Moreover, it is known to some in the world that the industrious have abundance, and not the idle. When I asked how the feminine is propagated from a masculine soul, I received the answer that it is from intellectual good, this in its essence being truth; for the intellect can think that a thing is good, thus that it is a truth that the thing is good. Not so with the will; this does not think of good and truth but loves and does them. Therefore, in the Word, by sons are signified truths and by daughters goods, as can be seen above (no. 120); and that by seed in the Word is signified truth, may be seen in THE APOCALYPSE REVEALED, no. 565.