230. XXI. THAT ACCORDING TO THE DEFECT AND LOSS OF CONJUGIAL LOVE, MAN APPROACHES TO THE NATURE OF A BEAST. The reason is, because so far as he is in conjugial love he is spiritual, and so far as he is spiritual he is a man. Man is born for life after death, and he attains that life because within him is a spiritual soul, and to this he can be elevated through the faculty of his understanding. If then, from the faculty which is given to it, his will also is elevated at the same time, then after death he lives the life of heaven. The contrary is the case if he is in a love opposed to conjugial love; for so far as he is in this, he is a natural man, and as to lusts, appetites, and their delights, the merely natural man is like a beast, with the sole difference that he has the faculty of elevating his understanding into the light of wisdom, and also the faculty of elevating his will into the heat of heavenly love. These faculties are never taken away from any man; and therefore, a merely natural man, although like a beast as to concupiscences, appetites and their delights, yet lives after death--but in a state corresponding to his past life. From this it is evident, that according to the defect of conjugial love, man approaches to the nature of a beast. This may seem open to contradiction because defect and loss of conjugial love exist with those who nevertheless are men; but what is meant concerns those who from scortatory love make light of conjugial love and so are in the defect and loss thereof.