148. From creation and so from birth, every person has implanted in him an internal inclination to be married and an external one. The internal one is spiritual, and the external one natural. A person comes first into the external inclination, and as he becomes spiritual he comes into the internal one. Consequently, if he remains in the external or natural inclination to be married, then the internal or spiritual inclination is covered with a veil, until the person knows nothing of it, even, indeed, until he calls it an empty fiction. But, on the other hand, if the person becomes spiritual, then he begins to know something about it, afterwards to perceive something of its character, and gradually to feel its pleasant, agreeable and delightful sensations. And according as this happens, so the aforementioned covering between the external and internal inclinations begins to grow thinner, then to melt, so to speak, and finally to dissolve and disappear. When this has come to pass, the external inclination to be married indeed remains, but it is continually chastened and cleansed of its impurities by the internal inclination, and this even until the external inclination becomes, as it were, the visible expression of the internal one - drawing its pleasure, and at the same time its life and the delights of its vitality, from the bliss that exists in the internal one. That is what the renunciation of licentious relationships means, through which chastity in marriage comes about. [2] One may believe that the external inclination to be married that is left after the internal inclination has separated itself from it, or it from itself, is no different from an external inclination that has not been separated. But I have heard from angels that the two are completely unlike each other. They have said, for example, that the external inclination resulting from the internal one - which they called the external of the internal - is free of all lasciviousness, because the internal inclination is incapable of lascivious pleasures but can feel delights only in a chaste manner, and it induces a similar character on its external expression, in which it experiences its delights. The external inclination separated from the internal one is altogether different. The angels said this was lascivious in general and in every part. An external inclination to be married resulting from an internal one - this they likened to choice fruit, whose pleasant flavor and fragrance 3permeate its skin and turn it into a form corresponding to them. They also likened it to a granary, whose store of grain is never diminished, but whatever is taken from it is constantly replaced again. On the other hand, an external inclination separated from an internal one - this they likened to wheat in a winnow, saying that if it is thrown about, only chaff remains, which a breeze in the air scatters. This is what happens with conjugial love if the licentious element is not renounced.