353. False intelligence and wisdom is all intelligence and wisdom that is separated from the acknowledgment of the Divine; for all such as do not acknowledge the Divine, but acknowledge nature in the place of the Divine, think from the corporeal-sensual, and are merely sensual, however highly they may be esteemed in the world for their erudition and learning.# But their learning does not ascend beyond such things as appear before their eyes in the world; these they hold in the memory and look at them in an almost material way, although the same knowledges serve the truly intelligent in forming their understanding. By sciences the various kinds of experimental knowledge are meant, physics, astronomy, chemistry, mechanics, geometry, anatomy, psychology, philosophy, the history of kingdoms and of the literary world, criticism, and languages. [2] Dignitaries of the Church who deny the Divine do not raise their thoughts above the sensual things of the external man, and regard the things of the Word in the same way as others regard the sciences, not making them matters of thought or of any intuition by an enlightened rational mind, and for the reason that their interiors have been closed up, together with those exteriors that are nearest to their interiors. These have been closed up because they have turned themselves away from heaven, and have bent back those faculties that were capable of looking heavenward, which are, as has been said above, the interiors of the human mind. For this reason they are incapable of seeing what is true and good, this being to them in thick darkness, while whatever is false and evil is in light. [3] And yet sensual men can reason, some of them more cunningly and keenly than anyone else; but they reason from the fallacies of the senses confirmed by their knowledges; and because they are able to reason in this way they believe themselves to be wiser than others.## The fire that kindles with affection their reasonings is the fire of the love of self and the world. Such are those who are in false intelligence and wisdom, and who are meant by the Lord in Matthew:
Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. Matt. xiii. 13-15.
And again:
These things are hid from the intelligent and wise, and revealed unto babes. Matt. xi. 25, 26. # The sensual is the ultimate of man's life, clinging to and inhering in his bodily part (n. 5077, 5767, 9212, 9216, 9331, 9730). He is called a sensual man who forms all his judgments and conclusions from the bodily senses, and who believes nothing except what he sees with his eyes and touches with his hands (n. 5094, 7693). Such a man thinks in things outermost and not interiorly in himself (n. 5089, 5094, 6564, 7693). His interiors are so closed up that he sees nothing of Divine Truth (n. 6564, 6844, 6845). In a word he is in gross natural light and thus perceives nothing that is from the light of heaven (n. 6201, 6310, 6564, 6598, 6612, 6614, 6622, 6624, 6844, 6845). Therefore he is inwardly opposed to all things pertaining to heaven and the Church (n. 6201, 6310, 6844, 6845, 6948, 6949). The learned who have confirmed themselves against the truths of the Church are sensual (n. 6316). A description of the sensual man (n. 10236). ## Sensual men reason keenly and cunningly, since they place all intelligence in speaking from the bodily memory (n. 195, 196, 5700, 10236). But they reason from the fallacies of the senses (n. 5084, 6948, 6949, 7693). Sensual men are more cunning and malicious than others (n. 7693, 10236). By the ancients such were called serpents of the tree of knowledge (n. 195-197, 6398, 6949, 10313).
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