6322. It is according to all appearance that the external senses, as the sight and hearing, flow into the thought, and excite ideas there; for it appears that objects, and also speech, move the senses, first the external, and then the internal senses. But this appearance, however strong, is nevertheless a fallacy; for what is external, being gross and material, cannot flow into and move what is internal, which is pure and spiritual: this is contrary to nature. It is the internal sense, that is, the sense of the spirit itself, which sensates through the external sense, and disposes the external sensory to receive objects according to its dictates; and therefore the sensories (as for instance the sensory of sight, or the eye) instantly accommodate themselves to all objects in accordance with the nature of these; which would not take place in the sensories unless there were an influx from within. For all the fibers and appendages, which are very numerous about every sensory or organ of sense, are in an instant determined suitably to the quality of the object; nay, into the organ itself there is instantly imparted a conformable state. I have often heard among spirits a discourse about this appearance, and it was as often replied by angels that influx by no means takes place from externals into internals, but always from internals into externals; and that this is according to order, contrary to which there can be no influx. Two or three times I have seen spirits separated from an angelic society because they had believed from the appearance that there exists an influx from externals into internals; thus that influx is physical and not spiritual. The reason of their separation was that according to this notion it might have been concluded that the hells, which are in externals, can flow into the heavens, which are in internals; and it might also have been concluded that the influx of life is not from the Lord, when yet everything of life flows in from Him, because He is in the inmost, and relatively to Him all things are external.