A MAN'S WILL IS HIS AFFECTION

This is because a man's Will is the receptacle for his love, and his Understanding is the receptacle for his wisdom; and that which is a receptacle for the love is also a receptacle for all the affections, these being only prolongations and derivations of the love, as said above. It is called "receptacle for the love" because there cannot be love with any one except in a recipient form that is substantial. Without such a form the love would not affect the man, nor be recurrent and thereby as it were permanent. The recipient form itself of love can, moreover, be described, but this is not the place for doing so. [2] This is why the Will is called the receptacle for the love.

The following will make clear that, just as the love with everything it comprises is the man, so also the Will is a man's all and is in every part of him and thus is the man himself.

[53.] A man says, in respect of everything to do with his love or his affection, indeed his life, that he wills*; he says, for instance, that he would like to do, would like to speak, wants to think, wants to feel. In all those things is his Will, and if it were not in them, he would not do, or speak, or think, or feel; in fact, unless it were present in each smallest component part of these, they would cease instantly; for his Will is in them in the same way that the soul or life is in the body and in each part of it. In place of "will" you can also say "love"; he loves to do, to speak, to think, to feel. People speak in the same way in connection with the external senses of the body; he wishes to see, wishes to hear, he wants to eat, drink or taste, he would like to smell, would like to go for a walk, to have a talk, to play a game, and so on. In each of these things, too, it is his Will acting, for if the Will were withdrawn, it would at once come to a stop; moreover, it is by the Will that they are suspended.

[3] [54.] That a man's Will is his love in form, is evident from this, that all the delightful, enjoyable, pleasant, grateful and blissful things that are of his love, are felt or perceived as such. That they are also of his Will is evident, for whatever is delightful, enjoyable, pleasant, grateful or blissful, that too is what the man wills ; he says of them, in fact, that he would like them. A man speaks in the same way in regard to what is good and what is true; for what he loves, he calls "good," and consequently makes it a matter of his Will; and whatever confirms the "good" that is of his love or Will, he calls "true," and this too, he loves, and desires to think it and to say it. Moreover, in regard to anything a man chooses, or tries to get, or longs for, or has a desire for, or strives after or intends, he says he wants it, because it is an object of his love. For it is because he loves it that he would like the thing he chooses: it is because he loves it, that he wants what he tries to get and longs for: it is because he loves it, that he wants what he has a desire for and strives after: and it is because he loves it that he wills what he intends, and that he intends it. From all this it can be seen that Will and love, or Will and affection, with a man are one, and that his Will because it is of his love, is also his life, and is the man himself. That a man's Will is also the life of his Understanding, and consequently of his thought, will be confirmed later on.

[4] [55.] The reason men do not know that the Will is the essential man is the same as the reason for their not knowing that love or affection is the essential man. Everyone, moreover, pays attention to the things he sees and feels, but not to the life, soul or essence which is the source of his seeing and feeling. This lies inwardly concealed within the sense activities, and a natural man does not reflect as deeply as that. A spiritual man, on the contrary, does, because it is not the sense-life that is the field for his wisdom, but what is essential within it, this also being in itself spiritual. It is due to this that many people declare thought to be the whole essence of a man, and to be the man himself, or in other words, that man is man because he thinks; whereas the fact is that the all of man's thought is affection. Take affection away from your thought and you would be an inanimate log. The man who is rational derivatively from what is spiritual, who is acquainted with what good and truth are, and consequently with what evil and falsity are, can tell, from what has been said, the nature of his own affections, and the nature of his own ruling affection; for the indications of them are just so many as the delights of his thinking, speaking, doing, seeing and hearing, and as his strivings, his desires and his intentions. Let him but pay attention to these and reflect. * The Latin verb used here is volo, from which is derived the Latin word for "Will," voluntas, from these our English words volition, voluntary, are derived. The Latin volo also served for the commoner forms of speech, which in English are expressed by "would like," "wish," etc. In order that the argument may be clear, the English words in the remainder of this section that represent the Latin volo are printed in italics.