[2] The influx of the internal man occurs as an influx into the cognitions and factual knowledge that are present in the exterior man - affection being the means. Meanwhile, before they are present, a communication does indeed exist, but solely through those affections that control the external man; so that not more than very general stirrings and certain appetites occur there, and also certain blind inclinations such as reveal themselves in small children. But this life grows by degrees more definite as vessels are formed in the memory by means of cognitions and in the inner memory by rational concepts. As these vessels are formed and arranged into a sequence - into such a sequence in fact that they stand mutually related to one another like blood relatives and relatives by marriage, or like communities and families - so the correspondence is perfected of the external man with the internal man, and even better so through rational concepts, which are intermediate.

[3] But if the cognitions by means of which those vessels are formed are not truths, a lack of congruity still exists, for the celestial and spiritual things belonging to the internal man do not discover any correspondence for themselves except within truths. Such truths constituting the organic fortes of the two memories^a are the genuine vessels into which the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith may be introduced fittingly; for when they are so introduced they are arranged by the Lord according to the pattern and image of the communities of heaven, that is, of the Lord's kingdom - insomuch that the person becomes, in miniature, heaven or the Lord's kingdom, as also in the Word the minds of those people are called in whom the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith are present. But these matters have been stated for the benefit of those minds that like to go more deeply.

Notes