Angelic Wisdom about Divine ProvidenceSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Providence and government of God -- Christianity
[8] The nature of the changes and variations of state and form in the
organic substances of the mind, which are affections and thoughts, cannot
be shown to the eye. It may, however, be seen as in a mirror by the
changes of state in the lungs on speaking and singing. There is
correspondence, moreover; for the sound of the voice in speaking and
singing, and the articulations of the sound which are the words of speech
and the modulations of song, are produced by means of the lungs; sound
corresponds to affection, and speech to thought. Sound and speech are
produced also from affection and thought. This is done by changes and
variations in the state and form of the organic substances of the lungs,
and from the lungs through the trachea or windpipe in the larynx and
glottis, and then in the tongue, and finally in the lips. The first
changes and variations in the state and form of the sound occur in the
lungs, the second in trachea and larynx, the third in the glottis by the
different openings of its orifice, the fourth in the tongue by its
various positions against palate and teeth, and the fifth in the lips by
the various modifications of form in them. It may be evident, then, that
these consecutive changes and variations in the state of organic forms
produce the sounds and their articulations which are speech and song.
Inasmuch, then, as sound and speech are produced from no other source
than the affections and thoughts of the mind (for they exist from them
and are never apart from them), clearly the affections of the will are
changes and variations in the state of the purely organic substances of
the mind, and the thoughts of the understanding are changes and
variations in the form of those substances, quite like those in the
substances of the lungs.
[9] Since affections and thoughts are simply changes of state in the
forms of the mind, memory is nothing other than the permanent state of
those changes. For all changes and variations of state in organic
substances are such that once they are habitual they become permanent. So
the lungs are habituated to produce certain sounds in the trachea, to
vary them in the glottis, articulate them by the tongue, and modify them
by the mouth; once these organic activities have become habitual, they
are settled in the organs and can be reproduced. These changes and
variations are infinitely more perfect in the organs of the mind than in
those of the body, as is evident from what was said in the treatise
_Divine Love and Wisdom_ (nn. 199-204), where we showed that all
perfections increase and ascend by and according to degrees. More on this
will be seen below (n. 319).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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