Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/45

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II.

THE TWO PROPERLY HUMAN FACULTIES.

MAN possesses reason and freedom, or rationality and liberty ; and these two faculties are in him from the Lord.

By means of these faculties he can inwardly reflect upon what he outwardly perceives through the bodily senses; and, moreover, his higher thoughts can reflect upon his lower thoughts. For any one can say, I have thought so, and do think so; I have desired this, and do desire it; or again, I understand that it is so, I love this because of its nature; and so on. From which it is plain that man thinks above thought, and sees it as if below him.

This power he possesses from rationality and liberty — from rationality the power of higher thought, and from liberty the power of desiring from affection so to think. For unless he enjoyed such liberty of thought, he would have no will, and consequently no thought either.

Therefore they who do not desire to understand any thing except what belongs to the world and its nature, and not the nature of the morally and spiritually good and true, cannot be elevated from knowledge to intelligence, still less to wisdom; for they have choked up

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