Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 174
instinctive with everyone, for it flows from their very affection
and thought, the tones of their speech corresponding to their
affections, and the vocal articulations which are words
corresponding to the ideas of thought that spring from the
affections; and because of this correspondence the speech itself
is spiritual, for it is affection sounding and thought speaking.
[2] Anyone who gives any thought to it can see that all
thought is from affection which pertains to love, and that the
ideas of thought are the various forms into which the general
affection is distributed; for no thought or idea is possible apart
from affection—the soul and life of thought is from affection.
This enables angels to know, merely from another’s speech,
what he is—from the tone what his affection is, and from the
vocal articulations or words what his mind is. The wiser angels
know what the ruling affection is from a single series of words,
for that affection is what they chiefly attend to.
[3] It is known that each individual has a variety of
affections, one affection when in joy, another when in grief,
another when in sympathy and compassion, another when in
sincerity and truth, another when in love and charity, another
when in zeal or in anger, another when in simulation and
deceit, another when in quest of honor and glory, and so on.
But the ruling affection or love is in all of these; and for this
reason the wiser angels, because they perceive that love, know
from the speech the whole state of another.
[4] This it has been granted me to know from much
experience. I have heard angels disclosing the character of
another’s life merely from hearing him speak. They also said
that from any ideas of another’s thought they could know all
things of his life, because from those ideas they know his ruling
love, in which are all things in their order. They know also that
man’s book of life is nothing else.
237. Angelic language has nothing in common with human
languages except certain words that are the sounds of a specific