Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 48
quality is determined by the quality of his understanding and
will; and it can also be known that his earthly body is formed
to serve the understanding and the will in the world, and to
skillfully accomplish their uses in the outmost sphere of nature.
For this reason the body by itself can do nothing, but is moved
always in entire subservience to the bidding of the
understanding and will, even to the extent that whatever a man
thinks he speaks with his tongue and lips, and whatever he
wills he does with his body and limbs, and thus the
understanding and the will are what act, while the body by
itself does nothing. Evidently, then, the things of the
understanding and will are what make man; and as these act
into the minutest particulars of the body, as what is internal
into what is external, they must be in a like form, and on this
account man is called an internal or spiritual man. Heaven is
such a man in its greatest and most perfect form.
61. Such being the angelic idea of man, the angels give no
thought to what a man does with his body, but only to the will
from which the body acts. This they call the man himself, and
the understanding they call the man so far as it acts in unison
with the will. 61
62. The angels, it is true, do not see heaven in its whole
complex in the human form, for heaven as a whole does not
come within view of any angel; but remote societies, consisting
of many thousands of angels, they sometimes see as a one in
the human form; and from a society, as from a part, they draw
61. The will of man is the very being [esse] of his life, and his
understanding is the outgo [existere] of his life therefrom (n. 3619, 5002,
9282).
The chief life of man is the life of his will, and from that the life of the
understanding proceeds (n. 585, 590, 3619, 7342, 8885, 9282, 10076,
10109, 10110).
Man is man by virtue of his will and his understanding therefrom (n.
8911, 9069, 9071, 10076, 10109, 10110).