Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3844his mind; for the mind itself constitutes the man, and such as themind is, such is the man. By the “mind” is meant man’s intellectand will, and consequently his veriest life. Stupid people supposethat man is man from his outward form, in that he has a face like aman’s; those less stupid say man is man because he can speak; andthose still less stupid, that man is man because he can think. Butman is not man from these things, but from the fact that he canthink what is true and will what is good, and that when he thinkstruth and wills good he can look up to the Divine and perceptiblyreceive it. It is in this that man is distinguished from the bruteanimals.[2] But his seeming like a man, and his ability to speak and tothink, do not make him a man; for if he thinks what is false andwills what is evil, this makes him not merely like a brute animal,but worse; for by means of these very faculties he destroys what ishuman in himself, and makes himself a wild beast. This isespecially evident from such persons in the other life, who whenseen in the light of heaven and looked at by angels, appear asmonsters, and some of them as wild beasts, the deceitful asserpents, and others in other forms. But when they are removedfrom that light and are let back into their own light which theyhave in hell, they seem to one another like men. But how the casestands that man would perish when the truth fails him, had he notgoods and truths stored up by the Lord in the interiors (signified bythe “food for a store to the land against the seven years of famine,that the land shall not be cut off in the famine”) will be told in thefollowing verses of this chapter.5303. Verses 37–40. And the word was good in the eyes of Pharaoh,and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto his servants,Shall we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the spirit of God?And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath caused thee toknow all this, there is no one so intelligent and wise as thou; thou shaltbe over my house, and upon thy mouth shall all my people kiss; only inthe throne will I be greater than thou. “And the word was good inthe eyes of Pharaoh” signifies what is very pleasing to the natural;“and in the eyes of all his servants” signifies what is very pleasing to