Emmanuel Swedenborg's philosophy of the human organism

functions of those organs to which the processes of the mind correspond. It is use or function which precedes the organ and adapts it to itself and not vice versa.

Representations are said to be images in the natural world of spiritual or mental realities. Heaven represents both the concept of the human social organism as divine and the human mind as a whole. Swedenborg calls this the Grand Man. The individual mind is a heaven in miniature. In the mind, there are three spheres or heavens, each one higher or more interior than the previous one, corresponding to three ways of thinking. In the highest and innermost sphere, thought is from ends and is wisdom; there is a decrease in wisdom as thought becomes more exterior. In the next sphere, thought is from causes and is intelligence. In the lowest and outermost, it is from effects and is knowledge. These three degrees in heaven, or ways of thinking, are called celestial, spiritual and natural degrees.

In the natural degree to which Man is born, he acquires knowledge and so becomes intelligent. He is elevated by knowledge to the second degree which is opened to him when, through reason he knows truth and goodness, The third degree is opened only if he applies goodness and truth to life. Thus the application of wisdom to life is the function of the inner mind and the goal of the human race.

According to Swedenborg, the categories of space and time apply only to the world of nature, not to the heavens. Distinctions between and within the heavens are differences in ways of thinking. These distinctions correspond to distinctions of space and time in nature, but in the mind they are differences of state. Those who are in a similar state of mind are said to be close to one another and those in dissimilar states remote. Changes of state correspond to movements in heaven; such movements in the world of ideas also correspond to the circulation of various substances and fluids in the body.

Pervading the whole heaven or human mind, there are two kingdoms: the will and the understanding. In the body they correspond, as we have scen, to the heart and the lungs. Each rules, as it were, throughout the body; the one by circulation and the other by respiration. The pulsation of the heart corresponds to the will, and the respiration of the lungs corresponds to the under-