437. XII. BETWEEN THOSE TWO SPHERES THERE IS AN EQUILIBRIUM, AND MAN IS IN IT. The equilibrium between them is a spiritual equilibrium, because it is between good and evil; from this equilibrium a man has free will, in and by which he thinks and wills, and hence speaks and acts as from himself. His rational principle consists in his having the option to receive either good or evil; consequently, whether he will freely and rationally dispose himself to conjugial love, or to adulterous love; if to the latter, he turns the hinder part of the head, and the back to the Lord; if to the former, he turns the fore part of the head and the breast to the Lord; if to the Lord, his rationality and liberty are led by himself; but if backwards from the Lord, his rationality and liberty are led by hell.

438. XIII. A MAN CAN TURN HIMSELF TO WHICHEVER SPHERE HE PLEASES; BUT SO FAR AS HE TURNS HIMSELF TO THE ONE, SO FAR HE TURNS HIMSELF FROM THE OTHER. Man was created so that he may do whatever he does freely, according to reason, and altogether as from himself: without these two faculties he would not be a man but a beast; for he would not receive any thing flowing from heaven, and appropriate it to himself as his own, and consequently it would not be possible for anything of eternal life to be inscribed on him; for this must be inscribed on him as his, in order that it may be his own; and whereas there is no freedom on the one part, unless there be also a like freedom on the other, as it would be impossible to weigh a thing, unless the scales from an equilibrium could incline to either side: so, unless a man had liberty from reason to draw near also to evil, thus to turn from the right to the left, and from the left to the right, in like manner to the infernal sphere, which is that of adultery, as to the celestial sphere, which is that of marriage, (it would be impossible for him to receive any thing flowing from heaven, and to appropriate it to himself.)

439. XIV. EACH SPHERE BRINGS WITH IT DELIGHTS; that is, both the sphere of adulterous love which ascends from hell, and the sphere of conjugial love which descends from heaven, affects the recipient man (homo) with delights; because the ultimate plane in which the delights of each love terminate, and where they fill and complete themselves, and which exhibits them in their own proper sensory, is the same. Hence, in the extremes, adulterous caresses and conjugial caresses are perceived as similar, although in internals they are altogether dissimilar; that hence they are also dissimilar in the extremes, is a point not decided from any sense of discrimination; for dissimilitudes are not made sensible from their discriminations in the extremes, to any others than those who are principled in love truly conjugial; for evil is known from good, but not good from evil; so neither is a sweet scent perceived by the nose when a disagreeable one is present in it. I have heard from the angels, that they distinguish in the extremes what is lascivious from what is not, as any one distinguishes the fire of a dunghill or of burnt horn by its bad smell, from the fire of spices or of burnt cinnamon by its sweet smell; and that this arises from their distinction of the internal delights which enter into the external and compose them.

440. XV. THE DELIGHTS OF ADULTEROUS LOVE COMMENCE FROM THE FLESH AND ARE OF THE FLESH EVEN IN THE SPIRIT; BUT THE DELIGHTS OF CONJUGIAL LOVE COMMENCE IN THE SPIRIT AND ARE OF THE SPIRIT EVEN IN THE FLESH. The reason why the delights of adulterous love commence from the flesh is, because the stimulant heats of the flesh are their beginnings. The reason why they infect the spirit and are of the flesh even in the spirit, is, because the spirit, and not the flesh, is sensible of those things which happen in the flesh. The case is the same with this sense as with the rest: as that the eye does not see and discern various particulars in objects, but they are seen and discerned by the spirit; neither does the ear hear and discern the harmonies of tunes in singing, and the concordances of the articulation of sounds in speech, but they are heard and discerned by the spirit; moreover, the spirit is sensible of every thing according to its elevation in wisdom. The spirit that is not elevated above the sensual things of the body, and thereby adheres to them, is not sensible of any other delights than those which flow in from the flesh and the world through the senses of the body: these delights it seizes upon, is delighted with, and makes its own. Now, since the beginnings of adulterous love are only the stimulant fires and itchings of the flesh, it is evident, that these things in the spirit are filthy allurements, which, as they ascend and descend, and reciprocate, so they excite and inflame. In general the cupidities of the flesh are nothing but the accumulated concupiscences of what is evil and false: hence comes this truth in the church, that the flesh lusts against the spirit, that is, against the spiritual man; wherefore it follows, that the delights of the flesh, as to the delights of adulterous love, are nothing but the effervescences of lusts, which in the spirit become the ebullitions of immodesty.

441. But the delights of conjugial love have nothing in common with the filthy delights of adulterous love: the latter indeed are in the spirit of every man; but they are separated and removed, as the man's spirit is elevated above the sensual things of the body, and from its elevation sees their appearances and fallacies beneath: in this case it perceives fleshly delights, first as apparent and fallacious, afterwards as libidinous and lascivious, which ought to be shunned, and successively as damnable and hurtful to the soul, and at length it has a sense of them as being undelightful, disagreeable, and nauseous; and in the degree that it thus perceives and is sensible of these delights, in the same degree also it perceives the delights of conjugial love as innocent and chaste, and at length as delicious and blessed. The reason why the delights of conjugial love become also delights of the spirit in the flesh, is, because after the delights of adulterous love are removed, as was just said above, the spirit being loosed from them enters chaste into the body, and fills the breasts with the delights of its blessedness, and from the breasts fills also the ultimates of that love in the body; in consequence whereof, the spirit with these ultimates, and these ultimates with the spirits, afterwards act in full communion.

442. XVI. THE DELIGHTS OF ADULTEROUS LOVE ARE THE PLEASURES OF INSANITY; BUT THE DELIGHTS OF CONJUGIAL LOVE ARE THE DELIGHTS OF WISDOM. The reason why the delights of adulterous love are the pleasures of insanity is, because none but natural men are in that love, and the natural man is insane in spiritual things, for he is contrary to them, and therefore he embraces only natural, sensual, and corporeal delights. It is said that he embraces natural, sensual, and corporeal delights, because the natural principle is distinguished into three degrees: in the supreme degree are those natural men who from rational sight see insanities, and are still carried away by the delights thereof, as boats by the stream of a river; in a lower degree are the natural men who only see and judge from the senses of the body, despising and rejecting, as of no account, the rational principles which are contrary to appearances and fallacies; in the lowest degree are the natural men who without judgement are carried away by the alluring stimulant heats of the body. These last are called natural-corporeal, the former are called natural-sensual, but the first natural. With these men, adulterous love and its insanities and pleasures are of similar degrees.

443. The reason why the delights of conjugial love are the delights of wisdom is, because none but spiritual men are in that love, and the spiritual man is in wisdom; and hence he embraces no delights but such as agree with spiritual wisdom. The respective qualities of the delights of adulterous and of conjugial love, may be elucidated by a comparison with houses: the delights of adulterous love by comparison with a house whose walls glitter outwardly like sea shells, or like transparent stones, called selenites, of a gold color; whereas in the apartments within the walls, are all kinds of filth and nastiness: but the delights of conjugial love may be compared to a house, the walls of which are refulgent as with sterling gold, and the apartments within are resplendent as with cabinets full of various precious stones.

444. To the above I shall add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. After I had concluded the meditations on conjugial love, and had begun those on adulterous love, on a sudden two angels presented themselves, and said, "We have perceived and understood what you have heretofore meditated upon; but the things upon which you are now meditating pass away, and we do not perceive them. Say nothing about them, for they are of no value." But I replied, "This love, on which I am now meditating, is not of no value; because it exists." But they said, "How can there be any love, which is not from creation? Is not conjugial love from creation; and does not this love exist between two who are capable of becoming one? How can there be a love which divides and separates? What youth can love any other maiden than the one who loves him in return? Must not the love of the one know and acknowledge the love of the other, so that when they meet they may unite of themselves? Who can love what is not love? Is not conjugial love alone mutual and reciprocal? If it be not reciprocal, does it not rebound and become nothing?" On hearing this, I asked the two angels from what society of heaven they were? They said, "We are from the heaven of innocence; we came infants into this heavenly world, and were educated under the Lord's auspices; and when I became a young man, and my wife, who is here with me, marriageable, we were betrothed and entered into a contract, and were joined under the first favorable impressions; and as we were unacquainted with any other love than what is truly nuptial and conjugial, therefore, when we were made acquainted with the ideas of your thought concerning a strange love directly opposed to our love, we could not at all comprehend it; and we have descended in order to ask you, why you meditate on things that cannot be understood? Tell us, therefore, how a love, which not only is not from creation, but is also contrary to creation, could possibly exist? We regard things opposite to creation as objects of no value." As they said this, I rejoiced in heart that I was permitted to converse with angels of such innocence, as to be entirely ignorant of the nature and meaning of adultery: wherefore I was free to converse with them, and I instructed them as follows: "Do you not know, that there exist both good and evil, and that good is from creation, but not evil; and still that evil viewed in itself is not nothing, although it is nothing of good? From creation there exists good, and also good in the greatest degree and in the least; and when this least becomes nothing, there rises up on the other side evil: wherefore there is no relation or progression of good to evil, but a relation and progression of good to a greater and less good, and of evil to a greater and less evil; for in all things there are opposites. And since good and evil are opposites, there is an intermediate, and in it an equilibrium, in which evil acts against good; but as it does not prevail, it stops in a conatus. Every man is educated in this equilibrium, which, because it is between good and evil, or, what is the same, between heaven and hell, is a spiritual equilibrium, which, with those who are in it, produces a state of freedom. From this equilibrium, the Lord draws all to himself; and if a man freely follows, he leads him out of evil into good, and thereby into heaven. The case is the same with love, especially with conjugial love and adultery: the latter love is evil, but the former good. Every man that hears the voice of the Lord, and freely follows, is introduced by the Lord into conjugial love and all its delights and satisfactions; but he that does not hear and follow, introduces himself into adulterous love, first into its delights, afterwards into what is undelightful, and lastly into what is unsatisfactory." When I had thus spoken, the two angels asked me, "How could evil exist, when nothing but good had existed from creation? The existence of anything implies that it must have an origin. Good could not be the origin of evil, because evil is nothing of good, being privative and destructive of good; nevertheless, since it exists and is sensibly felt, it is not nothing, but something; tell us therefore whence this something existed after nothing." To this I replied, "This arcanum cannot be explained, unless it be known that no one is good but God alone, and that there is not anything good, which in itself is good, but from God; wherefore he that looks to God, and wishes to be led by God, is in good; but he that turns himself from God, and wishes to be led by himself, is not in good; for the good which he does, is for the sake either of himself or of the world; thus it is either meritorious, or pretended, or hypocritical: from which considerations it is evident, that man himself is the origin of evil; not that that origin was implanted in him by creation; but that he, by turning from God to himself, implanted it in himself. That origin of evil was not in Adam and his wife; but when the serpent said, 'In the day that ye shall eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall be as God' (Gen. iii. 5), they then made in themselves the origin of evil, because they turned themselves from God, and turned to themselves, as to God. To eat of that tree, signifies to believe that they knew good and evil, and were wise, from themselves, and not from God." But the two angels then asked, "How could man turn himself from God, and turn to himself, when yet he cannot will, think, and thence do anything but from God? Why did God permit this?" I replied, "Man was so created, that whatever he wills, thinks, and does, appears to him as in himself, and thereby from himself: without this appearance a man would not be a man; for he would be incapable of receiving, retaining, and as it were appropriating to himself anything of good and truth, or of love and wisdom: whence it follows, that without such appearance, as a living appearance, a man would not have conjunction with God, and consequently neither would he have eternal life. But if from this appearance he induces in himself a belief that he wills, thinks, and thence does good from himself, and not from the Lord, although in all appearance as from himself, he turns good into evil with himself, and thereby makes in himself the origin of evil. This was the sin of Adam. But I will explain this matter somewhat more clearly. The Lord looks at every man in the forepart of his head, and this inspection passes into the hinder part of his head. Beneath the forepart is the cerebrum, and beneath the hinder part is the cerebellum; the latter was designed for love and the goods thereof, and the former for wisdom and the truths thereof; wherefore he that looks with the face to the Lord receives from him wisdom, and by wisdom love; but he that looks backward from the Lord receives love and not wisdom; and love without wisdom, is love from man and not from the Lord; and this love, since it conjoins itself with falses, does not acknowledge God, but acknowledges itself for God, and confirms this tacitly by the faculty of understanding and growing wise implanted in it from creation as from itself; wherefore this love is the origin of evil. That this is the case, will admit of ocular demonstration. I will call hither some wicked spirit who turns himself from God, and will speak to him from behind, or into the hinder part of the head, and you will see that the things which are said are turned into their contraries." I called such a spirit and he presented himself, and I spoke to him from behind and said, "Do you know anything about hell, damnation, and torment in hell?" And presently, when he was turned to me, I asked him what he heard? He said, "I heard, 'Do you know anything concerning heaven, salvation, and happiness in heaven?'" and afterwards when the latter words were said to him from behind, he said that he heard the former. It was next said to him from behind, "Do you know that those who are in hell are insane from falses?" and when I asked him concerning these words what he heard, he said, "I heard, 'Do you know that those who are in heaven are wise from truths?'" and when the latter words were spoken to him from behind, he said that he heard, "Do you know that those who are in hell, are insane from falses?" and so in other instances: from which it evidently appears, that when the mind turns itself from the Lord, it turns to itself, and then it perceives things contrary. "This, as you know, is the reason why, in this spiritual world, no one is allowed to stand behind another, and to speak to him; for thereby there is inspired into him a love, which his own intelligence favors and obeys for the sake of its delight; but since it is from man, and not from God, it is a love of evil, or a love of the false. In addition to the above, I will relate to you another similar circumstance. On certain occasions I have heard goods and truths let down from heaven into hell; and in hell they were progressively turned into their opposites, good into evil, and truth into the false; the cause of this, the same as above, because all in hell turn themselves from the Lord." On hearing these two things the two angels thanked me, and said, "As you are now meditating and writing concerning a love opposite to our conjugial love, and the opposite to that love makes our minds sad, we will depart;" and when they said, "Peace be unto you," I besought them not to mention that love to their brethren and sisters in heaven, because it would hurt their innocence. I can positively assert that those who die infants, grow up in heaven, and when they attain the stature which is common to young men of eighteen years old in the world, and to maidens of fifteen years, they remain of that stature; and further, that both before marriage and after it, they are entirely ignorant what adultery is, and that such a thing can exist.

[Transcriber's Note: The out-of-order section number which follows is in the original text, as is the asterisk which does not seem to indicate a footnote.]

444.* FORNICATION means the lust of a grown up man or youth with a woman, a harlot, before marriage; but lust with a woman, not a harlot, that is, with a maiden or with another's wife, is not fornication; with a maiden it is the act of deflowering, and with another's wife it is adultery. In what manner these two differ from fornication, cannot be seen by any rational being unless he takes a clear view of the love of the sex in its degrees and diversities, and of its chaste principles on the one part, and of its unchaste principles on the other, arranging each part into genera and species, and thereby distinguishing them. Without such a view and arrangement, it is impossible there should exist in any one's idea a discrimination between the chaste principle as to more and less, and between the unchaste principle as to more and less; and without these distinctions all relation perishes, and therewith all perspicacity in matters of judgement, and the understanding is involved in such a shade, that it does not know how to distinguish fornication from adultery, and still less the milder kinds of fornication from the more grievous, and in like manner of adultery; thus it mixes evils, and of different evils makes one pottage, and of different goods one paste. In order therefore that the love of the sex may be distinctly known as to that part by which it inclines and makes advances to adulterous love altogether opposite to conjugial love, it is expedient to examine its beginning, which is fornication; and this we will do in the following series: I. Fornication is of the love of the sex. II. This love commences when a youth begins to think and act from his own understanding and his voice to be masculine. III. Fornication is of the natural man. IV. Fornication is lust, but not the lust of adultery. V. With some men the love of the sex cannot without hurt be totally checked from going forth into fornication. VI. Therefore in populous cities public stews are tolerated. VII. The lust of fornication is light, so far as it looks to conjugial love, and gives this love the preference. VIII. The lust of fornication is grievous, so far as it looks to adultery. IX. The lust of fornication is more grievous, as it verges to the desire of varieties and of defloration. X. The sphere of the lust of fornication, such as it is in the beginning, is a middle sphere between the sphere of adulterous love and the sphere of conjugial love, and makes an equilibrium. XI. Care is to be taken, lest, by inordinate and immoderate fornications, conjugial love be destroyed. XII. Inasmuch as the conjugial principle of one man with one wife is the jewel of human life and the reservoir of the Christian religion. XIII. With those who, from various reasons, cannot as yet enter into marriage, and from their passion for the sex, cannot restrain their lusts, this conjugial principle may be preserved, if the vague love of the sex be confined to one mistress. XIV. Keeping a mistress is preferable to vague amours, if only one is kept, and she be neither a maiden nor a married woman, and the love of the mistress be kept separate from conjugial love. We proceed to an explanation of each article.

445. I. FORNICATION IS OF THE LOVE OF THE SEX. We say that fornication is of the love of the sex, because it is not the love of the sex but is derived from it. The love of the sex is like a fountain, from which both conjugial and adulterous love may be derived; they may also be derived by means of fornication, and also without it: for the love of the sex is in every man (homo), and either does or does not put itself forth: if it puts itself forth before marriage with a harlot, it is called fornication; if not until with a wife, it is called marriage; if after marriage with another woman, it is called adultery: wherefore, as we have said, the love of the sex is like a fountain, from which may flow both chaste and unchaste love: but with what caution and prudence chaste conjugial love can proceed by fornication, yet from what imprudence unchaste or adulterous love can proceed thereby, we will explain in what follows. Who can draw the conclusion, that he that has committed fornication cannot be more chaste in marriage?

446. II. THE LOVE OF THE SEX, FROM WHICH FORNICATION IS DERIVED, COMMENCES WHEN A YOUTH BEGINS TO THINK AND ACT FROM HIS OWN UNDERSTANDING, AND HIS VOICE TO BE MASCULINE. This article is adduced to the intent, that the birth of the love of the sex, and thence of fornication, may be known, as taking place when the understanding begins of itself to become rational, or from its own reason to discern and provide such things as are of emolument and use, whereto in such case what has been implanted in the memory from parents and masters, serves as a plane. At that time a change takes place in the mind; it before thought only from things introduced into the memory, by meditating upon and obeying them; it afterwards thinks from reason exercised upon them, and then, under the guidance of the love, it arranges into a new order the things seated in the memory, and in agreement with that order it disposes its own life, and successively thinks more and more according to its own reason, and wills from its own freedom. It is well known that the love of the sex follows the commencement of a man's own understanding, and advances according to its vigor; and this is a proof that that love ascends and descends as the understanding ascends and descends: by ascending we mean into wisdom, and by descending, into insanity; and wisdom consists in restraining the love of the sex, and insanity in allowing it a wide range: if it be allowed to run into fornication, which is the beginning of its activity, it ought to be moderated from principles of honor and morality implanted in the memory and thence in the reason, and afterwards to be implanted in the reason and in the memory. The reason why the voice also begins to be masculine, together with the commencement of a man's own understanding, is, because the understanding thinks, and by thought speaks; which is a proof that the understanding constitutes the man (vir), and also his male principle; consequently, that as his understanding is elevated, so he becomes a man-man (homo vir), and also a male man (masculus vir); see above, n. 432, 433.

447. III. FORNICATION IS OF THE NATURAL MAN, in like manner as the love of the sex, which, if it becomes active before marriage, is called fornication. Every man (homo) is born corporeal, becomes sensual, afterwards natural, and successively rational; and, if in this case he does not stop in his progress, he becomes spiritual. The reason why he thus advances step by step, is, in order that planes may be formed, on which superior principles may rest and find support, as a palace on its foundations: the ultimate plane, with those that are formed upon it, may also be compared to ground, in which, when prepared, noble seeds are sown. As to what specifically regards the love of the sex, it also is first corporeal, for it commences from the flesh: next it becomes sensual, for the five senses receive delight from its common principle; afterwards it becomes natural like the same love with other animals, because it is a vague love of the sex; but as a man was born to become spiritual, it becomes afterwards natural-rational, and from natural-rational spiritual, and lastly spiritual-natural; and in this case, that love made spiritual flows into and acts upon rational love, and through this flows into and acts upon sensual love, and lastly through this flows into and acts upon that love in the body and the flesh; and as this is its ultimate plane, it acts upon it spiritually, and at the same time rationally and sensually; and it flows in and acts thus successively while the man is meditating upon it, but simultaneously while he is in its ultimate. The reason why fornication is of the natural man, is, because it proceeds proximately from the natural love of the sex; and it may become natural-rational, but not spiritual, because the love of the sex cannot become spiritual, until it becomes conjugial; and the love of the sex from natural becomes spiritual, when a man recedes from vague lust, and devotes himself to one of the sex, to whose soul he unites his own.

448. IV. FORNICATION IS LUST, BUT NOT THE LUST OF ADULTERY. The reasons why fornication is lust are, 1. Because it proceeds from the natural man, and in everything which proceeds from the natural man, there is concupiscence and lust; for the natural man is nothing but an abode and receptacle of concupiscences and lust, since all the criminal propensities inherited from the parents reside therein. 2. Because the fornicator has a vague and promiscuous regard to the sex, and does not as yet confine his attention to one of the sex; and so long as he is in this state, he is prompted by lust to do what he does; but in proportion as he confines his attention to one of the sex, and loves to conjoin his life with hers, concupiscence becomes a chaste affection, and lust becomes human love.

449. That the lust of fornication is not the lust of adultery, every one sees clearly from common perception. What law and what judge imputes a like criminality to the fornicator as to the adulterer? The reason why this is seen from common perception is, because fornication is not opposed to conjugial love as adultery is. In fornication conjugial love may lie stored up within, as what is spiritual may lie stored up in what is natural; yea, what is spiritual is also actually disengaged from what is natural; and when the spiritual is disengaged, then the natural encompasses it, as bark does its wood, and a scabbard its sword, and also serves the spiritual as a defence against violence. From these considerations it is evident, that natural love, which is love to the sex, precedes spiritual love which is love to one of the sex; but if fornication comes into effect from the natural love of the sex, it may also be wiped away, provided conjugial love be regarded, desired, and sought, as the chief good. It is altogether otherwise with the libidinous and obscene love of adultery, which we have shewn to be opposite to conjugial love, and destructive thereof, in the foregoing chapter concerning the opposition of adulterous and conjugial love: wherefore if a confirmed and determined adulterer for various reasons enters into a conjugial engagement, the above case is inverted, since a natural principle lies concealed within its lascivious and obscene things, and a spiritual appearance covers it externally. From these considerations reason may see, that the lust of limited fornication is, in respect to the lust of adultery, as the first warmth is to the cold of mid-winter in northern countries.

450. V. WITH SOME MEN THE LOVE OF THE SEX CANNOT WITHOUT HURT BE TOTALLY CHECKED FROM GOING FORTH INTO FORNICATION. It is needless to recount the mischiefs which may be caused and produced by too great a check of the love of the sex, with such persons as labor under a superabundant venereal heat; from this source are to be traced the origins of certain diseases of the body and distempers of the mind, not to mention unknown evils, which are not to be named; it is otherwise with those whose love of the sex is so scanty that they can resist the sallies of its lust; also with those who are at liberty to introduce themselves into a legitimate partnership of the bed while they are young, without doing injury to their worldly fortunes, thus under the first favorable impressions. As this is the case in heaven with infants, when they have grown up to conjugial age, therefore it is unknown there what fornication is: but the case is different in the world where matrimonial engagements cannot be contracted till the season of youth is past, and where, during that season, the generality live within forms of government, where a length of time is required to perform duties, and to acquire the property necessary to support a house and family, and then first a suitable wife is to be courted.

[Footnote: This, like some other of the author's remarks, is not so applicable to English laws and customs as to those of several of the continental states, especially Germany, where men are not allowed to marry till they have attained a certain age, or can show that they possess the means of supporting a wife and family.]

451. VI. THEREFORE IN POPULOUS CITIES PUBLIC STEWS ARE TOLERATED. This is adduced as a confirmation of the preceding article. It is well known that they are tolerated by kings, magistrates, and thence by judges, inquisitors, and the people, at London, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, Venice, Naples, and even at Rome, besides many other places: among the reasons of this toleration are those also above mentioned.

452. VII. FORNICATION IS (COMPARATIVELY) LIGHT SO FAR AS IT LOOKS TO CONJUGIAL LOVE AND GIVES THIS LOVE THE PREFERENCE. There are degrees of the qualities of evil, as there are degrees of the qualities of good; wherefore every evil is lighter and more grievous, as every good is better and more excellent. The case is the same with fornication; which, as being a lust, and a lust of the natural man not yet purified, is an evil; but as every man (homo) is capable of being purified, therefore so far as it approaches a purified state, so far that evil becomes lighter, for so far it is wiped away; thus so far as fornication approaches conjugial love, which is a purified state of the love of the sex, (so far it becomes a lighter evil): that the evil of fornication is more grievous, so far as it approaches the love of adultery, will be seen in the following article. The reason why fornication is light so far as it looks to conjugial love, is, because it then looks from the unchaste state wherein it is, to a chaste state; and so far as it gives a preference to the latter, so far also it is in it as to the understanding; and so far as it not only prefers it, but also pre-loves it, so far also it is in it as to the will, thus as to the internal man; and in this case fornication, if the man nevertheless persists in it, is to him a necessity, the causes whereof he well examines in himself. There are two reasons which render fornication light with those who prefer and pre-love the conjugial state; the first is, that conjugial life is their purpose, intention, or end, the other is, that they separate good from evil with themselves. In regard to the FIRST,—that conjugial life is their purpose, intention, or end, it has the above effect, inasmuch as every man is such as he is in his purpose, intention, or end, and is also such before the Lord and the angels; yea, he is likewise regarded as such by the wise in the world; for intention is the soul of all actions, and causes innocence and guilt in the world, and after death imputation. In regard to the OTHER reason,—that those who prefer conjugial love to the lust of fornication, separate evil from good, thus what is unchaste from what is chaste, it has the above effect, inasmuch as those who separate those two principles by perception and intention, before they are in good or the chaste principle, are also separated and purified from the evil of that lust, when they come into the conjugial state. That this is not the case with those who in fornication look to adultery, will be seen in the next article.

453. VIII. THE LUST OF FORNICATION IS GRIEVOUS, SO FAR AS IT LOOKS TO ADULTERY. In the lust of fornication all those look to adultery who do not believe adulteries to be sins, and who think similarly of marriage and of adulteries, only with the distinction of what is allowed and what is not; these also make one evil out of all evils, and mix them together, like dirt with eatable food in one dish, and like things vile and refuse with wine in one cup, and thus eat and drink: in this manner they act with the love of the sex, fornication and keeping a mistress, with adultery of a milder sort, of a grievous sort, and of a more grievous sort, yea with ravishing or defloration: moreover, they not only mingle all those things, but also mix them in marriages, and defile the latter with a like notion; but where it is the case, that the latter are not distinguished from the former, such persons, after their vague commerce with the sex, are overtaken by colds, loathings, and nauseousness, at first in regard to a married partner, next in regard to women in other characters, and lastly in regard to the sex. It is self-evident that with such persons there is no purpose, intention, or end, of what is good or chaste, that they may be exculpated, and no separation of evil from good, or of what is unchaste from what is chaste, that they may be purified, as in the case of those who from fornication look to conjugial love, and give the latter the preference, (concerning whom, see the foregoing article, n. 452). The above observations I am allowed to confirm by this new information from heaven: I have met with several, who in the world had lived outwardly like others, wearing rich apparel, feasting daintily, trading like others with money, borrowed upon interest, frequenting stage exhibitions, conversing jocosely on love affairs as from wantonness, besides other similar things: and yet the angels charged those things upon some as evils of sin, and upon others as not evils, and declared the latter guiltless, but the former guilty; and on being questioned why they did so, when the deeds were alike, they replied, that they regard all from purpose, intention, or end, and distinguish accordingly; and that on this account they excuse and condemn those whom the end excuses and condemns, since all in heaven are influenced by a good end, and all in hell by an evil end; and that this, and nothing else, is meant by the Lord's words, Judge not, that ye be not judged, Matt. vii. I.

454. IX. THE LUST OF FORNICATION IS MORE GRIEVOUS AS IT VERGES TO THE DESIRE OF VARIETIES AND OF DEFLORATION. The reason of this is, because these two desires are accessories of adulteries, and thus aggravations of it: for there are mild adulteries, grievous adulteries, and most grievous; and each kind is estimated according to its opposition to, and consequent destruction of, conjugial love. That the desire of varieties and the desire of defloration, strengthened by being brought into act, destroy conjugial love, and drown it as it were in the bottom of the sea, will be seen presently, when those subjects come to be treated of.

455. X. THE SPHERE OF THE LUST OF FORNICATION, SUCH AS IT IS IN THE BEGINNING, IS A MIDDLE SPHERE BETWEEN THE SPHERE OF ADULTEROUS LOVE AND THE SPHERE OF CONJUGIAL LOVE, AND MAKES AN EQUILIBRIUM. The two spheres, of adulterous love and conjugial love, were treated of in the foregoing chapter, where it was shewn that the sphere of adulterous love ascends from hell, and the sphere of conjugial love descends from heaven, n. 435; that those two spheres meet each other in each world, but do not unite, n. 436; that between those two spheres there is an equilibrium, and that man is in it, n. 437; that a man can turn himself to whichever sphere he pleases; but that so far as he turns himself to the one, so far he turns himself from the other, n. 438: for the meaning of spheres, see n. 434, and the passages there cited. The reason why the sphere of the lust of fornication is a middle sphere between those two spheres, and makes an equilibrium, is, because while any one is in it, he can turn himself to the sphere of conjugial love, that is, to this love, and also to the sphere of the love of adultery, that is, to the love of adultery; but if he turns himself to conjugial love, he turns himself to heaven; if to the love of adultery, he turns himself to hell: each is in the man's free determination, good pleasure, and will, to the intent that he may act freely according to reason, and not from instinct: consequently that he may be a man, and appropriate to himself influx, and not a beast, which appropriates nothing thereof to itself. It is said the lust of fornication such as it is in the beginning, because at that time it is in a middle state. Who does not know that whatever a man does in the beginning, is from concupiscence, because from the natural man? And who does not know that that concupiscence is not imputed, while from natural he is becoming spiritual? The case is similar in regard to the lust of fornication, while a man's love is becoming conjugial.

456. XI. CARE IS TO BE TAKEN LEST, BY IMMODERATE AND INORDINATE FORNICATIONS, CONJUGIAL LOVE BE DESTROYED. By immoderate and inordinate fornications, whereby conjugial love is destroyed, we mean fornications by which not only the strength is enervated, but also all the delicacies of conjugial love are taken away; for from unbridled indulgence in such fornications, not only weakness and consequent wants, but also impurities and immodesties are occasioned, by reason of which conjugial love cannot be perceived and felt in its purity and chastity, and thus neither in its sweetness and the delights of its prime; not to mention the mischiefs occasioned to both the body and the mind, and also the disavowed allurements, which not only deprive conjugial love of its blessed delights, but also take it away, and change it into cold, and thereby into loathing. Such fornications are the violent excesses whereby conjugial sports are changed into tragic scenes: for immoderate and inordinate fornications are like burning flames which, arising out of ultimates, consume the body, parch the fibres, defile the blood, and vitiate the rational principles of the mind; for they burst forth like a fire from the foundation into the house, which consumes the whole. To prevent these mischiefs is the duty of parents; for a grown up youth, inflamed with lust, cannot as yet from reason impose restraint upon himself.

457. XII. INASMUCH AS THE CONJUGIAL PRINCIPLE OF ONE MAN WITH ONE WIFE IS THE JEWEL OF HUMAN LIFE AND THE RESERVOIR OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. These two points have been demonstrated universally and singularly in the whole preceding part of CONJUGIAL LOVE AND ITS CHASTE DELIGHTS. The reason why it is the jewel of human life is, because the quality of a man's life is according to the quality of that love with him; since that love constitutes the inmost of his life; for it is the life of wisdom dwelling with its love, and of love dwelling with its wisdom, and hence it is the life of the delights of each; in a word, a man is a soul living by means of that love: hence, the conjugial tie of one man with one wife is called the jewel of human life. This is confirmed from the following articles adduced above: only with one wife there exists truly conjugial friendship, confidence, and potency, because there is a union of minds, n. 333, 334: in and from a union with one wife there exist celestial blessednesses, spiritual satisfactions, and thence natural delights, which from the beginning have been provided for those who are in love truly conjugial, n. 335. That it is the fundamental love of all celestial, spiritual, and derivative natural loves, and that into that love are collected all joys and delights from first to last, n. 65-69: and that viewed in its origin, it is the sport of wisdom and love, has been fully demonstrated in the CONJUGIAL LOVE AND ITS CHASTE DELIGHTS, which constitutes the first part of this work.

458. The reason why that love is the reservoir of the Christian religion is, because this religion unites and dwells with that love; for it was shewn, that none come into that love, and can be in it, but those who approach the Lord, and do the truths of his church and its goods; n. 70, 71: that that love is from the only Lord, and that hence it exists with those who are of the Christian religion; n. 131, 335, 336: that that love is according to the state of the church, because it is according to the state of wisdom with man; n. 130. That these things are so, was fully confirmed in the chapter on the correspondence of that love with the marriage of the Lord and the church; n. 116, 131; and in the chapter on the origin of that love from the marriage of good and truth; n. 83-102.

459. XIII. WITH THOSE WHO, FROM VARIOUS REASONS, CANNOT AS YET ENTER INTO MARRIAGE, AND FROM THEIR PASSION FOR THE SEX, CANNOT MODERATE THEIR LUSTS, THIS CONJUGIAL PRINCIPLE MAY BE PRESERVED, IF THE VAGUE LOVE OF THE SEX BE CONFINED TO ONE MISTRESS. That immoderate and inordinate lust cannot be entirely checked by those who have a strong passion for the sex, is what reason sees and experience proves: with a view therefore that such lust may be restrained, in the case of one whose passions are thus violent, and who for several reasons cannot precipitately enter into marriage, and that it may be rendered somewhat moderate and ordinate, there seems to be no other refuge, and as it were asylum, than the keeping of a woman, who in French is called maitresse. It is well known that in kingdoms, where certain forms and orders are to be observed, matrimonial engagements cannot be contracted by many till the season of youth is past; for duties are first to be performed, and property to be acquired for the support of a house and family, and then first a suitable wife is to be courted; and yet in the previous season of youth few are able to keep the springing fountain of manliness closed, and reserved for a wife: it is better indeed that it should be reserved; but if this cannot be done on account of the unbridled power of lust, a question occurs, whether there may not be an intermediate means, by which conjugial love may be prevented from perishing in the mean time. That keeping a mistress is such a means appears reasonable from the following considerations: I. That by this means promiscuous inordinate fornications are restrained and limited, and thus a less disorderly state is induced, which more resembles conjugial life. II. That the ardor of venereal propensities, which in the beginning is boiling hot, and as it were burning, is appeased and mitigated; and thereby the lascivious passion for the sex, which is filthy, is tempered by somewhat analogous to marriage. III. By this means too the strength is not cast away, neither are weaknesses contracted, as by vague and unlimited amours. IV. By this means also disease of the body and insanity of mind are avoided. V. In like manner by this means adulteries, which are whoredoms with wives, and debaucheries, which are violations of maidens, are guarded against; to say nothing of such criminal acts as are not to be named; for a stripling does not think that adulteries and debaucheries are different from fornications; thus he conceives that the one is the same with the other; nor is he able from reason to resist the enticements of some of the sex, who are proficients in meretricious arts: but in keeping a mistress, which is a more ordinate and safer fornication, he can learn and see the above distinctions. VI. By keeping a mistress, also no entrance is afforded to the four kinds of lusts, which are in the highest degree destructive of conjugial love,—the lust of defloration, the lust of varieties, the lust of violation, and the lust of seducing innocences, which are treated of in the following pages. These observations, however, are not intended for those who can check the tide of lust; nor for those who can enter into marriage during the season of youth, and offer and impart to their wives the first fruits of their manliness.

460. XIV. KEEPING A MISTRESS IS PREFERABLE TO VAGUE AMOURS, PROVIDED ONLY ONE IS KEPT AND SHE BE NEITHER A MAIDEN NOR A MARRIED WOMAN, AND THE LOVE OF THE MISTRESS BE KEPT SEPARATE FROM CONJUGIAL LOVE. At what time and with what persons keeping a mistress is preferable to vague amours, has been pointed out just above. I. The reason why only one mistress is to be kept, is, because if more than one be kept, a polygamical principle gains influence, which induces in a man a merely natural state, and thrusts him down into a sensual state, so much so that he cannot be elevated into a spiritual state, in which conjugial love must be; see n. 338, 339. II. The reason why this mistress must not be a maiden, is because conjugial love with women acts in unity with their virginity, and hence constitutes the chastity, purity, and sanctity of that love; wherefore when a woman makes an engagement and allotment of her virginity to any man, it is the same thing as giving him a certificate that she will love him to eternity: on this account a maiden cannot, from any rational consent, barter away her virginity, unless when entering into the conjugial covenant: it is also the crown of her honor: wherefore to seize it without a covenant of marriage, and afterwards to discard her, is to make a courtezan of a maiden, who might have been a bride or a chaste wife, or to defraud some man; and each of these is hurtful. Therefore whoever takes a maiden and unites her to himself as a mistress, may indeed dwell with her, and thereby initiate her into the friendship of love, but still with a constant intention, if he does not play the whoremaster, that she shall be or become his wife. III. That the kept mistress must not be a married woman, because this is adultery, is evident. IV. The reason why the love of a mistress is to be kept separate from conjugial love, is because those loves are distinct, and therefore ought not to be mixed together: for the love of a mistress is an unchaste, natural, and external love; whereas the love of marriage is chaste, spiritual, and internal. The love of a mistress keeps the souls of two persons distinct, and unites only the sensual principles of the body; but the love of marriage unites souls, and from their union conjoins also the sensual principles of the body, until from two they become as one, which is one flesh. V. The love of a mistress enters only into the understanding and the things which depend on it; but the love of marriage enters also into the will and the things which depend on it, consequently into every thing appertaining to man (homo); wherefore if the love of a mistress becomes the love of marriage, a man cannot retract from any principle of right, and without violating the conjugial union; and if he retracts and marries another woman, conjugial love perishes in consequence of the breach thereof. It is to be observed, that the love of a mistress is kept separate from conjugial love by this condition, that no engagement of marriage be made with the mistress, and that she be not induced to form any such expectation. Nevertheless it is far better that the torch of the love of the sex be first lighted with a wife.

461. To the above I shall add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. I was once conversing with a novitiate spirit who, during his abode in the world, had meditated much about heaven and hell. (Novitiate spirits are men newly deceased, who are called spirits, because they are then spiritual men.) As soon as he entered into the spiritual world he began to meditate in like manner about heaven and hell, and seemed to himself, when meditating about heaven, to be in joy, and when about hell, in sorrow. When he observed that he was in the spiritual world, he immediately asked where heaven and hell were, and also their nature and quality? And he was answered, "Heaven is above your head, and hell beneath your feet; for you are now in the world of spirits, which is immediate between heaven and hell; but what are their nature and quality we cannot describe in a few words." At that instant, as he was very desirous of knowing, he fell upon his knees, and prayed devoutly to God that he might be instructed; and lo! an angel appeared at his right hand, and having raised him, said, "You have prayed to be instructed concerning heaven and hell; INQUIRE AND LEARN WHAT DELIGHT IS, AND YOU WILL KNOW;" and having said this, the angel was taken up. Then the novitiate spirit said within himself, "What does this mean, Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know the nature and quality of heaven and hell?" And leaving that place, he wandered about, and accosting those he met, said, "Tell me, if you please, what delight is?" Some said, "What a strange question! Who does not know what delight is? Is it not joy and gladness? Wherefore delight is delight; one delight is like another; we know no distinction." Others said, that delight was the laughter of the mind; for when the mind laughs, the countenance is cheerful, the discourse is jocular, the behaviour sportive, and the whole man is in delight. But some said, "Delight consists in nothing but feasting, and delicate eating and drinking, and in getting intoxicated with generous wine, and then in conversing on various subjects, especially on the sports of Venus and Cupid." On hearing these relations, the novitiate spirit being indignant, said to himself; "These are the answers of clowns, and not of well-bred men: these delights are neither heaven nor hell; I wish I could meet with the wise." He then took his leave of them, and inquired where he might find the wise? At that instant he was seen by a certain angelic spirit, who said, "I perceive that you have a strong desire to know what is the universal of heaven and of hell; and since this is DELIGHT, I will conduct you up a hill, where there is every day an assembly of those who scrutinize effects, of those who investigate causes, and of those who explore ends. There are three companies; those who scrutinize effects are called spirits of knowledges, and abstractedly knowledges; those who investigate causes are called spirits of intelligence, and abstractedly intelligences; and those who explore ends are called spirits of wisdom, and abstractedly wisdoms. Directly above them in heaven are angels, who from ends see causes, and from causes effects; from these angels those three companies are enlightened." The angelic spirit then taking the novitiate spirit by the hand, led him up the hill to the company which consisted of those who explore ends, and are called wisdoms. To these the novitiate spirit said, "Pardon me for having ascended to you: the reason is, because from my childhood I have meditated about heaven and hell, and lately came into this world, where I was told by some who accompanied me, that here heaven was above my head, and hell beneath my feet; but they did not tell me the nature and quality of either; wherefore, becoming anxious from my thoughts being constantly employed on the subject, I prayed to God; and instantly an angel presented itself, and said, 'Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know.' I have inquired, but hitherto in vain: I request therefore that you will teach me, if you please, what delight is." To this the wisdoms replied, "Delight is the all of life to all in heaven and all in hell: those in delight have the delight of good and truth, but those in hell have the delight of what is evil and false; for all delight is of love, and love is the esse of a man's life; therefore as a man is a man according to the quality of his love, so also is he according to the quality of his delight. The activity of love makes the sense of delight; its activity in heaven is with wisdom, and in hell with insanity; each in its objects presents delight: but the heavens and the hells are in opposite delights, because in opposite loves; the heavens in the love and thence in the delight of doing good, but the hells in the love and thence in the delight of doing evil; if therefore you know what delight is, you will know the nature and quality of heaven and hell. But inquire and learn further what delight is from those who investigate causes, and are called intelligences: they are to the right from hence." He departed, and came to them, and told them the reason of his coming, and requested that they would teach him what delight is? And they, rejoicing at the question, said, "It is true that he that knows what delight is, knows the nature and quality of heaven and hell. The will-principle, by virtue whereof a man is a man, cannot be moved at all but by delight; for the will-principle, considered in itself, is nothing but an affect and effect of some love, thus of some delight; for it is somewhat pleasing, engaging, and pleasurable, which constitutes the principle of willing; and since the will moves the understanding to think, there does not exist the least idea of thought but from the influent delight of the will. The reason of this is, because the Lord by influx from himself actuates all things of the soul and the mind with angels, spirits, and men; which he does by an influx of love and wisdom; and this influx is the essential activity from which comes all delight, which in its origin is called blessed, satisfactory, and happy, and in its derivation is called delightful, pleasant, and pleasurable, and in a universal sense, GOOD. But the spirits of hell invert all things with themselves; thus they turn good into evil, and the true into the false, their delights continually remaining: for without the continuance of delight, they would have neither will nor sensation, thus no life. From these considerations may be seen the nature and origin of the delight of hell, and also the nature and origin of the delight of heaven." Having heard this, he was conducted to the third company, consisting of those who scrutinize effects, and are called knowledges. These said, "Descend to the inferior earth, and ascend to the superior earth: in the latter you will perceive and be made sensible of the delights of the angels of heaven, and in the former of the delights of the spirits of hell." But lo! at that instant, at a distance from them, the ground cleft asunder, and through the cleft there ascended three devils, who appeared on fire from the delight of their love; and as those who accompanied the novitiate spirit perceived that the three ascended out of hell by proviso, they said to them, "Do not come nearer; but from the place where you are, give some account of your delights." Whereupon they said, "Know, then, that every one, whether he be good or evil, is in his own delight; the good in the delight of his good, and the evil in the delight of his evil." They were then asked, "What is your delight?" They said. "The delight of whoring, stealing, defrauding, and blaspheming." Again they were asked, "What is the quality of those delights?" They said, "To the senses of others they are like the stinks arising from dunghills, the stenches from dead bodies, and the scents from stale urine." And it was asked them, "Are those things delightful to you?" They said, "Most delightful." And reply was made, "Then you are like unclean beasts which wallow in such things." To which they answered, "If we are, we are: but such things are the delights of our nostrils." And on being asked, "What further account can you give?" they said, "Every one is allowed to be in his delight, even the most unclean, as it is called, provided he does not infest good spirits and angels; but since, from our delight, we cannot do otherwise than infest them, therefore we are cast together into workhouses, where we suffer direfully. The witholding and keeping back our delights in those houses is what is called hell-torments: it is also interior pain." It was then asked them, "Why have you infested the good?" They replied, that they could not do otherwise: "It is," said they, "as if we were seized with rage when we see any angel, and are made sensible of the divine sphere about him." It was then said to them, "Herein also you are like wild beasts." And presently, when they saw the novitiate spirit with the angel, they were overpowered with rage, which appeared like the fire of hatred; wherefore, in order to prevent their doing mischief, they were sent back to hell. After these things, appeared the angels who from ends see causes, and by causes effects, who were in the heaven above those three companies. They were seen in a bright cloud, which rolling itself downwards by spiral flexures, brought with it a circular garland of flowers, and placed it on the head of the novitiate spirit; and instantly a voice said to him from thence, "This wreath is given you because from your childhood you have meditated on heaven and hell."

462. In the preceding chapter, in treating on fornication, we treated also on keeping a mistress; by which was understood the connection of an unmarried man with a woman under stipulated conditions: but by concubinage we here mean the connection of a married man with a woman in like manner under stipulated conditions. Those who do not distinguish genera, use the two terms promiscuously, as if they had one meaning, and thence one signification: but as they are two genera, and the term keeping a mistress is suitable to the former, because a kept mistress is a courtezan, and the term concubinage to the latter, because a concubine is a substituted partner of the bed, therefore for the sake of distinction, ante-nuptial stipulation with a woman is signified by keeping a mistress, and post-nuptial by concubinage. Concubinage is here treated of for the sake of order; for from order it is discovered what is the quality of marriage on the one part, and of adultery on the other. That marriage and adultery are opposites has already been shewn in the chapter concerning their opposition; and the quantity and quality of their opposition cannot be learnt but from their intermediates, of which concubinage is one; but as there are two kinds of concubinage, which are to be carefully distinguished, therefore this section, like the foregoing, shall be arranged into its distinct parts as follows; I. There are two kinds of concubinage, which differ exceedingly from each other, the one conjointly with a wife, the other apart from a wife. II. Concubinage conjointly with a wife, is altogether unlawful for Christians, and detestable. III. That it is polygamy which has been condemned, and is to be condemned, by the Christian world. IV. It is an adultery whereby the conjugial principle, which is the most precious jewel of the Christian life, is destroyed. V. Concubinage apart from a wife, when it is engaged in from causes legitimate, just, and truly excusatory, is not unlawful. VI. The legitimate causes of this concubinage are the legitimate causes of divorce, while the wife is nevertheless retained at home. VII. The just causes of this concubinage are the just causes of reparation from the bed. VIII. Of the excusatory causes of this concubinage some are real and some not. IX. The really excusatory causes are such as are grounded in what is just. X. The excusatory causes which are not real are such as are not grounded in what is just, although in the appearance of what is just. XI. Those who from causes legitimate, just, and really excusatory, are engaged in this concubinage, may at the same time be principled in conjugial love. XII. While this concubinage continues, actual connection with a wife is not allowable. We proceed to an explanation of each article.

463. I. THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF CONCUBINAGE, WHICH DIFFER EXCEEDINGLY FROM EACH OTHER, THE ONE CONJOINTLY WITH A WIFE, THE OTHER APART FROM A WIFE. That there are two kinds of concubinage, which differ exceedingly from each other, and that the one kind consists in taking a substituted partner to the bed and living conjointly and at the same time with her and with a wife; and that the other kind is when, after a legitimate and just separation from a wife, a man engages a woman in her stead as a bed-fellow; also that these two kinds of concubinage differ as much from each other as dirty linen from clean, may be seen by those who take a clear and distinct view of things, but not by those whose view of things is confused and indistinct: yea, it may be seen by those who are in conjugial love, but not by those who are in the love of adultery. The latter are in obscurity respecting all the derivations of the love of the sex, whereas the former are enlightened respecting them: nevertheless, those who are in adultery, can see those derivations and their distinctions, not indeed in and from themselves, but from others when they hear them: for an adulterer has a similar faculty with a chaste husband of elevating his understanding; but an adulterer, after he has acknowledged the distinctions which he has heard from others, nevertheless forgets them, when he immerses his understanding in his filthy pleasure; for the chaste and the unchaste principles, and the sane and the insane, cannot dwell together; but, when separated, they may be distinguished by the understanding. I once inquired of those in the spiritual world who did not regard adulteries as sins, whether they knew a single distinction between fornication, keeping a mistress, the two kinds of concubinage, and the several degrees of adultery? They said they were all alike. I then asked them whether marriage was distinguishable? Upon this they looked around to see whether any of the clergy were present, and as there were not, they said, that in itself it is like the rest. The case was otherwise with those who in the ideas of their thought regarded adulteries as sins: these said, that in their interior ideas, which are of the perception, they saw distinctions, but had not yet studied to discern and know them asunder. This I can assert as a fact, that those distinctions are perceived by the angels in heaven as to their minutiae. In order therefore that it may be seen, that there are two kinds of concubinage opposite to each other, one whereby conjugial love is destroyed, the other whereby it is not, we will first describe the kind which is condemnatory, and afterwards that which is not.

464. II. CONCUBINAGE CONJOINTLY WITH A WIFE IS ALTOGETHER UNLAWFUL FOR CHRISTIANS, AND DETESTABLE. It is unlawful, because it is contrary to the conjugial covenant; and it is detestable, because it is contrary to religion; and what is contrary to religion, and at the same time to the conjugial covenant, is contrary to the Lord: wherefore, as soon as any one, without a really conscientious cause, adjoins a concubine to a wife, heaven is closed to him; and by the angels he is no longer numbered among Christians. From that time also he despises the things of the church and of religion, and afterwards does not lift his face above nature, but turns himself to her as a deity, who favors his lust, from whose influx his spirit thenceforward receives animation. The interior cause of this apostasy will be explained in what follows. That this concubinage is detestable is not seen by the man himself who is guilty of it; because after the closing of heaven he becomes a spiritual insanity: but a chaste wife has a clear view of it, because she is a conjugial love, and this love nauseates such concubinage; wherefore also many such wives refuse actual connection with their husbands afterwards, as that which would defile their chastity by the contagion of lust adhering to the men from their courtezans.

465. III. IT IS POLYGAMY WHICH HAS BEEN CONDEMNED, AND IS TO BE CONDEMNED, BY THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. That simultaneous concubinage, or concubinage conjoined with a wife, is polygamy, although not acknowledged to be such, because it is not so declared, and thus not so called by any law, must be evident to every person of common discernment; for a woman taken into keeping, and made partaker of the conjugial bed is like a wife. That polygamy has been condemned, and is to be condemned by the Christian world, has been shewn in the chapter on polygamy, especially from these articles therein: A Christian is not allowed to marry more than one wife; n. 338: If a Christian marries several wives, he commits not only natural, but also spiritual adultery; n. 339: The Israelitish nation was permitted to marry several wives, because the Christian church was not with them; n. 349. From these considerations it is evident, that to adjoin a concubine to a wife, and to make each a partner of the bed, is filthy polygamy.

466. IV. IT IS AN ADULTERY WHEREBY THE CONJUGIAL PRINCIPLE, WHICH IS THE MOST PRECIOUS JEWEL OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS DESTROYED. That it is more opposed to conjugial love than simple adultery; and that it is a deprivation of every faculty and inclination to conjugial life, which is implanted in Christians from birth, may be evinced by arguments which will have great weight with the reason of a wise man. In regard to the FIRST POSITION,—that simultaneous concubinage, or concubinage conjoined with a wife, is more opposed to conjugial love than simple adultery, it may be seen from these considerations: that in simple adultery there is not a love analogous to conjugial love; for it is only a heat of the flesh, which presently cools, and sometimes does not leave any trace of love behind it towards its object; wherefore this effervescing lasciviousness, if it is not from a purposed or confirmed principle, and if the person guilty of it repents, detracts but little from conjugial love. It is otherwise in the case of polygamical adultery: herein there is a love analogous to conjugial love; for it does not cool and disperse, or pass off into nothing after being excited, like the foregoing; but it remains, renews and strengthens itself, and so far takes away from love to the wife, and in the place thereof induces cold towards her; for in such case it regards the concubine courtezan as lovely from a freedom of the will, in that it can retract if it pleases; which freedom is begotten in the natural man: and because this freedom is thence grateful, it supports that love; and moreover, with a concubine the unition with allurements is nearer than with a wife; but on the other hand it does not regard a wife as lovely, by reason of the duty of living with her enjoined by the covenant of life, which it then perceives as far more constrained in consequence of the freedom enjoyed with another woman. It is plain that love for a wife grows cold, and she herself grows vile, in the same degree that love for a courtezan grows warm, and she is held in estimation. In regard to the SECOND POSITION—that simultaneous concubinage, or concubinage conjoined with a wife, deprives a man of all faculty and inclination to conjugial life, which is implanted in Christians from birth, it may be seen from the following considerations: that so far as love to a wife is changed into love to a concubine, so far the former love is rent, exhausted, and emptied, as has been shewn just above: that this is effected by a closing of the interiors of the natural mind, and an opening of its inferior principles, may appear from the seat of the inclination with Christians to love one of the sex, as being in the inmost principles, and that this seat may be closed, but cannot be destroyed. The reason why an inclination to love one of the sex, and also a faculty to receive that love, is implanted in Christians from birth, is, because that love is from the Lord alone, and is esteemed religious, and in Christendom the Lord's divine is acknowledged and worshipped, and religion is from his Word; hence there is a grafting, and also a transplanting thereof, from generation to generation. We have said, that the above Christian conjugial principle perishes by polygamical adultery: we thereby mean, that with the Christian polygamist it is closed and intercepted; but still it is capable of being revived in his posterity, as is the case with the likeness of a grandfather or a great-grandfather returning in a grandson or a great-grandson. Hence, that conjugial principle is called the most precious jewel of the Christian life, and (see above, n. 457, 458,) the storehouse of human life, and the reservoir of the Christian religion. That that conjugial principle is destroyed with the Christian who practises polygamical adultery, is manifest from this consideration; that he cannot like a Mahometan polygamist, love a concubine and a wife equally; but so far as he loves a concubine, or is warm towards her, so far he does not love his wife, but is cold towards her; and, what is yet more detestable, so far he also in heart acknowledges the Lord only as a natural man, and the son of Mary, and not at the same time as the Son of God, and likewise so far he makes light of religion. It is, however, well to be noted, that this is the case with those who add a concubine to a wife, and connect themselves actually with each; but it is not at all the case with those, who from legitimate, just, and truly excusatory causes, separate themselves, and keep apart from a wife as to actual love, and have a woman in keeping. We now proceed to treat of this kind of concubinage.

467. V. CONCUBINAGE APART FROM A WIFE, WHEN IT IS ENGAGED IN FROM CAUSES LEGITIMATE, JUST, AND TRULY EXCUSATORY, IS NOT UNLAWFUL. What causes we mean by legitimate, what by just, and what by truly excusatory, shall be shewn in their order: the bare mention of the causes is here premised, that this concubinage, which we are about to treat of, may be distinguished from that which we have previously described. (See note to n. 450, and the Preliminary note.)

468. VI. THE LEGITIMATE CAUSES OF THIS CONCUBINAGE ARE THE LEGITIMATE CAUSES OF DIVORCE, WHILE THE WIFE IS NEVERTHELESS RETAINED AT HOME. By divorce is meant the annulling of the conjugial covenant, and thence an entire separation, and after this a full liberty to marry another wife. The one only cause of this total separation or divorce, is adultery, according to the Lord's precept, Matt. xix. 9. To the same cause are to be referred manifest obscenities, which bid defiance to the restraints of modesty, and fill and infest the house with flagitious practices of lewdness, giving birth to adulterous immodesty, and rendering the whole mind abandoned. To these things may be added malicious desertion, which involves adultery, and causes a wife to commit whoredom, and thereby to be divorced, Matt. v. 32. These three causes, being legitimate causes of divorce,—the first and third before a public judge, and the middle one before the man himself, as judge, are also legitimate causes of concubinage, when the adulterous wife is retained at home. The reason why adultery is the one only cause of divorce is, because it is diametrically opposite to the life of conjugial love, and totally destroys and annihilates it; see above, n. 255.

469. The reasons why, by the generality of men, the adulterous wife is still retained at home, are, 1. Because the man is afraid to produce witnesses in a court of justice against his wife, to accuse her of adultery, and thereby to make the crime public; for unless eye-witnesses, or evidences to the same amount, were produced to convict her, he would be secretly reproached in companies of men, and openly in companies of women. 2. He is afraid also lest his adulteress should have the cunning to clear her conduct, and likewise lest the judges should show favor to her, and thus his name suffer in the public esteem. 3. Moreover, there may be domestic reasons, which may make separation from the house unadvisable: as in case there are children, towards whom also the adulteress has natural love; in case they are bound together by mutual services which cannot be put an end to; in case the wife is connected with and dependent upon her relatives, whether on the father's or mother's side, and there is a hope of receiving an increase of fortune from them; in case he lived with her in the beginning in habits of agreeable intimacy; and in case she, after she became meretricious, has the skill to soothe the man with engaging pleasantry and pretended civility, to prevent blame being imputed to herself; not to mention other cases, which, as in themselves they are legitimate causes of divorce, are also legitimate causes of concubinage; for the causes of retaining the wife at home do not take away the cause of divorce, supposing her guilty of adultery. Who, but a person of vile character, can fulfil the duties of the conjugial bed, and at the same time have commerce with a strumpet? If instances of this sort are occasionally to be met with, no favorable conclusions are to be drawn from them.

470. VII. THE JUST CAUSES OF THIS CONCUBINAGE ARE THE JUST CAUSES OF SEPARATION FROM THE BED. There are legitimate causes of separation, and there are just causes: legitimate causes are enforced by the decisions of judges, and just causes by the decisions come to by the man alone. The causes both legitimate and just of separation from the bed, and also from the house, were briefly enumerated above, n. 252, 253; among which are VITIATED STATES OF THE BODY, including diseases whereby the whole body is so far infected, that the contagion may prove fatal: of this nature are malignant and pestilential fevers, leprosies, the venereal disease, cancers; also diseases whereby the whole body is so far weighed down, as to admit of no sociability, and from which exhale dangerous effluvia and noxious vapors, whether from the surface of the body, or from its inward parts, in particular from the stomach and the lungs: from the surface of the body proceed malignant pocks, warts, pustules, scorbutic pthisis, virulent scab, especially if the face is disfigured by it; from the stomach proceed foul, stinking, and rank eructations; from the lungs, filthy and putrid exhalations arising from imposthumes, ulcers or abscesses, or from vitiated blood or serum. Besides these there are also other various diseases; as lipothamia, which is a total faintness of body, and defect of strength; paralysis, which is a loosening and relaxation of the membranes and ligaments which serve for motion; epilepsy; permanent infirmity arising from apoplexy; certain chronical diseases; the iliac passion; rupture; besides other diseases, which the science of pathology teaches. VITIATED STATES OF THE MIND, which are just causes of separation from the bed and the house, are madness, frenzy, furious wildness, actual foolishness and idiocy, loss of memory, and the like. That these are just causes of concubinage, since they are just causes of separation, reason sees without the help of a judge.

471. VIII. OF THE EXCUSATORY CAUSES OF THIS CONCUBINAGE SOME ARE REAL AND SOME ARE NOT. Since besides the just causes which are just causes of separation, and thence become just causes of concubinage, there are also excusatory causes, which depend on judgement and justice with the man, therefore these also are to be mentioned: but as the judgements of justice may be perverted and be converted by confirmations into the appearances of what is just, therefore these excusatory causes are distinguished into real and not real, and are separately described.

472. IX. THE REALLY EXCUSATORY CAUSES ARE SUCH AS ARE GROUNDED IN WHAT IS JUST. To know these causes, it may be sufficient to mention some of them; such as having no natural affection towards the children, and a consequent rejection of them, intemperance, drunkenness, uncleanliness, immodesty, a desire of divulging family secrets, of disputing, of striking, of taking revenge, of doing evil, of stealing, of deceiving; internal dissimilitude, whence comes antipathy; a froward requirement of the conjugial debt, whence the man becomes as cold as a stone; being addicted to magic and witchcraft; an extreme degree of impiety; and other similar evils.

473. There are also milder causes, which are really excusatory and which separate from the bed, and yet not from the house; as a cessation of prolification on the part of the wife, in consequence of advanced age, and thence a reluctance and opposition to actual love, while the ardor thereof still continues with the man; besides similar cases in which rational judgement sees what is just, and which do not hurt the conscience.

474. X. THE EXCUSATORY CAUSES WHICH ARE NOT REAL ARE SUCH AS ARE NOT GROUNDED IN WHAT IS JUST, ALTHOUGH IN THE APPEARANCE OF WHAT IS JUST. These are known from the really excusatory causes above mentioned, and, if not rightly examined, may appear to be just, and yet are unjust; as that times of abstinence are required after the bringing forth of children, the transitory sicknesses of wives, from these and other causes a check to prolification, polygamy permitted to the Israelites, and other like causes of no weight as grounded in justice. These are fabricated by the men after they have become cold, when unchaste lusts have deprived them of conjugial love, and have infatuated them with the idea of its likeness to adulterous love. When such men engage in concubinage, they, in order to prevent defamation, assign such spurious and fallacious causes as real and genuine,—and very frequently also falsely charge them against their wives, their companions often favorably assenting and applauding them.

475. XI. THOSE WHO FROM CAUSES LEGITIMATE, JUST, AND REALLY EXCUSATORY, ARE ENGAGED IN THIS CONCUBINAGE, MAY AT THE SAME TIME BE PRINCIPLED IN CONJUGIAL LOVE. We say that such may at the same time be principled in conjugial love; and we thereby mean, that they may keep this love stored up in themselves; for this love, in the subject in which it is, does not perish, but is quiescent. The reasons why conjugial love is preserved with those who prefer marriage to concubinage, and enter into the latter from the causes above mentioned, are these; that this concubinage is not repugnant to conjugial love; that it is not a separation from it; that it is only a clothing encompassing it; that this clothing is taken away from them after death. 1. That this concubinage is not repugnant to conjugial love, follows from what was proved above; that such concubinage, when engaged in from causes legitimate, just, and really excusatory, is not unlawful, n. 467-473. 2. That this concubinage is not a separation from conjugial love; for when causes legitimate, or just, or really excusatory, arise, and persuade and compel a man, then, conjugial love with marriage is not separated, but only interrupted; and love interrupted, and not separated, remains in the subject. The case in this respect is like that of a person, who, being engaged in a business which he likes, is detained from it by company, by public sights, or by a journey; still he does not cease to like his business: it is also like that of a person who is fond of generous wine, and who, when he drinks wine of an inferior quality, does not lose his taste and appetite for that which is generous. 3. The reason why the above concubinage is only a clothing of conjugial love encompassing it, is, because the love of concubinage is natural, and the love of marriage spiritual; and natural love is a veil or covering to spiritual, when the latter is interrupted: that this is the case, is unknown to the lover; because spiritual love is not made sensible of itself, but by natural love, and it is made sensible as delight, in which there is blessedness from heaven: but natural love by itself is made sensible only as delight. 4. The reason why this veil is taken away after death, is, because then a man from natural becomes spiritual, and instead of a material body enjoys a substantial one, wherein natural delight grounded in spiritual is made sensible in its perfection. That this is the case, I have heard from communication with some in the spiritual world, even from kings there, who in the natural world had engaged in concubinage from really excusatory causes.

476. XII. WHILE THIS CONCUBINAGE CONTINUES, ACTUAL CONNECTION WITH A WIFE IS NOT ALLOWABLE. The reason of this is, because in such case conjugial love, which in itself is spiritual, chaste, pure, and holy, becomes natural, is defiled and disregarded, and thereby perishes; wherefore in order that this love may be preserved, it is expedient that concubinage grounded in really excusatory causes, n. 472, 473, be engaged in with one only, and not with two at the same time.

477. To the above I will add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. I heard a certain spirit, a youth, recently deceased, boasting of his libertinism, and eager to establish his reputation as a man of superior masculine powers; and in the insolence of his boasting he thus expressed himself; "What is more dismal than for a man to imprison his love, and to confine himself to one woman? and what is more delightful than to set the love at liberty? Who does not grow tired of one? and who is not revived by several? What is sweeter than promiscuous liberty, variety, deflorations, schemes to deceive husbands, and plans of adulterous hypocrisy? Do not those things which are obtained by cunning, deceit, and theft, delight the inmost principles of the mind!" On hearing these things, the bystanders said, "Speak not in such terms; you know not where and with whom you are; you are but lately come hither. Hell is beneath your feet, and heaven over your head; you are now in the world which is between those two, and is called the world of spirits. All who depart out of the world, come here, and being assembled are examined as to their quality; and here they are prepared, the wicked for hell, and the good for heaven. Possibly you still retain what you have heard from priests in the world, that whoremongers and adulterers are cast down into hell, and that chaste married partners are raised to heaven." At this the novitiate laughed, saying, "What are heaven and hell? Is it not heaven where any one is free; and is not he free who is allowed to love as many as he pleases? and is not it hell where any one is a servant: and is not he a servant who is obliged to keep to one?" But a certain angel, looking down from heaven, heard what he said, and broke off the conversation, lest it should proceed further and profane marriages; and he said to him, "Come up here, and I will clearly shew you what heaven and hell are, and what the quality of the latter is to continued adulterers." He then shewed him the way, and he ascended: after he was admitted he was led first into the paradisiacal garden, where were fruit-trees and flowers, which from their beauty, pleasantness and fragrance, tilled the mind with the delights of life. When he saw these things, he admired them exceedingly; but he was then in external vision, such as he had enjoyed in the world when he saw similar objects, and in this vision he was rational; but in the internal vision, in which adultery was the principal agent, and occupied every point of thought, he was not rational; wherefore the external vision was closed, and the internal opened; and when the latter was opened, he said, "What do I see now? is it not straw and dry wood? and what do I smell now? is it not a stench? What is become of those paradisiacal objects?" The angel said, "They are near at hand and are present; but they do not appear before your internal sight, which is adulterous, for it turns celestial things into infernal, and sees only opposites. Every man has an internal and an external mind, thus an internal and an external sight: with the wicked the internal mind is insane, and the external wise; but with the good the internal mind is wise, and from this also the external; and such as the mind is, so a man in the spiritual world sees objects." After this the angel, from the power which was given him, closed his internal sight, and opened the external, and led him away through gates towards the middle point of the habitations: there he saw magnificent palaces of alabaster, marble, and various precious stones, and near them porticos, and round about pillars overlaid and encompassed with wonderful ornaments and decorations. When he saw these things, he was amazed, and said, "What do I see? I see magnificent objects in their own real magnificence, and architectonic objects in their own real art." At that instant the angel again closed his external sight, and opened the internal, which was evil because filthily adulterous: hereupon he exclaimed, "What do I now see? Where am I? What is become of those palaces and magnificent objects? I see only confused heaps, rubbish, and places full of caverns." But presently he was brought back again to his external sight, and introduced into one of the palaces; and he saw the decorations of the gates, the windows, the walls, and the ceilings, and especially of the utensils, over and round about which were celestial forms of gold and precious stones, which cannot be described by any language, or delineated by any art; for they surpassed the ideas of language and the notions of art. On seeing these things he again exclaimed, "These are the very essence of whatever is wonderful, such as no eye had ever seen." But instantly, as before, his internal sight was opened, the external being closed, and he was asked what he then saw? He replied, "Nothing but decayed piles of bulrushes in this place, of straw in that, and of fire brands in a third." Once again he was brought into an external state of mind, and some maidens were introduced, who were extremely beautiful, being images of celestial affection; and they, with the sweet voice of their affection, addressed him; and instantly, on seeing and hearing them, his countenance changed, and he returned of himself into his internals, which were adulterous; and since such internals cannot endure any thing of celestial love, and neither on the other hand can they be endured by celestial love, therefore both parties vanished,—the maidens out of sight of the man, and the man out of sight of the maidens. After this, the angel informed him concerning the ground and origin of the changes of the state of his sights; saying, "I perceive that in the world, from which you are come, you have been two-fold, in internals having been quite a different man from what you were in externals; in externals you have been a civil, moral, and rational man; whereas in internals, you have been neither civil, moral, nor rational, because a libertine and an adulterer: and such men, when they are allowed to ascend into heaven, and are there kept in their externals, can see the heavenly things contained therein; but when their internals are opened, instead of heavenly things they see infernal. Know, however, that with every one in this world, externals are successively closed, and internals are opened, and thereby they are prepared for heaven or hell; and as the evil of adultery defiles the internals of the mind above every other evil, you must needs be conveyed down to the defiled principles of your love, and these are in the hells, where the caverns are full of stench arising from dunghills. Who cannot know from reason, that an unchaste and lascivious principle in the world of spirits, is impure and unclean, and thus that nothing more pollutes and defiles a man, and induces in him an infernal principle? Wherefore take heed how you boast any longer of your whoredoms, as possessing masculine powers therein above other men. I advertise you before hand, that you will become feeble, so that you will scarce know where your masculine power is. Such is the lot which awaits those who boast of their adulterous ability." On hearing these words he descended, and returned into the world of spirits, to his former companions, and converse with them modestly and chastely, but not for any considerable length of time.

478. None can know that there is any evil in adultery, who judge of it only from its externals; for in these it resembles marriage. Such external judges, when they hear of internals, and are told that externals thence derive their good or their evil, say with themselves, "What are internals? Who sees them? Is not this climbing above the sphere of every one's intelligence?" Such persons are like those who accept all pretended good as genuine voluntary good, and who decide upon a man's wisdom from the elegance of his conversation; or who respect the man himself from the richness of his dress and the magnificence of his equipage, and not from his internal habit, which is that of judgement grounded in the affection of good. This also is like judging of the fruit of a tree, and of any other eatable thing, from the sight and touch only, and not of its goodness from a knowledge of its flavor: such is the conduct of all those who are unwilling to perceive any thing respecting man's internal. Hence comes the wild infatuation of many at this day, who see no evil in adulteries, yea, who unite marriages with them in the same chamber, that is, who make them altogether alike; and this only on account of their apparent resemblance in externals. That this is the case, was shewn me by this experimental proof: on a certain time, the angels assembled from Europe some hundreds of those who were distinguished for their genius, their erudition, and their wisdom, and questioned them concerning the distinction between marriage and adultery, and in treated them to consult the rational powers of their understandings: and after consultation, all, except ten, replied, that the judicial law constitutes the only distinction, for the sake of some advantage; which distinction may indeed be known, but still be accommodated by civil prudence. They were next asked, Whether they saw any good in marriage, and any evil in adultery? They returned for answer, that they did not see any rational evil and good. Being questioned whether they saw any sin in it? they said, "Where is the sin? Is not the act alike?" At these answers the angels were amazed, and exclaimed, Oh, the gross stupidity of the age! Who can measure its quality and quantity? On hearing this exclamation, the hundreds of the wise ones turned themselves, and said one among another with loud laughter, "Is this gross stupidity? Is there any wisdom that can bring conviction that to love another person's wife merits eternal damnation?" But that adultery is spiritual evil, and thence moral and civil evil, and diametrically contrary to the wisdom of reason; also that the love of adultery is from hell and returns to hell, and the love of marriage is from heaven and returns to heaven, has been demonstrated in the first chapter of this part, concerning the opposition of adulterous and conjugial love. But since all evils, like all goods, partake of latitude and altitude, and according to latitude have their genera, and according to altitude their degrees, therefore, in order that adulteries may be known as to each dimension, they shall first be arranged into their genera, and afterwards into their degrees; and this shall be done in the following series: I. There are three genera of adulteries,—simple, duplicate, and triplicate. II. Simple adultery is that of an unmarried man with another's wife, or of an unmarried woman with another's husband. III. Duplicate adultery is that of a husband with another's wife, or of a wife with another's husband. IV. Triplicate adultery is with relations by blood. V. There are four degrees of adulteries, according to which they have their predications, their charges of blame, and after death their imputations. VI. Adulteries of the first degree are adulteries of ignorance, which are committed by those who cannot as yet, or cannot at all, consult the understanding, and thence check them. VII. In such cases adulteries are mild. VIII. Adulteries of the second degree are adulteries of lust, which are committed by those who indeed are able to consult the understanding, but from accidental causes at the moment are not able. IX. Adulteries committed by such persons are imputatory, according as the understanding afterwards favors them or not. X. Adulteries of the third degree are adulteries of the reason, which are committed by those who with the understanding confirm themselves in the persuasion that they are not evils of sin. XI. The adulteries committed by such persons are grievous, and are imputed to them according to confirmations. XII. Adulteries of the fourth degree are adulteries of the will, which are committed by those who make them lawful and pleasing, and who do not think them of importance enough, to consult the understanding respecting them. XIII. The adulteries committed by these persons are exceedingly grievous, and are imputed to them as evils of purpose, and remain with them as guilt. XIV. Adulteries of the third and fourth degrees are evils of sin, according to the quantity and quality of understanding and will in them, whether they are actually committed or not. XV. .Adulteries grounded in purpose of the will, and adulteries grounded in confirmation of the understanding render men natural, sensual, and corporeal. XVI. And this to such a degree, that at length they reject from themselves all things of the church and of religion. XVII. Nevertheless they have the powers of human rationality like other men. XVIII. But they use that rationality while they are in externals, but abuse it while in their internals. We proceed to an explanation of each article.

479. I. THERE ARE THREE GENERA OF ADULTERIES,—SIMPLE, DUPLICATE, AND TRIPLICATE. The Creator of the universe has distinguished all the things which he has created into genera, and each genus into species, and has distinguished each species, and each distinction in like manner, and so forth, to the end that an image of what is infinite may exist in a perpetual variety of qualities. Thus the Creator of the universe has distinguished goods and their truths, and in like manner evils and their falses, after they arose. That he has distinguished all things in the spiritual world into genera, species, and differences, and has collected together into heaven all goods and truths, and into hell all evils and falses, and has arranged the latter in an order diametrically opposite to the former, may appear from what is explained in a work concerning HEAVEN AND HELL, published in London in the year 1758. That in the natural world he has also thus distinguished and does distinguish goods and truths, and likewise evils and falses, appertaining to men, and thereby men themselves, may be known from their lot after death, in that the good enter into heaven, and the evil into hell. Now, since all things relating to good, and all things relating to evil, are distinguished into genera, species, and so forth, therefore marriages are distinguished into the same, and so are their opposites, which are adulteries.

480. II. SIMPLE ADULTERY IS THAT OF AN UNMARRIED MAN WITH ANOTHER'S WIFE, OR AN UNMARRIED WOMAN WITH ANOTHER'S HUSBAND. By adultery here and in the following pages we mean the adultery which is opposite to marriage; it is opposite because it violates the covenant of life contracted between married partners: it rends asunder their love, and defiles it, and closes the union which was begun at the time of betrothing, and strengthened in the beginning of marriage: for the conjugial love of one man with one wife, after engagement and covenant, unites their souls. Adultery does not dissolve this union, because it cannot be dissolved; but it closes it, as he that stops up a fountain at its source, and thence obstructs its stream, and fills the cistern with filthy and stinking waters: in like manner conjugial love, the origin of which is a union of souls, is daubed with mud and covered by adultery; and when it is so daubed with mud there arises from beneath the love of adultery; and as this love increases, it becomes fleshly, and rises in insurrection against conjugial love, and destroys it. Hence comes the opposition of adultery and marriage.

481. That it may be further known how gross is the stupidity of this age, in that those who have the reputation of wisdom do not see any sin in adultery, as was discovered by the angels (see just above, n. 478), I will here add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. There were certain spirits who, from a habit they had acquired in the life of the body, infested me with peculiar cunning, and this they did by a sottish and as it were waving influx, such as is usual with well-disposed spirits; but I perceived that they employed craftiness and similar means, to the intent that they might engage attention and deceive. At length I entered into conversation with one of them who, it was told me, had while he lived in the world been the general of an army: and as I perceived that in the ideas of his thought there was a lascivious principle, I conversed with him by representatives in the spiritual language which fully expresses what is intended to be said, and even several things in a moment. He said that, in the life of the body in the former world, he had made no account of adulteries: but it was granted me to tell him, that adulteries are wicked, although from the delight attending them, and from the persuasion thence resulting, they appear to the adulterer as not wicked but allowable; which also he might know from this consideration, that marriages are the seminaries of the human race, and thence also the seminaries of the heavenly kingdom, and therefore that they ought not to be violated, but to be accounted holy; also from this consideration, that he ought know, as being in the spiritual world, and in a state of perception, that conjugial love descends from the Lord through heaven, and that from that love, as a parent, is derived mutual love, which is the main support of heaven; and further from this consideration, that adulterers, whenever they only approach the heavenly societies, are made sensible of their own stench, and throw themselves headlong thence towards hell: at least he might know, that to violate marriages is contrary to the divine laws, to the civil laws of all kingdoms, also to the genuine light of reason, and thereby to the right of nations, because contrary to order both divine and human; not to mention other considerations. But he replied, that he entertained no such thoughts in the former life: he wished to reason whether the case was so or not; but he was told that truth does not admit of reasonings, since they favor the delights of the flesh against those of the spirit, the quality of which latter delights he was ignorant of; and that he ought first to think about the things which I had told him, because they are true; or to think from the well-known maxim, that no one should do to another what he is unwilling another should do to him; and thus, if any one had in such a manner violated his wife, whom he had loved, as is the case in the beginning of every marriage, and he had then been in a state of wrath, and had spoken from that state, whether he himself also would not then have detested adulteries, and being a man of strong parts, would not have confirmed himself against them more than other men, even to condemning them to hell; and being the general of an army, and having brave companions, whether he would not, in order to prevent disgrace, either have put the adulterer to death, or have driven the adulteress from his house.

482. III. DUPLICATE ADULTERY IS THAT OF A HUSBAND WITH ANOTHER'S WIFE, OR OF A WIFE WITH ANOTHER'S HUSBAND. This adultery is called duplicate, because it is committed by two, and on each side the marriage-covenant is violated; wherefore also it is twofold more grievous than the former. It was said above, n. 480, that the conjugial love of one man with one wife, after engagement and covenant, unites their souls, and that such union is that very love in its origin; and that this origin is closed and stopped up by adultery, as the source and stream of a fountain. That the souls of two unite themselves together, when love to the sex is confined to one of the sex, which is the case when a maiden engages herself wholly to a youth, and on the other hand a youth engages himself wholly to a maiden, is clearly manifest from this consideration, that the lives of both unite themselves, consequently their souls, because souls are the first principles of life. This union of souls can only take place in monogamical marriages, or those of one man with one wife, but not in polygamical marriages, or those of one man with several wives; because in the latter case the love is divided, in the former it is united. The reason why conjugial love in its supreme abode is spiritual, holy, and pure, is because the soul of every man from its origin is celestial; wherefore it receives influx immediately from the Lord, for it receives from him the marriage of love and wisdom, or of good and truth; and this influx makes him a man, and distinguishes him from the beasts. From this union of souls, conjugial love, which is there in its spiritual sanctity and purity, flows down into the life of the whole body, and fills with blessed delights, so long as its channel remains open; which is the case with those who are made spiritual by the Lord. That nothing but adultery closes and stops up this abode of conjugial love, thus its origin or fountain and its channel, is evident from the Lord's words, that it is not lawful to put away a wife and marry another, except on account of adultery: Matt. xix. 3-9; and also from what is said in the same passage, that he that marries her that is put away commits adultery, verse 9. When therefore, as was said above, that pure and holy fountain is stopped up, it is clogged about with filthiness of sundry kinds, as a jewel with ordure, or bread with vomit; which things are altogether opposite to the purity and sanctity of that fountain, or of conjugial love: from which opposition comes conjugial cold, and according to this cold is the lascivious voluptuousness of adulterous love, which consumes itself of its own accord. The reason why this is an evil of sin is because the holy principle is covered and thereby its channel into the body is obstructed, and in the place thereof a profane principle succeeds, and its channel into the body is opened, whence a man from celestial becomes infernal.

483. To the above I will add some particulars from the spiritual world, which are worthy to be recorded. I have been informed in that world, that some married men are inflamed with the lust of committing whoredom with maidens or virgins; some with those who are not maidens but harlots; some with married women or wives; some with women of the above description who are of noble descent; and some with such as are not of noble descent: that this is the case, was confirmed to me by several instances from the various kingdoms in that world. While I was meditating concerning the variety of such lusts, I asked whether there are any who find all their delight with the wives of others, and none with unmarried women? Wherefore to convince me that there are some such spirits, several were brought to me from a certain kingdom, who were obliged to speak according to their libidinous principles. These declared that it was, and still is their sole pleasure and delight to commit whoredom with the wives of others; and that they look out for such as are beautiful, and hire them for themselves at a great price according to their wealth, and in general bargain about the price with the wife alone. I asked, why they do not hire for themselves unmarried women? They said, that they consider this would be cheap and worthless, and therefore undelightful to them. I asked also, whether those wives afterwards return to their husbands and live with them? They replied, that they either do not return, or they return cold, having become courtezans. Afterwards I asked them seriously, whether they ever thought, or now think, that this is twofold adultery, because they commit this at the time they have wives of their own, and that such adultery deprives a man of all spiritual good? But at this several who were present laughed, saying, "What is spiritual good?" Nevertheless I was still urgent, and said, "What is more detestable than for a man to mix his soul with the soul of a husband in his wife? Do you not know, that the soul of a man is in his seed?" Hereupon they turned themselves away and muttered, "What harm can this do her?" At length I said, "Although you do not fear divine laws, do you not fear civil laws?" They replied, "No, we only fear certain of the ecclesiastical order; but we conceal this in their presence; and if we cannot conceal it, we keep upon good terms with them." I afterwards saw the former divided into companies, and some of the latter cast into hell.

484. IV. TRIPLICATE ADULTERY IS WITH RELATIONS BY BLOOD. This adultery is called triplicate, because it is threefold more grievous than the two former. The relations, or remains of the flesh, which are not to be approached, are mentioned in Levit. xviii. 6-18. There are internal and external reasons why these adulteries are threefold more grievous than the two above-mentioned: the internal reasons are grounded in the correspondence of those adulteries with the violation of spiritual marriage, which is that of the Lord and the church, and thence of good and truth; and the external reasons are for the sake of guards, to prevent a man's becoming a beast. We have no leisure, however, to proceed to the further disclosure of these reasons.

485. V. THERE ARE FOUR DEGREES OF ADULTERIES, ACCORDING TO WHICH THEY HAVE THEIR PREDICATIONS, THEIR CHARGES OF BLAME, AND AFTER DEATH THEIR IMPUTATIONS. These degrees are not genera, but enter into each genus, and cause its distinctions between more and less evil or good; in the present case, deciding whether adultery of every genus from the nature of the circumstances and contingencies, is to be considered milder or more grievous. That circumstances and contingencies vary every thing is well known. Nevertheless things are considered in one way by a man from his rational light, in another by a judge from the law, and in another by the Lord from the state of a man's mind: wherefore we mention predications, charges of blame, and after death imputations; for predications are made by a man according to his rational light, charges of blame are made by a judge according to the law, and imputations are made by the Lord according to the state of the man's mind. That these three differ exceedingly from each other, may be seen without explanation: for a man, from rational conviction according to circumstances and contingencies, may acquit a person, whom a judge, when he sits in judgement, cannot acquit from the law: and also a judge may acquit a person, who after death is condemned. The reason of this is, because a judge gives sentence according to the actions done, whereas after death every one is judged according to the intentions of the will and thence of the understanding, and according to the confirmations of the understanding and thence of the will. These intentions and confirmations a judge does not see; nevertheless each judgement is just; the one for the sake of the good of civil society, the other for the sake of the good of heavenly society.

486. VI. ADULTERIES OF THE FIRST DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF IGNORANCE, WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO CANNOT AS YET, OR CANNOT AT ALL, CONSULT THE UNDERSTANDING, AND THENCE CHECK THEM. All evils, and thus also all adulteries, viewed in themselves, are at once of the internal and the external man; the internal intends them, and the external does them; such therefore as the internal man is in the deeds done by the external, such are the deeds viewed in themselves: but since the internal man with his intention, does not appear before man, every one must be judged in a human court from deeds and words according to the law in force and its provisions: the interior sense of the law is also to be regarded by the judge. But to illustrate the case by example: if adultery be committed by a youth, who does not as yet know that adultery is a greater evil than fornication; if the like be committed by a very simple man; if it be committed by a person who is deprived by disease of the full powers of judgement; or by a person, as is sometimes the case, who is delirious by fits, and is at the time in a state of actual delirium; yet further, if it be committed in a fit of insane drunkenness, and so forth, it is evident, that in such cases, the internal man, or mind, is not present in the external, scarcely any otherwise than in an irrational person. Adulteries in these instances are predicated by a rational man according to the above circumstances; nevertheless the perpetrator is charged with blame by the same rational man as a judge, and is punished by the law; but after death those adulteries are imputed according to the presence, quality, and faculty of understanding in the will of the perpetrators.

487. VII. IN SUCH CASES ADULTERIES ARE MILD. This is manifest from what was said just above, n. 486, without further confirmation; for it is well known that the quality of every deed and in general the quality of every thing, depends upon circumstances, and which mitigate or aggravate it; but adulteries of this degree are mild at the first times of their commission; and also remain mild so far as the offending party of either sex, in the future course of life, abstains from them for these reasons;—because they are evils against God, or against the neighbour, or against the goods of the state, and because, in consequence of their being such evils, they are evils against reason; but on the other hand, if they are not abstained from for one of the abovementioned reasons, they are reckoned amongst grievous adulteries; thus it is according to the divine law, Ezek. xviii, 21, 22, 24, and in other places: but they cannot, from the above circumstances, be pronounced either blameless or culpable, or be predicated and judged as mild or grievous, because they do not appear before man, neither are they within the province of his judgement; wherefore it is meant, that after death they are so accounted or imputed.

488. VIII. ADULTERIES OF THE SECOND DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF LUST, WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO INDEED ARE ABLE TO CONSULT THE UNDERSTANDING, BUT FROM ACCIDENTAL CAUSES AT THE MOMENT ARE NOT ABLE. There are two things which, in the beginning, with every man who from natural is made spiritual, are at strife together, which are commonly called the spirit and the flesh; and since the love of marriage is of the spirit, and the love of adultery is of the flesh, in such case there is also a combat between those loves. If the love of marriage conquers, it gains dominion over and subjugates the love of adultery, which is effected by its removal; but if it happens that the lust of the flesh is excited to a heat greater than what the spirit can control from reason, it follows that the state is inverted, and the heat of lust infuses allurements into the spirit, to such a degree, that it is no longer master of its reason, and thence of itself: this is meant by adulteries of the second degree, which are committed by those who indeed are able to consult the understanding, but by reason of accidental causes at the moment are not able. But the matter may be illustrated by particular cases; as in case a meretricious wife by her craftiness captivates a man's mind (animum), enticing him into her chamber, and inflaming his passions to such a degree as to leave him no longer master of his judgement; and especially if, at the same time, she also threatens to expose him if he does not consent: in like manner, in case any meretricious wife is skilled in deceitful allurements, or by powerful stimulants inflames the man to such a degree, that the raging lust of the flesh deprives the understanding of the free use of reason: in like manner, in case a man, by powerful enticements, so far works upon another's wife, as to leave her no longer mistress of herself, by reason of the fire kindled in her will; besides other like cases. That these and similar accidental circumstances lessen the grievousness of adultery, and give a milder turn to the predications of the blame thereof in favor of the party seduced, is agreeable to the dictates and conclusions of reason. The imputation of this degree of adultery comes next to be treated of.

489. IX. ADULTERIES COMMITTED BY SUCH PERSONS ARE IMPUTATORY, ACCORDING AS THE UNDERSTANDING AFTERWARDS FAVORS THEM OR NOT. So far as the understanding favors evils, so far a man appropriates them to himself and makes them his own. Favor implies consent; and consent induces in the mind a state of the love of them: the case is the same with adulteries, which in the beginning were committed without the consent of the understanding, and are favored: the contrary comes to pass if they are not favored. The reason of this is, because evils or adulteries, which are committed in the blindness of the understanding, are committed from the concupiscence of the body; and such evils or adulteries have a near resemblance to the instincts of beasts: with man (homo) indeed the understanding is present, while they are committing, but in a passive or dead potency and not in active and living potency. From these considerations it follows of course, that such things are not imputed, except so far as they are afterwards favored or not. By imputation we here mean accusation after death, and hence judication, which takes place according to the state of a man's spirit: but we do not mean inculpation by a man before a judge; for this does not take place according to the state of a man's spirit, but of his body in the deed; and unless there was a difference herein, those would be acquitted after death who are acquitted in the world, and those would be condemned who are condemned in the world; and thus the latter would be without any hope of salvation.

490. X. ADULTERIES OF THE THIRD DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF THE REASON, WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO WITH THE UNDERSTANDING CONFIRM THEMSELVES IN THE PERSUASION THAT THEY ARE NOT EVILS OF SIN. Every man knows that there exist such principles as the will and the understanding; for in his common speaking he says, "This I will, and this I understand;" but still he does not distinguish them, but makes the one the same as the other; because he only reflects upon the things which belong to the thought grounded in the understanding, and not upon those which belong to the love grounded in the will; for the latter do not appear in light as the former. Nevertheless, he that does not distinguish between the will and the understanding, cannot distinguish between evils and goods, and consequently he must remain in entire ignorance concerning the blame of sin. But who does not know that good and truth are two distinct principles, like love and wisdom? and who cannot hence conclude, while he is in rational illumination, that there are two faculties in man, which distinctly receive and appropriate to themselves those principles, and that the one is the will and the other the understanding, by reason that what the will receives and reproduces is called good, and what the understanding receives is called truth; for what the will loves and does, is called truth, and what the understanding perceives and thinks, is called truth? Now as the marriage of good and truth was treated of in the first part of this work, and in the same place several considerations were adduced concerning the will and the understanding, and the various attributes and predicates of each, which, as I imagine, are also perceived by those who had not thought at all distinctly concerning the understanding and the will, (for human reason is such, that it understands truths from the light thereof, although it has not heretofore distinguished them); therefore, in order that the distinctions of the understanding and the will may be more clearly perceived, I will here mention some particulars on the subject, that it may be known what is the quality of adulteries of the reason and the understanding, and afterwards what is the quality of adulteries of the will. The following points may serve to illustrate the subject: 1. That the will of itself does nothing; but whatever it does, it does by the understanding. 2. On the other hand also, that the understanding alone of itself does nothing; but whatever it does, it does from the will. 3. That the will flows into the understanding but not the understanding into the will; yet that the understanding teaches what is good and evil, and consults with the will, that out of those two principles it may choose and do what is pleasing to it. 4. That after this there is effected a twofold conjunction; one, in which the will acts from within, and the understanding from without; the other in which the understanding acts from within, and the will from without: thus are distinguished the adulteries of the reason, which are here treated of, from the adulteries of the will, which are next to be treated of. They are distinguished, because one is more grievous than the other; for the adultery of the reason is less grievous than that of the will; because in adultery of the reason, the understanding acts from within, and the will from without; whereas in adultery of the will, the will acts from within, and the understanding from without; and the will is the man himself, and the understanding is the man as grounded in the will; and that which acts within has dominion over that which acts without.

491. XI. THE ADULTERIES COMMITTED BY SUCH PERSONS ARE GRIEVOUS, AND ARE IMPUTED TO THEM ACCORDING TO CONFIRMATIONS. It is the understanding alone that confirms, and when it confirms, it engages the will to its party, and sets it about itself, and thus compels it to compliance. Confirmations are affected by reasonings, which the mind seizes for its use, deriving them either from its superior region or from its inferior; if from the superior region, which communicates with heaven, it confirms marriages and condemns adulteries; but if from the inferior region, which communicates with the world, it confirms adulteries and makes light of marriages. Every one can confirm evil just as well as good; in like manner what is false and what is true; and the confirmation of evil is perceived with more delight than the confirmation of good, and the confirmation of what is false appears with greater lucidity than the confirmation of what is true. The reason of this is, because the confirmation of what is evil and false derives its reasonings from the delights, the pleasures, the appearances, and the fallacies of the bodily senses; whereas the confirmation of what is good and true derives its reasons from the region above the sensual principles of the body. Now, since evils and falses can be confirmed just as well as goods and truths, and since the confirming understanding draws the will to its party, and the will together with the understanding forms the mind, it follows that the form of the human mind is according to confirmations, being turned to heaven if its confirmations are in favor of marriage, but to hell if they are in favor of adulteries; and such as the form of a man's mind is such is his spirit; consequently such is the man. From these considerations then it is evident, that adulteries of this degree after death are imputed according to confirmations.

492. XII. THE ADULTERIES OF THE FOURTH DEGREE ARE ADULTERIES OF THE WILL WHICH ARE COMMITTED BY THOSE WHO MAKE THEM LAWFUL AND PLEASING, AND WHO DO NOT THINK THEM OF IMPORTANCE ENOUGH TO CONSULT THE UNDERSTANDING RESPECTING THEM. These adulteries are distinguished from the foregoing from their origins. The origin of these adulteries is from the depraved will connate to man, or from hereditary evil, which a man blindly obeys after he is capable of exercising his own judgement, not at all considering whether they are evils or not; wherefore it is said, that he does not think them of importance enough to consult the understanding respecting them: but the origin of the adulteries which are called adulteries of reason, is from a perverse understanding; and these adulteries are committed by those who confirm themselves in the persuasion that they are not evils of sin. With the latter adulterers, the understanding is the principal agent; with the former the will. The distinctions in these two cases do not appear to any man in the natural world; but they appear plainly to the angels in the spiritual world. In the latter world all are in general distinguished according to the evils which originate in the will and in the understanding, and which are accepted and appropriated; they are also separated in hell according to those evils: those who are in evil from the understanding, dwell there in front, and are called satans; but those who are in evil from the will, dwell at the back, and are called devils. It is on account of this universal distinction that mention is made in the Word of satan and the devil. With those wicked ones, and also those adulterers, who are called satans, the understanding is the principal agent; but with those who are called devils, the will is the principal agent. It is not however possible to explain these distinctions, so as to render them visible to the understanding, unless the distinctions of the will and the understanding be first known; and also unless a description be given of the formation of the mind from the will by the understanding, and of its formation from the understanding by the will. The knowledge of these subjects is necessary, before the distinctions above-mentioned can be seen by reason; but to express this knowledge on paper would require a volume.

493. XIII. THE ADULTERIES COMMITTED BY THESE PERSONS ARE EXCEEDINGLY GRIEVOUS, AND ARE IMPUTED TO THEM AS EVILS OF PURPOSE, AND REMAIN IN THEM AS GUILT. The reason why they are exceedingly grievous, and more grievous than the foregoing, is, because in them the will is the principal agent, whereas in the foregoing the understanding is the principal agent, and a man's life essentially is his will, and formally is his understanding: the reason of this is, because the will acts in unity with the love, and love is the essence of a man's life, and forms itself in the understanding by such things as are in agreement with it: wherefore the understanding viewed in itself is nothing but a form of the will; and since love is of the will, and wisdom of the understanding, therefore wisdom is nothing but a form of love; in like manner truth is nothing but a form of good. That which flows from the very essence of a man's life, thus which flows from his will or his love, is principally called purpose; but that which flows from the form of his life, thus from the understanding and its thought is called intention. Guilt also is principally predicated of the will: hence comes the common observation, that everyone has the guilt of evil from inheritance, but that the evil is from the man. Hence these adulteries of the fourth degree are imputed as evils of purpose, and remain in as guilt.

494. XIV. ADULTERIES OF THE THIRD AND FOURTH DEGREES ARE EVILS OF SIN, ACCORDING TO THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF UNDERSTANDING AND WILL IN THEM, WHETHER THEY ARE ACTUALLY COMMITTED OR NOT. That adulteries of the reason or the understanding, which are of the third degree, and adulteries of the will, which are of the fourth, are grievous, consequently evils of sin, according to the quality of the understanding and of the will in them, may be seen from the comment above concerning them, n. 490-493. The reason of this is, because a man (homo) is a man by virtue of the will and the understanding; for from these two principles exist not only all the things which are done in the mind, but also all those which are done in the body. Who does not know, that the body does not act of itself, but the will by the body? also that the mouth does not speak of itself, but the thought by the mouth? Wherefore if the will were to be taken away, action would instantly be at a stand, and if thought were to be taken away, the speech of the mouth would instantly cease. Hence it is clearly manifest, that adulteries which are actually committed, are grievous according to the quantity and quality of the understanding of the will in them. That they are in like manner grievous, if the same are not actually committed, appears from the Lord's words: It was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you, that if any one hath looked at another's woman, to lust after her, he hath already committed adultery with her in heart; Matt. v. 27, 28: to commit adultery in the heart is to commit it in the will. There are many reasons which operate to prevent an adulterer's being an adulterer in act, while he is still so in will and understanding: for there are some who abstain from adulteries as to act through fear of the civil law and its penalties; through fear of the loss of reputation and thence of honor; through fear of disease thence arising; through fear of quarrels at home on the part of a wife, and the consequent loss of tranquillity; through fear of revenge on the part of the husband and the next of kin; thus also through fear of being beaten by the servants; through poverty or avarice; through imbecility arising from disease, from abuse, from age, or from impotence, and consequent shame: if any one restrains himself from actual adulteries, under the influence of these and like reasons, and yet favors them in his will and understanding, he is still an adulterer: for he believes nevertheless that they are not sins, and he does not make them unlawful before God in his spirit; and thus he commits them in spirit, although not in body before the world; wherefore after death, when he becomes a spirit, he speaks openly in favor of them.

495. XV. ADULTERIES GROUNDED IN PURPOSE OF THE WILL, AND ADULTERIES GROUNDED IN CONFIRMATION OF THE UNDERSTANDING, RENDER MEN NATURAL, SENSUAL, AND CORPOREAL. A man (homo) is a man, and is distinguished from the beasts, by this circumstance, that his mind is distinguished into three regions, as many as the heavens are distinguished into: and that he is capable of being elevated out of the lowest region into the next above it, and also from this into the highest, and thus of becoming an angel of one heaven, and even of the third: for this end, there has been given to man a faculty of elevating the understanding thitherto; but if the love of his will is not elevated at the same time, he does not become spiritual, but remains natural: nevertheless he retains the faculty of elevating the understanding. The reason why he retains this faculty is, that he may be reformed; for he is reformed by the understanding: and this is effected by the knowledges of good and truth, and by a rational intuition grounded therein, if he views those knowledges rationally, and lives according to them, then the love of the will is elevated at the same time, and in that degree the human principle is perfected, and the man becomes more and more a man. It is otherwise if he does not live according to the knowledges of good and truth: in this case the love of his will remains natural, and his understanding by turns becomes spiritual: for it raises itself upwards alternately, like an eagle, and looks down upon what is of its love beneath; and when it sees this, it flies down to it, and conjoins itself with it: if therefore it loves the concupiscences of the flesh, it lets itself down to these from its height, and in conjunction with them, derives delight to itself from their delights; and again in quest of reputation, that it may be believed wise, it lifts itself on high, and thus rises and sinks by turns, as was just now observed. The reason why adulterers of the third and fourth degree, who are such as from purpose of the will and continuation of the understanding have made themselves adulterers, are absolutely natural, and progressively become sensual and corporeal, is, because they have immersed the love of their will, and together with it their understanding, in the impurities of adulterous love, and are delighted therewith, as unclean birds and beasts are with stinking and dunghill filth as with dainties and delicacies: for the effluvia arising from their flesh fill the recesses of the mind with their dregs, and cause that the will, perceives nothing more dainty and desirable. It is these who after death become corporeal spirits, and from whom flow the unclean things of hell and the church, spoken of above n. 430, 431.

496. There are three degrees of the natural man; in the first degree are those who love only the world, placing their heart on wealth; these are properly meant by the natural: in the second degree are those who love only the delights of the senses, placing their heart on every kind of luxury and pleasure; these are properly meant by the sensual: in the third degree are those who love only themselves, placing their heart on the quest of honor; these are properly meant by the corporeal, because they immerse all things of the will, and consequently of the understanding, in the body, and look backward at themselves from others, and love only what belongs to themselves: but the sensual immerse all things of the will and consequently of the understanding in the allurements and fallacies of the senses, indulging in these alone; whereas the natural pour forth into the world all things of the will and understanding, covetously and fraudulently acquiring wealth, and regarding no other use therein and thence but that of possession. The above-mentioned adulteries change men in these degenerate degrees, one into this, another into that, each according to his favorite taste for what is pleasurable, in which taste his peculiar genius is grounded.

497. XVI. AND THIS TO SUCH A DEGREE THAT AT LENGTH THEY REJECT FROM THEMSELVES ALL THINGS OF THE CHURCH AND OF RELIGION. The reason why determined and continued adulterers reject from themselves all things of the church and religion is, because the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposite, n. 425, and the love of marriage acts in unity with the church and religion; see n. 130, and throughout the former part; hence the love of adultery, as being opposite, acts in unity with those things which are contrary to the church. A further reason why those adulterers reject from themselves all things of the church and of religion, is, because the love of marriage and the love of adultery are opposite, as the marriage of good and truth is opposite to the connection of evil and the false: see n. 427, 428; and the marriage of good and truth constitutes the church, whereas the connection of evil and the false constitutes the anti-church. A further reason why those adulterers reject from themselves all things of the church and of religion, is because the love of marriage and the love of adultery are as opposite as heaven and hell, n. 429; and in heaven there is the love of all things of the church, whereas in hell there is hatred against them. A further reason why those adulterers reject from themselves all things of the church and of religion, is, because, their delights commence from the flesh, and are of the flesh also in the spirit, n. 440, 441; and the flesh is contrary to the spirit, that is, contrary to the spiritual things of the church: hence also the delights of adulterous love are called the pleasures of insanity. If you desire demonstration in this case, go, I pray, to those whom you know to be such adulterers, and ask them privately, what they think concerning God, the church, and eternal life, and you will hear. The genuine reason is, because as conjugial love opens the interiors of the mind; and thereby elevates them above the sensual principles of the body, even into the light and heat of heaven, so, on the other hand, the love of adultery closes the interiors of the mind, and thrusts down the mind itself, as to its will, into the body, even into all things which its flesh lusts after; and the deeper it is so thrust down, the further it is removed and set at a distance from heaven.

498. XVII. NEVERTHELESS THEY HAVE THE POWERS OF HUMAN RATIONALITY LIKE OTHER MEN. That the natural man, the sensual, and the corporeal, is equally rational, in regard to understanding, as the spiritual man, has been proved to me from satans and devils arising by leave out of hell, and conversing with angelic spirits in the world of spirits; concerning whom, see the MEMORABLE RELATIONS throughout; but as the love of the will makes the man, and this love draws the understanding into consent, therefore such are not rational except in a state removed from the love of the will; when they return again into this love, they are more dreadfully insane than wild beasts. But a man, without the faculty of elevating the understanding above the love of the will, would not be a man but a beast; for a beast does not enjoy that faculty; consequently neither would he be able to choose any thing, and from choice to do what is good and expedient, and thus he would not be in a capacity to be reformed, and to be led to heaven, and to live for ever. Hence it is, that determined and confirmed adulterers, although they are merely natural, sensual, and corporeal, still enjoy, like other men, the powers of understanding or rationality: but when they are in the lust of adultery, and think and speak from that lust concerning it, they do not enjoy that rationality; because then the flesh acts on the spirit, and not the spirit on the flesh. It is however to be observed, that these at length after death become stupid; not that the faculty of growing wise is taken away from them, but that they are unwilling to grow wise, because wisdom is undelightful to them.

499. XVIII. BUT THEY USE THAT RATIONALITY WHILE THEY ARE IN EXTERNALS, BUT ABUSE IT WHILE THEY ARE IN INTERNALS. They are in externals when they converse abroad and in company, but in their internals when at home or with themselves. If you wish, make the experiment; bring some person of this character, as, for example, one of the order called Jesuits, and cause him to speak in company, or to teach in a temple, concerning God, the holy things of the church, and heaven and hell, and you will hear him a more rational zealot than any other; perhaps also he will force you to sighs and tears for your salvation; but take him into your house, praise him excessively, call him the father of wisdom, and make yourself his friend, until he opens his heart, and you will hear what he will then preach concerning God, the holy things of the church, and heaven and hell,—that they are mere fancies and delusions, and thus bonds invented for souls, whereby great and small, rich and poor, may be caught and bound, and kept under the yoke of their dominion. Let these observations suffice for illustration of what is meant by natural men, even to corporeal, enjoying the powers of human rationality like others, and using it when they are in externals, but abusing it when in their internals. The conclusion to be hence deduced is, that no one is to be judged of from the wisdom of his conversation, but of his life in union therewith.

500. To the above I will add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. On a certain time in the spiritual world I heard a great tumult: there were some thousands of people gathered together, who cried out, LET THEM BE PUNISHED, LET THEM BE PUNISHED: I went nearer, and asked what the cry meant? A person that was separate from the crowd, said to me, "They are enraged against three priests, who go about and preach every where against adulterers, saying, that adulterers have no acknowledgement of God, and that heaven is closed to them and hell open; and that in hell they are filthy devils, because they appear there at a distance like swine wallowing in mire, and that the angels of heaven abominate them." I inquired, "Where are the priests? and why is there such a vociferation on that account?" He replied, "The three priests are in the midst of them, guarded by attendants; and those who are gathered together are of those who believe adulteries not to be sins, and who say, that adulterers have an acknowledgement of God equally with those who keep to their wives. They are all of them from the Christian world; and the angels have been to see how many there were there who believe adulteries to be sins; and out of a thousand they did not find a hundred." He then told me that the nine hundred say concerning adulteries, "Who does not know that the delight of adultery is superior to the delight of marriage; that adulterers are in continual heat, and thence in alacrity, industry, and active life, superior to those who live with only one woman; and that on the other hand, love with a married partner grows cold, and sometimes to such a degree, that at length scarce a single expression or act of fellowship with her is alive; that it is otherwise with harlots; that the mortification of life with a wife, arising from defect of ability, is recruited and vivified by adulteries; and is not that which recruits and vivifies of more consequence than that which mortifies? What is marriage but allowed adultery? Who knows any distinction between them? Can love be forced? and yet love with a wife is forced by a covenant and laws. Is not love with a married partner the love of the sex, which is so universal that it exists even among birds and beasts? What is conjugial love but the love of the sex? and the love of the sex is free with every woman. The reason why civil laws are against adulteries is, because lawgivers have believed that to prohibit adultery was connected with the public good; and yet lawgivers and judges sometimes commit adultery, and say among themselves, 'Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.' Who does not know that the simple and religious alone believe adulteries to be sins, and that the intelligent think otherwise, who like us view them by the light of nature? Are not adulteries as prolific as marriages? Are not illegitimate children as alert and qualified for the discharge of offices and employments as the legitimate? Moreover families, otherwise barren, are provided with offspring; and is not this an advantage and not a loss? What harm can come to a wife from admitting several rivals? And what harm can come to a man? To say that it brings disgrace upon a man, is a frivolous idea grounded in mere fancy. The reason why adultery is against the laws and statutes of the church, is owing to the ecclesiastic order for the sake of power; but what have theological and spiritual things to do with a delight merely corporeal and carnal? Are not there instances of adulterous presbyters and monks? and are they incapable on that account of acknowledging and worshipping God? Why therefore do those three priests preach that adulterers have no acknowledgement of God? We cannot endure such blasphemies; wherefore let them be judged and punished." Afterwards I saw that they called judges, whom they requested to pass sentence of punishment upon them: but the judges said, "This is no part of our jurisdiction; for the point in question is concerning the acknowledgement of God, and concerning sin, and thus concerning salvation and damnation; and sentence in these cases must come from heaven: but we will suggest a method to you, whereby you may know whether these three priests have preached truths. There are three places which we judges know, where such points are examined and revealed in a singular manner: One place is, where a way into heaven is open to all; but when they come into heaven, they themselves perceive their own quality as to the acknowledgement of God: the second is, where also a way is open into heaven; but no one can enter into that way unless he has heaven in himself: and the third is where there is a way to hell; and those who love infernal things enter that way of their own accord, because from delight. We judges charge all to go to those places who require judgement from us concerning heaven and hell." On hearing this, those who were gathered together, said, "Let us go to those places;" and while they were going to the first, where a way into heaven is open to all, it suddenly became dark; wherefore some of them lighted torches and carried them before. The judges who were with them said, "This happens to all who go to the first place; as they approach, the fire of the torches becomes more dim, and is extinguished in that place by the light of heaven flowing in, which is a sign that they are there; the reason of this is, because at first heaven is closed to them, and afterwards is opened." They then came to that place, and when the torches were extinguished of themselves, they saw a way tending obliquely upwards into heaven: this those entered who were enraged against the priests; among the first, these who were determined adulterers, after them those who were confirmed adulterers; and as they ascended, the first cried out, "Follow;" and those who followed cried out, "Make haste;" and they pressed forward. After near an hour, when they were all within in the heavenly society, there appeared a gulph between them and the angels; and the light of heaven above the gulph flowing into their eyes, opened the interiors of their minds, whereby they were bound to speak as they interiorly thought; and then they were asked by the angels, whether they acknowledged that God is? The first, who were determined adulterers, replied, "What is God?" And they looked at each other, and said, "Which of you has seen him?" The second, who were confirmed adulterers, said, "Are not all things of nature? What is there above nature but the sun?" And instantly the angels said to them, "Depart from us; now you yourselves perceive that you have no acknowledgement of God: when you descend, the interiors of your mind will be closed and its exteriors opened, and then you can speak against the interiors, and say that God is. Be assured that as soon as a man actually becomes an adulterer, heaven is closed to him; and when heaven is closed, God is not acknowledged. Hear the reason; every filthy principle of hell is from adulterers, and it stinks in heaven like putrid mire of the streets." On hearing these things they turned themselves and descended by three ways; and when they were below, the first and second groups conversing together said, "The priests have conquered there; but we know that we can speak of God equally with them: and when we say that he is, do we not acknowledge him? The interiors and exteriors of the mind, of which the angels told us, are devised fictions. But let us go to the second place pointed out by the judges, where a way is open into heaven to those who have heaven in themselves, thus to those who are about to come into heaven." When they were come thither, a voice proceeded from that heaven, saying, "Shut the gates; there are adulterers at hand." Then suddenly the gates were shut, and the keepers with sticks in their hands drove them away; and they delivered the three priests, against whom they had been tumultuous, from the hands of their keepers, and introduced them into heaven: and instantly, when the gates were open for the priests, there issued from heaven upon the rebels the delightful principle of marriage, which, from its being chaste and pure, almost deprived them of animation; wherefore, for fear of fainting away through suffocation, they hastened to the third place, concerning which the judges said, that thence there was a way to hell; and instantly there issued from thence the delight of adultery, whereby those who were either determined or confirmed adulterers, were so vivified, that they descended as it were dancing, and there like swine immersed themselves in filth.

501. The lusts treated of in the four following chapters, are not only lusts of adultery, but are more grievous than those since they exist only from adulteries, being taken to after adulteries are become loathsome; as the lust of defloration, which is first treated of, and which cannot previously exist with any one; in like manner the lust of varieties, the lust of violation, and the lust of seducing innocencies, which are afterwards treated of. They are called lusts, because according to the quantity and quality of the lust for those things, such and so great is their appropriation. In reference specifically to the lust of defloration, its infamous villany shall be made manifest from the following considerations: I. The state of a maiden or undeflowered woman before and after marriage. II. Virginity is the crown of chastity, and the certificate of conjugial love. III. Defloration, without a view to marriage as an end, is the villany of a robber. IV. The lot of those who have confirmed themselves in the persuasion that the lust of defloration is not an evil of sin, after death is grievous. We proceed to explain them.

502. I. THE STATE OF A MAIDEN OR UNDEFLOWERED WOMAN BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE. What is the quality of the state of a maiden, before she has been instructed concerning the various particulars of the conjugial torch, has been made known to me by wives in the spiritual world, who have departed out of the natural world in their infancy, and have been educated in heaven. They said, that when they arrived at a marriageable state, from seeing conjugial partners they began to love the conjugial life, but only for the end that they might be called wives, and might maintain friendly and confidential society with one man; and also, that being removed from the house of obedience, they might become their own mistresses: they also said, that they thought of marriage only from the blessedness of mutual friendship and confidence with a husband, and not at all from the delight of any flame; but that their maiden state after marriage was changed into a new one, of which they previously had not the least knowledge: and they declared, that this was a state of the expansion of all things of the life of their body from first principles to last, to receive the gifts of their husband, and to unite these gifts to their own life, that thus they might become his love and his wife; and that this state commenced from the moment of defloration, and that after this the flame of love burned to the husband alone, and that they were sensible of the heavenly delights of that expansion; and further, that as each wife was introduced into this state by her own husband, and as it is from him, and thereby his in herself, it is altogether impossible for her to love any other than him alone. From this account it was made manifest what is the quality of the state of maidens before and after marriage in heaven. That the state of maidens and wives on earth, whose first attachments prove successful, is similar to this of the maidens in heaven, is no secret. What maiden can know that new state before she is in it? Inquire, and you will hear. The case is different with those who before marriage catch allurement from being taught.

503. II. VIRGINITY IS THE CROWN OF CHASTITY AND THE CERTIFICATE OF CONJUGIAL LOVE. Virginity is called the crown of chastity, because it crowns the chastity of marriage: it is also the badge of chastity; wherefore the bride at the nuptials wears a crown on her head: it is also a badge of the sanctity of marriage; for the bride, after the maiden flower, gives and devotes herself wholly to the bridegroom, at that time the husband, and the husband in his turn gives and devotes himself wholly to the bride, at that time the wife. Virginity is also called the certificate of conjugial love, because a certificate has relation to a covenant; and the covenant is, that love may unite them into one man, or into one flesh. The men themselves also before marriage regard the virginity of the bride as a crown of her chastity, and as a certificate of conjugial love, and as the very dainty from which the delights of that love are about to commence and to be perpetuated. From these and the foregoing considerations, it is manifest, that after the zone is taken away, and the virginity is sipped, a maiden becomes a wife, and if not a wife, she becomes a harlot; for the new state into which she is then introduced, is a state of love for her husband, and if not for her husband, it is a state of lust.

504. III. DEFLORATION, WITHOUT A VIEW TO MARRIAGE AS AN END, IS THE VILLANY OF A ROBBER. Some adulterers are impelled by the cupidity of deflowering maidens, and thence also of deflowering young girls in their state of innocence: the enticements offered are either persuasions suggested by pimps, or presents made by the men, or promises of marriage; and those men after defloration leave them, and continually seek for others: moreover, they are not delighted with the objects they have left, but with a continual supply of new ones; and this lust increases even till it becomes the chief of the delights of their flesh. They add also to the above this abominable deed, that by various cunning artifices they entice maidens about to be married or immediately after marriage, to offer them the first-fruits of marriage, which also they thus filthily defile. I have heard also, that when that heat with its potency has failed, they glory in the number of virginities, as in so many golden fleeces of Jason. This villany, which is that of committing a rape, since it was begun in an age of strength, and afterwards confirmed by boastings, remains rooted in, and thereby infixed after death. What the quality of this villany is, appears from what was said above, that virginity is the crown of chastity, the certificate of future conjugial love, and that a maiden devotes her soul and life to him to whom she devotes it; conjugial friendship and the confidence thereof are also founded upon it. A woman likewise, deflowered by a man of the above description, after this door of conjugial love is broken through, loses all shame, and becomes a harlot, which is likewise to be imputed to the robber as the cause. Such robbers, if, after having run through a course of lewdness and profanation of chastity, they apply their minds (animus) to marriage, have no other object in their mind (mens) than the virginity of her who is to be their married partner; and when they have attained this object, they loathe both bed and chamber, yea also the whole female sex, except young girls: and whereas such are violators of marriage, and despisers of the female sex, and thereby spiritual robbers, it is evident that the divine Nemesis pursues them.

505. IV. THE LOT OF THOSE WHO HAVE CONFIRMED THEMSELVES IN THE PERSUASION THAT THE LUST OF DEFLORATION IS NOT AN EVIL OF SIN, AFTER DEATH IS GRIEVOUS. Their lot is this: after they have passed the first time of their stay in the spiritual world, which is a time of modesty and morality, because spent in company with angelic spirits, they are next, from their externals, led into their internals, and in this case into the concupiscences with which they had been ensnared in the world, and the angelic spirits into theirs, to the intent that it may appear in what degree they had been ensnared; and if a lesser degree, that after they have been let into them, they may be let out again, and may be covered with shame. But those who had been principled in this malignant lust to such a degree as to be made sensible of its eminent delight, and to make a boast of those thefts as of the choicest spoils, do not suffer themselves to be drawn away from it; wherefore they are let into their freedom, and then they instantly wander about, and inquire after brothels, and also enter them when they are pointed out; (these brothels are on the sides of hell:) but when they meet with none but prostitutes there, they go away, and inquire where there are maidens; and then they are carried to harlots, who by phantasy can assume supereminent beauty, and a florid girlish complexion, and boast themselves of being maidens; and on seeing these they burn with desire towards them as they did in the world: wherefore they bargain with them; but when they are about to enjoy the bargain, the phantasy induced from heaven is taken away, and then those pretended maidens appear in their own deformity, monstrous and dark, to whom nevertheless they are compelled to cleave for a time: those harlots are called sirens. But if by such fascinations they do not suffer themselves to be draw away from that wild lust, they are cast down into the hell lying to the south and west, beneath the hell of the crafty courtezans, and there they are associated with their companions. I have also been permitted to see them in that hell, and have been told that many of noble descent, and the more opulent, are therein; but as they had been such in the world, all remembrance of their descent and of the dignity derived from their opulence is taken from them, and a persuasion is induced on them that they have been vile slaves, and thence were unworthy of all honor. Among themselves indeed they appear as men: but when seen by others, who are allowed to look in thither, they appear as apes, with a stern look instead of a courteous one, and a horrid countenance instead of one of pleasantry. They walk with their loins contracted, and thereby bent, the upper part of the body hanging forward in front, as if they were ready to fall, and they emit a disagreeable smell. They loathe the sex, and turn away from those they see; for they have no desire towards them. Such they appear when seen near at hand; but when viewed from afar, they appear like dogs of indulgences, or whelps of delight; and there is also heard somewhat like barking in the tone of their speech.

506. The lust of varieties here treated of, does not mean the lust of fornication, which was treated of above in its proper chapter: the latter lust, notwithstanding its being usually promiscuous and vague, still does not occasion the lust of varieties, unless when it is immoderate, and the fornicator looks to number, and boasts thereof from a principle of cupidity. This idea causes a beginning of this lust; but what its quality is as it advances, cannot be distinctly perceived, unless in some such series as the following: I. By the lust of varieties is meant the entirely dissolute lust of adultery. II. That lust is love and at the same time loathing in regard to the sex. III. That lust altogether annihilates conjugial love appertaining to itself. IV. The lot of those (who have been addicted to that lust), after death, is miserable, since they have not the inmost principle of life. We proceed to an explanation of each article.

507. I. BY THE LUST OF VARIETIES IS MEANT THE ENTIRELY DISSOLUTE LUST OF ADULTERY. This lust insinuates itself with those who in youth have relaxed the bonds of modesty, and have had opportunities of association with many loose women, especially if they have not wanted the means of satisfying their pecuniary demands. They implant and root this lust in themselves by immoderate and unlimited adulteries, and by shameless thoughts concerning the love of the female sex, and by confirming themselves in the idea that adulteries are not evils, and not at all sins. This lust increases with them as it advances, so much so that they desire all the women in the world, and wish for whole troops, and a fresh one every day. Whereas this love separates itself from the common love of the sex implanted in every man, and altogether from the love of one of the sex, which is conjugial love, and inserts itself into the exteriors of the heart as a delight of love separate from those loves, and yet derived from them; therefore it is so thoroughly rooted in the cuticles, that it remains in the touch when the powers are decayed. Persons addicted to this lust make light of adulteries; wherefore they think of the whole female sex as of a common harlot, and of marriage as of a common harlotry, and thereby mix immodesty in modesty, and from the mixture grow insane. From these considerations it is evident what is here meant by the lust of varieties, that it is the lust of entirely dissolute adultery.

508. II. THAT LUST IS LOVE AND AT THE SAME TIME LOATHING IN REGARD TO THE SEX. Persons addicted to that lust have a love for the sex, because they derive variety from the sex; and they have a loathing for the sex, because after enjoying a woman they reject her and lust after others. This obscene lust burns towards a fresh woman, and after burning, it grows cold towards her; and cold is loathing. That this lust is love and at the same time loathing in regard to the sex, may be illustrated as follows: set on the left side a company of the women whom they have enjoyed, and on the right side a company of those whom they have not; would not they look at the latter company from love, but at the former from loathing? and yet each company is the sex.

509. III. THAT LUST ALTOGETHER ANNIHILATES CONJUGIAL LOVE APPERTAINING TO ITSELF. The reason of this is, because that lust is altogether opposite to conjugial love, and so opposite, that it not only rends it asunder, but as it were grinds it to powder, and thereby annihilates it: for conjugial love is confined to one of the sex; whereas that lust does not stop at one, but within an hour or a day is as intensely cold as it was before hot towards her; and since cold is loathing, the latter by forced cohabitation and dwelling together is so accumulated as to become nauseous, and thus conjugial love is consumed to such a degree that nothing of it is left. From these considerations it may be seen, that this lust is fatal to conjugial love; and as conjugial love constitutes the inmost principle of life with man, that it is fatal to his life; and that that lust, by successive interceptions and closings of the interiors of the mind, at length becomes cuticular, and thus merely alluring; while the faculty of understanding or rationality still remains.

510. IV. THE LOT OF THOSE (WHO HAVE BEEN ADDICTED TO THAT LUST) AFTER DEATH IS MISERABLE, SINCE THEY HAVE NOT THE INMOST PRINCIPLE OF LIFE. Every one has excellence of life according to his conjugial love; for that excellence conjoins itself with the life of the wife, and by conjunction exalts itself; but as with those of whom we are speaking there does not remain the least principle of conjugial love, and consequently not anything of the inmost principle of life, therefore their lot after death is miserable. After passing a certain period of time in their externals, in which they converse rationally and act civilly, they are let into their internals, and in this case into a similar lust and its delights, in the same degree as in the world: for every one after death is let into the same state of life which he had appropriated to himself, to the intent that he may be withdrawn from it; for no one can be withdrawn from this evil, unless he has first been led into it; if he were not to be led into it, the evil would conceal itself, and defile the interiors of the mind, and spread itself as a plague, and would next burst through all barriers and destroy the external principles of the body. For this end there are opened to them brothels, which are on the side of hell, where there are harlots with whom they have an opportunity of varying their lusts; but this is granted with the restriction to one harlot in a day, and under a penalty in case of communication with more than one on the same day. Afterwards, when from examination it appears that that lust is so inbred that they cannot be withdrawn from it, they are conveyed to a certain place which is next above the hell assigned for them, and then they appear to themselves as if they fall into a swoon, and to others as if they fall down with the face upward; and also the ground beneath their backs is actually opened, and they are absorbed, and sink down into hell among their like; thus they are gathered to their own. I have been permitted to see them there, and likewise to converse with them. Among themselves they appear as men, which is granted them lest they should be a terror to their companions; but at a certain distance they seem to have white faces consisting only of skin, and this because they have no spiritual life in them, which every one has according to the conjugial principle sown in him. Their speech is dry, parched, and sorrowful: when they are hungry, they lament; and their lamentations are heard as a peculiar clashing noise. Their garments are tattered, and their lower garments are drawn above the belly round about the breast; because they have no loins, but their ankles commence from the region of the bottom of the belly: the reason of this is, because the loins with men (homines) correspond to conjugial love, and they are void of this love. They said that they loathe the sex on account of their having no potency. Nevertheless, among themselves they can reason as from rationality; but since they are cutaneous, they reason from the fallacies of the senses. This hell is in the western quarter towards the north. These same persons, when seen from afar, appear not as men or as monsters, but as frozen substances. It is however to be observed, that those become of this description who have indulged in the above lust to such a degree as to rend and annihilate in themselves the conjugial human principle.

511. The lust of violation does not mean the lust of defloration, which is the violation of virginities, but not of maidens when it is effected from consent; whereas the lust of violation, which is here treated of, retreats in consequence of consent, and is sharpened in consequence of refusal; and it is the passion of violating all women whatever, who altogether refuse, and violently resist, whether they be maidens, or widows, or wives. Persons addicted to this lust are like robbers and pirates, who are delighted with spoil and plunder, and not with what is given and justly acquired; and they are like malefactors, who covet what is disallowed and forbidden, and despise what is allowed and granted. These violators are altogether averse to consent, and are set on fire by resistance, which if they observe to be not internal, the ardor of their lust is instantly extinguished, as fire is by water thrown upon it. It is well known, that wives do not spontaneously submit themselves to the disposal of their husbands as to the ultimate effects of love, and that from prudence they resist as they would resist violation, to the end that they may take away from their husbands the cold arising from the consideration of enjoyments being cheap in consequence of being continually allowed, and also in consequence of an idea of lasciviousness on their part. These repugnancies, although they enkindle, still are not the causes, but only the beginnings of this lust: its cause is, that after conjugial love and also adulterous love have grown insipid by practice, they are willing, in order that those loves may be repaired, to be set on fire by absolute repugnances. This lust thus begun, afterwards increases, and as it increases it despises and breaks through all bounds of the love of the sex, and exterminates itself, and from a lascivious, corporeal, and fleshly love, becomes cartilaginous and bony; and then, from the periosteurns, which have an acute feeling, it becomes acute. Nevertheless this lust is rare, because it exists only with those who had entered into the married state, and then had lived in the practice of adulteries until they became insipid. Besides this natural cause of this lust, there is also a spiritual cause, of which something will be said in what follows.

512. The lot of persons of this character after death is as follows: these violators then separate themselves from those who are in the limited love of the sex, and altogether from those who are in conjugial love, thus from heaven: afterwards they are sent to the most cunning harlots, who not only by persuasion, but also by imitation perfectly like that of a stage-player, can feign and represent as if they were chastity itself. These harlots clearly discern those who are principled in the above lust: in their presence they speak of chastity and its value; and when the violator comes near and touches them, they are full of wrath, and fly away as through terror into a closet, where there is a couch and a bed, and slightly close the door after them, and recline themselves; and hence by their art they inspire the violator with an ungovernable desire of breaking down the door, of rushing in, and attacking them; and when this is effected, the harlot raising herself erect with the violator begins to fight with her hands and nails, tearing his face, rending his clothes, and with a furious voice crying to the harlots her companions, as to her female servants, for assistance, and opening the window with a loud outcry of thief, robber, and murderer; and when the violator is at hand she bemoans herself and weeps: and after violation she prostrates herself, howls, and calls out that she is undone, and at the same time threatens in a serious tone, that unless he expiates the violation by paying a considerable sum, she will attempt his destruction. While they are engaged in these venereal scenes, they appear at a distance like cats, which nearly in like manner before their conjunctions combat together, run forward, and make an outcry. After some such brothel-contests, they are taken away, and conveyed into a cavern, where they are forced to some work: but as their smell is offensive, in consequence of having rent asunder the conjugial principle, which is the chief jewel of human life, they are sent to the borders of the western quarters, where at a certain distance they appear lean, as if consisting of bones covered over with skin only; but when seen at a distance they appear like panthers. When I was permitted to see them nearer, I was surprised that some of them held books in their hands, and were reading; and I was told that this is the case, because in the world they said various things concerning the spiritual things of the church, and yet defiled them by adulteries, even to their extremities, and that such was the correspondence of this lust with the violation of spiritual marriage. But it is to be observed, that the instances of those who are principled in this lust are rare: certain it is, that women, because it is unbecoming for them to prostitute love, are repugnant thereto, and that repugnance enervates; nevertheless this is not from any lust of violation.

513. The lust of seducing innocencies is neither the lust of defloration, nor the lust of violation, but is peculiar and singular by itself; it prevails more especially with the deceitful. The women, who appear to them as innocencies, are such as regard the evil of adultery as an enormous sin, and who therefore highly prize chastity, and at the same time piety: these women are the objects which set them on fire. In Roman Catholic countries there are maidens devoted to the monastic life; and because they believe these maidens to be pious innocencies above the rest of their sex, they view them as the dainties and delicacies of their lust. With a view of seducing either the latter or the former because they are deceitful, they first devise arts, and next, when they have well digested them, without receiving any check from shame, they practise them as from nature. These arts are principally pretences of innocence, love, chastity, and piety; by these and other cunning stratagems, they enter into the interior friendship of such women, and thence into their love, which they change from spiritual into natural by various persuasions and at the same time by insinuations, and afterwards into corporeal-carnal by irritations, and then they take possession of them at pleasure; and when they have attained this end, they rejoice in heart, and make a mock of those whom they have violated.

514. The lot of these seducers after death is sad, since such seduction is not only impiety, but also malignity. After they have passed through their first period in the spiritual world, which is in externals, wherein they excel many others in the elegance of their manners and the courteousness of their speech, they are reduced to another period of their life, which is in internals, wherein their lust is set at liberty, and commences its sport; and then they are first conveyed to women who had made vows of chastity, and with these they are examined as to the quality of their malignant concupiscence, to the intent that they may not be judged except on conviction: when they are made sensible of the chastity of those women, their deceit begins to act, and to attempt its crafty arts; but as this is to no purpose, they depart from them. They are afterwards introduced to women of genuine innocence; and when they attempt to deceive these in like manner, by virtue of a power given to those women, they are heavily fined; for they occasion in their hands and feet a grievous numbness; likewise in their necks, and at length make them feel as it were a swoon; and when they have inflicted this punishment, they run away and escape from the sufferers. After this there is a way opened to them to a certain company of courtezans, who have been versed in the art of cunningly feigning innocence: and these first expose them to laughter among themselves, and at length after various engagements suffer themselves to be violated. After some such scenes, a third period takes place, which is that of judgement; and in this case, being convicted, they sink down, and are gathered to their like in the hell which is in the northern quarter, and there they appear at a distance like weasels; but if they have allured by deceit, they are conveyed down from this hell to that of the deceitful, which is in the western quarter at a depth to the back; in this hell they appear at a distance like serpents of various kinds; and the most deceitful like vipers: but in the hell into which I was permitted to look, they appeared to me as if they were ghastly pale, with faces of chalk: and as they are mere concupiscences, they do not like to speak: and if they do speak, they only mutter and stammer various things, which are understood by none but their companions who are near them; but presently, as they sit or stand, they make themselves unseen, and fly about in the cavern like phantoms; for on this occasion they are in phantasy, and phantasy appears to fly: after flying they rest themselves, and then, what is wonderful, one does not know another; the cause of this is, because they are principled in deceit, and deceit does not believe another, and thereby withdraws itself. When they are made sensible of any thing proceeding from conjugial love, they fly away into hiding places and conceal themselves. They are also void of all love of the sex, and are real impotencies, and are called infernal genii.

515. I should here say something, in the way of preface, concerning correspondence; but the subject does not properly belong to the present work. The nature and meaning of correspondence may be seen in a brief summary above, n. 76, and n. 342; and fully in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, from beginning to end, that it is between the natural sense of the Word and the spiritual sense. That in the Word there is a natural and a spiritual sense, and a correspondence between them, has been demonstrated in the DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE, and especially, n. 5-26.

516. The spiritual marriage means the marriage of the Lord and the church, spoken of above, n. 116-131; and hence also the marriage of good and truth, likewise spoken of above, n. 83-102; and as this marriage of the Lord and the church, and the consequent marriage of good and truth, is in everything of the Word, it is the violation of this which is here meant by the violation of the spiritual marriage; for the church is from the Word, and the Word is the Lord: the Lord is the Word, because he is divine good and divine truth therein. That the Word is that marriage, may be seen fully confirmed in the DOCTRINE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM CONCERNING THE SACRED SCRIPTURE, n. 80-90.

517. Since therefore the violation of the spiritual marriage is the violation of the Word, it is evident that this violation is the adulteration of good and the falsification of truth, for the spiritual marriage is the marriage of good and truth; whence it follows, that when the good of the Word is adulterated, and its truth falsified, the above marriage is violated. How this violation is effected, and by whom, is in some measure evident from what follows.

518. Above, in treating of the marriage of the Lord and the church, n. 116, and the following numbers, and in treating of the marriage of good and truth, n. 83, and the following numbers, it was shewn, that that marriage corresponds to marriages in the world: hence it follows, that the violation of that marriage corresponds to whoredoms and adulteries. That this is the case, is very manifest from the Word itself, in that whoredoms and adulteries there signify the falsifications of truth and the adulterations of good, as may be plainly seen from numerous passages adduced out of the Word in the APOCALYPSE REVEALED, n. 134.

519. The Word is violated by those in the Christian church who adulterate its goods and truths; and those do this who separate truth from good and good from truth; also, who assume and confirm appearances of truth and fallacies for genuine truths; and likewise, who know truths of doctrine derived from the Word, and live evil lives, not to mention other like cases. These violations of the Word and the church correspond to the prohibited degrees, mentioned in Levit, chap. xviii.

520. As the natural principle and the spiritual appertaining to every man (homo), cohere as soul and body, (for a man without the spiritual principle which flows into and vivifies his natural principle, is not a man), it hence follows, that whoever is in spiritual marriage is also in happy natural marriage; and on the contrary, that whoever is in spiritual adultery is also in natural adultery, and whoever is in natural adultery is also in spiritual adultery. Now since all who are in hell are in the nuptial connection of evil and the false, and this is essential spiritual adultery; and all who are in heaven are in the marriage of good and truth, and this is essential marriage; therefore hell in the total is called adultery, and heaven in the total is called marriage.

521. To the above shall be added this MEMORABLE RELATION. My sight being opened, I saw a shady forest, and therein a crowd of satyrs: the satyrs as to their breasts were rough and hairy, and as to their feet some were like calves, some like panthers, and some like wolves, and they had beasts' claws instead of toes. These were running to and fro like wild beasts, crying out, "Where are the women?" and instantly I saw some harlots who were expecting them, and who in various ways were monstrous. The satyrs ran towards them, and laid hold of them, dragging them into a cavern, which was in the midst of the forest deep beneath the earth; and upon the ground round about the cavern lay a great serpent in spiral foldings, breathing poison into the cavern: in the branches of the forest above the serpent dismal birds of night croaked and screeched. But the satyrs and harlots did not see these things, because they were the correspondences of their lasciviousnesses, and therefore their usual appearances at a distance. Afterwards they came out of the cavern, and entered a certain low cottage, which was a brothel; and then being separated from the harlots they talked together, and I listened; for conversation in the spiritual world may be heard by a distant person as if he was present, the extent of space in that world being only an appearance. They talked about marriages, nature, and religion. Those who as to the feet appeared like calves, spoke concerning MARRIAGES, and said, "What are marriages but licit adulteries? and what is sweeter than adulterous hypocrisies, and the making fools of husbands?" At this the rest clapped their hands with a loud laugh. The satyrs who as to the feet appeared as panthers, spoke concerning NATURE, and said, "What is there but nature? What distinction is there between a man and a beast, except that a man can speak articulately and a beast sonorously? Does not each derive life from heat, and understanding from light, by the operation of nature?" Hereupon the rest exclaimed, "Admirable! you speak from judgement." Those who as to the feet appeared like wolves, spoke concerning RELIGION, saying, "What is God or a divine principle, but the inmost principles of nature in action? What is religion but a device to catch and bind the vulgar?" Hereupon the rest vociferated, "Bravo!" After a few minutes they rushed forth, and in so doing they saw me at a distance looking attentively at them. Being provoked at this, they ran out from the forest, and with a threatening countenance directed their course hastily towards me, and said, "What are you doing here, listening to our whispers?" I replied, "Why should I not? what is to hinder me? you were only talking together:" and I related what I had heard from them. Hereupon their minds (animi) were appeased, which was through fear lest their sentiments should be divulged; and then they began to speak modestly and to act bashfully; from which circumstance I knew that they were not of mean descent but of honorable birth; and then I told them, how I saw them in the forest as satyrs, twenty as calf-satyrs, six as panther-satyrs, and four as wolf-satyrs; they were thirty in number. They were surprised at this, because they saw themselves there as men, and nothing else, in like manner as they saw themselves here with me. I then taught them, that the reason of their so appearing was from their adulterous lust, and that this satyr-like form was a form of dissolute adultery, and not a form of a person. This happened, I said, because every evil concupiscence presents a likeness of itself in some form, which is not perceived by those who are in the concupiscence, but by those who are at a distance: I also said, "To convince you of it, send some from among you into that forest, and do you remain here, and look at them." They did so, and sent away two; and viewing them from near the above brothel-cottage, they saw them altogether as satyrs; and when they returned, they saluted those satyrs, and said, "Oh what ridiculous figures!" While they were laughing, I jested a good deal with them, and told them that I had also seen adulterers as hogs; and then I recollected the fable of Ulysses and the Circe, how she sprinkled the companions and servants of Ulysses with poisonous herbs, and touched them with a magic wand, and turned them into hogs,—perhaps into adulterers, because she could not by any art turn any one into a hog. After they had made themselves exceedingly merry on this and other like subjects, I asked them whether they then knew to what kingdoms in the world they had belonged? They said, they had belonged to various kingdoms, and they named Italy, Poland, Germany, England, Sweden; and I enquired, whether they had seen any one from Holland of their party? And they said, Not one. After this I gave the conversation a serious turn, and asked them, whether they had ever thought that adultery is sin? They replied, "What is sin? we do not know what it means." I then inquired, whether they ever remembered that adultery was contrary to the sixth commandment of the Decalogue. [Footnote: According to the division of the commandments adopted by the Church of England, it is the seventh that is here referred to.] They replied, "What is the Decalogue? Is not it the catechism? What have we men to do with that childish pamphlet?" I asked them, whether they had ever thought at all about hell. They replied, "Who ever came up thence to give us information?" I asked, whether they had ever thought at all in the world about a life after death. They said, "Just as much as about the future life of beasts, and at times as about phantoms, which exhale from dead bodies and float about." I further asked them, whether they had heard any thing from the priests on any of these subjects. They replied, that they had attended only to the sound of their voices, and not to the matter; and what is it? Being astonished at these answers, I said to them, "Turn your faces, and direct your eyes to the midst of the forest, where the cavern is in which you have been;" and they turned themselves, and saw that great serpent around the cavern in spiral foldings, breathing poison, and also the doleful birds in the branches over the serpents. I then asked them, "What do you see?" But being much terrified, they did not answer; and I said, "Do you see the dreadful sight? Know then that this is a representative of adultery in the baseness of its lust." Suddenly at that instant an angel presented himself, who was a priest, and opened the hell in the western quarter into which such spirits are at length collected; and he said, "Look thither:" and they saw that firy lake, and knew there some of their friends in the world, who invited them to themselves. Having seen and heard these things, they turned themselves away, and rushed out of my sight, and retired from the forest; but I observed their steps, that they only pretended to retire, and that by winding ways they returned into the forest.

522. After this I returned home, and the next day, from a recollection of these sad scenes, I looked to the same forest, and saw that it had disappeared, and in its place there was a sandy plain, and in the midst thereof a lake, in which were some red serpents. But some weeks after when I was looking thither again, I saw on its right side some fallow land, and upon it some husbandmen; and again, after some weeks I saw springing out of that fallow land some tilled land surrounded with shrubs; and I then heard a voice from heaven, "Enter into your chamber, and shut the door, and apply to the work begun on the Apocalypse, and finish it within two years."

523. THE LORD SAITH, JUDGE NOT, THAT YE BE NOT CONDEMNED, Matt. vii. 1; which cannot in any wise mean judgement respecting any one's moral and civil life in the world, but respecting his spiritual and celestial life. Who does not see, that unless a man was allowed to judge respecting the moral life of those who live with him in the world, society would perish? What would society be if there were no public judicature, and if every one did not exercise his judgement respecting another? But to judge what is the quality of the interior mind, or soul, thus what is the quality of any one's spiritual state, and thence what his lot is after death, is not allowed; for that is known only to the Lord: neither does the Lord reveal this till after the person's decease, to the intent that every one may act freely in whatever he does, and thereby that good or evil may be from him, and thus be in him, and that thence he may live to himself and live his own to eternity. The reason why the interiors of the mind, which are kept hid in the world, are revealed after death is, because this is of importance and advantage to the societies into which the man then comes; for in them all are spiritual. That those interiors are then revealed, is plain from these words of the Lord: There is nothing concealed, which shall not be revealed, or hidden, which shall not be known: therefore whatsoever things ye have said in darkness, shall be heard in light: and that which ye have spoken into the ear in closets shall be preached on the house-tops, Luke xii. 2, 3. A common judgement, as this for instance,—"If you are such in internals as you appear to be in externals, you will be saved or condemned," is allowed; but a particular judgement, as this, for instance,—"You are such in internals, therefore you will be saved or condemned," is not allowed. Judgement concerning the spiritual life of a man, or the internal life of the soul, is meant by the imputation which is here treated of. Can any human being know and decide who is in heart an adulterer, and who a conjugial partner? And yet the thoughts of the heart, which are the purposes of the will, judge every one. But we will explain this subject in the following order: I. The evil in which every one is principled is imputed to him after death; and so also the good. II. The transference of the good of one person into another is impossible. III. Imputation, if by it is meant such transference, is a frivolous term. IV. Evil is imputed to every one according to the quality of his will and his understanding; in like manner good. V. Thus adulterous love is imputed to every one. VI. In like manner conjugial love. We proceed to the explanation of each article.

524. I. THE EVIL IN WHICH EVERY ONE IS PRINCIPLED, IS IMPUTED TO HIM AFTER DEATH; AND SO ALSO THE GOOD. To make this proposition in some degree evident, it shall be considered according to the following arrangement: 1. That every one has a life peculiar to himself. 2. That every one's life remains with him after death. 3. That to an evil person is then imputed the evil of his life, and to a good person the good of his life. As to the first point,—that everyone has a life peculiar to himself, thus distinct from that of another, it is well known; for there is a perpetual variety, and there is not any thing the same as another, consequently everyone has his own peculiar principle. This is evident from men's faces, the faces of no two persons being absolutely alike, nor can there be two alike to eternity: the reason of this is, because there are no two minds (animi) alike, and faces are derived from minds; for the face, as it is said, is a type of the mind, and the mind derives its origin and form from the life. Unless a man (homo) had a life peculiar to himself, as he has a mind and a face peculiar to himself, he would not have any life after death, separate from that of another; yea, neither would there be a heaven, for heaven consists of perpetual varieties; its form is derived solely from the varieties of souls and minds arranged into such an order as to make a one; and they make a one from the One, whose life is in every thing therein as the soul is in a man: unless this was the case, heaven would be dispersed, because form would be dissolved. The One from whom all things have life, and from whom form coheres, is the Lord. In general every form consists of various things, and is such as is their harmonic co-ordination and arrangement to a one: such is the human form; and hence it is that a man, consisting of so many members, viscera, and organs, is not sensible of any thing in himself and from himself but as of a one. As to the SECOND point,—that every one's life remains with him after death, it is known in the church from these passages of the Word: The Son of Man will come and will then render to every one according to his deeds, Matt. xvi. 27. I saw the books open; and all were judged according to their works, Rev. xx. 12. In the day of judgement God will render to every one according to his works, Rom. ii. 6; 2 Cor. v. 10. The works, according to which it will be rendered to every one, are the life, because the life does the works, and they are according to the life. As I have been permitted for several years to be associated with angels, and to converse with the deceased, I can testify for certain, that every one is then examined as to the quality of the life which he has led, and that the life which he has contracted in the world abides with him to eternity. I have conversed with those who lived ages ago, whose life I have been acquainted with from history, and I have known it to be like the description given of it; and I have heard from the angels, that no one's life after death can be changed, because it is organized according to his love and consequent works; and that if it were changed the organization would be rent asunder, which cannot be done in any case; also that a change of organization can only be effected in the material body, and is utterly impossible in the spiritual body, after the former has been laid aside. In regard to the THIRD point—that to an evil person is then imputed the evil of his life, and to a good person the good of his life, it is to be observed, that the imputation of evil is not accusation, inculpation, and judication, as in the world, but evil itself produces this effect; for the evil freely separate themselves from the good, since they cannot remain together. The delights of the love of evil are different from those of the love of good; and delights exhale from every one, as odors do from every vegetable in the world; for they are not absorbed and concealed by the material body as heretofore, but flow freely from their loves into the spiritual aura; and as evil is there made sensible as in its odor, it is in this which accuses, fixes blame, and judges,—not before any judge, but before every one who is principled in good; and this is what is meant by imputation. Moreover, an evil person chooses companions with whom he may live in his delights; and because he is averse from the delight of good, he spontaneously betakes himself to his own in hell. The imputation of good is effected in like manner, and takes place with those who in the world have acknowledged that all good in them is from the Lord, and nothing from themselves. These, after they have been prepared, are let into the interior delights of good, and then there is opened to them a way into heaven, to the society where its homogeneous delights are: this is effected by the Lord.

525. II. THE TRANSFERENCE OF THE GOOD OF ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER IS IMPOSSIBLE. The evidence of this proposition may also be seen from the following points: 1. That every man is born in evil. 2. That he is led into good by regeneration from the Lord. 3. That this is effected by a life according to his precepts. 4. Wherefore good, when it is thus implanted, cannot be transferred. The FIRST point,—that every man is born in evil, is well known in the church. It is generally said that this evil is derived hereditarily from Adam; but it is from a man's parents. Every one derives from his parents his peculiar temper, which is his inclination. That this is the case, is evinced both by reason and experience; for the likenesses of parents as to face, genius, and manners, appear extant in their immediate offspring and in their posterity; hence families are known by many, and a judgement is also formed concerning their minds (animi); wherefore the evils which parents themselves have contracted, and which they have transmitted to their offspring, are the evils in which men are born. The reason why it is believed that the guilt of Adam is inscribed on all the human race, is, because few reflect upon any evil with themselves, and thence know it; wherefore they suppose that it is so deeply hid as to appear only in the sight of God. In regard to the SECOND point,—that a man is led into good by regeneration from the Lord, it is to be observed that there is such a thing as regeneration, and that unless a person be regenerated, he cannot enter into heaven, as appears clearly from the Lord's words in John iii. 3, 5. The regeneration consists in purification from evils, and thereby renovation of life, cannot be unknown in the Christian world; for reason also sees this when it acknowledges that every one is born in evil, and that evil cannot be washed and wiped away like filth by soap and water, but by repentance. As to the THIRD point,—that a man is led into good by the Lord, by a life according to his precepts, it is plain from this consideration, that there are live precepts of regeneration; see above, n. 82; among which are these,—that evils are to be shunned, because they are of and from the devil, and that goods are to be done, because they are of and from God; and that men ought to go to the Lord, in order that he may lead them to do the latter. Let any one consult himself and consider, whether a man derives good from any other source; and if he has not good, he has not salvation. In regard to the FOURTH point,—that good, when it is thus implanted, cannot be transferred, (that is, the good of one person into another,) it is evident from what has been already said; for from that it follows, that a man by regeneration is made altogether new as to his spirit, which is effected by a life according to the Lord's precepts. Who does not see that this renewing can only be effected from time to time, in nearly the same manner as a tree successively takes root and grows from a seed, and is perfected? Those who have other perceptions of regeneration, do not know any thing about the state of man, or about evil and good, which two are altogether opposite, and that good can only be implanted so far as evil is removed; nor do they know, that so long as any one is in evil, he is averse from the good which in itself is good; wherefore if the good of one should be transferred into any one who is in evil, it would be as if a lamb should be cast before a wolf, or as if a pearl should be tied to a swine's snout: from which considerations it is evident, that any such transfer is impossible.

526. III. IMPUTATION, IF BY IT IS MEANT SUCH TRANSFERENCE, IS A FRIVOLOUS TERM. That the evil in which every one is principled, is imputed to him after death, and so also the good, was proved above, n. 524; hence it is evident what is meant by imputation: but if by imputation is meant the tranference of good into any one that is in evil, it is a frivolous term, because any such transference is impossible, as was also proved above, n. 525. In the world, merits may as it were be transferred by men; that is, good may be done to children for the sake of their parents, or to the friends of any client out of favor; but the good of merit cannot be inscribed on their souls, but only be externally adjoined. The like is not possible with men as to their spiritual life: this, as was shewn above, must be implanted; and if it is not implanted by a life according to the Lord's precepts, as above-mentioned, a man remains in the evil in which he was born. Before such implantation, it is impossible for any good to reach him, or if it reaches him, it is instantly struck back and rebounds like an elastic ball falling upon a rock, or it is absorbed like a diamond thrown into a bog. A man not reformed as to the Spirit, is like a panther or an owl, and may be compared to a bramble and a nettle; but a man regenerated is like a sheep or a dove, and may be compared to an olive and a vine. Consider, I pray, if you are so disposed, how can a man-panther be changed into a man-sheep, or an owl into a dove, or a bramble into an olive, or a nettle into a vine, by any imputation, if by it is meant transference? In order that such a change may be effected is it not necessary that the ferine principle of the panther and the owl, or the noxious principle of the bramble and the nettle, be first taken away, and thereby the truly human and innocent principle be implanted? How this is effected, the Lord also teaches in John, chap. xv. 1-7.

527. IV. EVIL OR GOOD IS IMPUTED TO EVERY ONE ACCORDING TO THE QUALITY OF HIS WILL AND HIS UNDERSTANDING. It is well known that there are two principles which make a man's life, the will and the understanding; and that all things which a man does, are done from his will and his understanding; and that without these acting principles he would have neither action nor speech other than as a machine; hence it is evident, that such as are a man's will and understanding, such is the man; and further, that a man's action in itself is such as is the affection of his will which produces it, and that a man's conversation in itself is such as is the thought of his understanding which produces it: wherefore several men may act and speak alike, and yet they act and speak differently: one from a depraved will and thought, the other from an upright will and thought. From these considerations it is evident that by the deeds or works according to which every one will be judged, are meant the will and the understanding; consequently that evil works means the works of an evil will, whatever has been their appearance in externals, and that good works mean the works of a good will, although in externals they have appeared like the works done by an evil man. All things which are done from a man's interior will, are done from purpose, since that will proposes to itself what it acts by its intention; and all things which are done from the understanding, are done from confirmation, since the understanding confirms. From these considerations it may appear, that evil or good is imputed to every one according to the quality of his will therein, and of his understanding concerning them. These observations I am allowed to confirm by the following relation: In the spiritual world I have met several who in the natural world had lived like others, being sumptuous in their dress, giving costly entertainments, frequenting the exhibitions of the stage, jesting loosely on love topics, with other similar practices; and yet the angels accounted those things as evils of sin to some, and not to others, declaring the latter guiltless, and the former guilty. Being questioned why they did so, when all had done alike, they replied that they regard all from their purpose, intention, or end, and distinguish accordingly; and that therefore they excuse or condemn those whom the end either excuses or condemns, since an end of good influences all in heaven, and an end of evil all in hell.

528. To the above I will add the following observation: it is said in the church that no one can fulfil the law, and the less so, because he that offends against one precept of the decalogue, offends against all: but this form of speaking is not such as it sounds; for it is to be understood thus, that he who, from purpose or confirmation, acts against one precept, acts against the rest; since to act so from purpose or confirmation is to deny that it is a sin; and he who denies that it is a sin, makes nothing of acting against the rest of the precepts. Who does not know, that he that is an adulterer is not on that account a murderer, a thief, and a false witness, or wishes to be so? But he that is a determined and confirmed adulterer makes no account of anything respecting religion, thus neither does he make any account of murder, theft, and false witness; and he abstains from these evils, not because they are sins, but because he is afraid of the law and of the loss of reputation. That determined and confirmed adulterers make no account of the holy things of the church and religion, may be seen above, n. 490-493, and in the two MEMORABLE RELATIONS, n. 500, 521, 522: it is a similar case, if any one, from purpose or confirmation, acts against any other precept of the decalogue; he also acts against the rest because he does not regard anything as sin.

529. The case is similar with those who are principled in good from the Lord: if these from will and understanding, or from purpose and confirmation, abstain from any one evil because it is a sin, they abstain from all evil, and the more so still if they abstain from several; for as soon as any one, from purpose or confirmation, abstains from any evil because it is a sin, he is kept by the Lord in the purpose of abstaining from the rest: wherefore, if unwittingly, or from any prevailing bodily concupiscence, he does evil, still this is not imputed to him, because he did not purpose it to himself, and does not confirm it with himself. A man comes into this purpose, if once or twice in a year he examines himself, and repents of the evils which he discovers in himself: it is otherwise with him who never examines himself. From these considerations it evidently appears to whom sin is not imputed, and to whom it is.

530. V. THUS ADULTEROUS LOVE IS IMPUTED TO EVERY ONE;—not according to his deeds, such as they appear externally before men, nor either such as they appear before a judge, but such as they appear internally before the Lord, and from him before the angels, which is according to the quality of a man's will and of his understanding therein. Various circumstances exist in the world which mitigate and excuse crimes, also which aggravate and charge them upon the perpetrator: nevertheless, imputations after death take place, not according to the external circumstances of the deed, but according to the internal circumstances of the mind; and these are viewed according to the state of the church with every one: as for example, a man impious in will and understanding, that is, who has no fear of God or love of his neighbour, and consequently no reverence for any sanctity of the church,—he, after death, becomes guilty of all the crimes which he did in the body; nor is there any remembrance of his good actions, since his heart, from whence as from a fountain those things flowed, was averse from heaven, and turned to hell; and deeds flow from the place of the habitation of every one's heart. In order that this may be understood, I will mention an arcanum: Heaven is distinguished into innumerable societies, and so is hell, from an opposite principle; and the mind of every man, according to his will and consequent understanding, actually dwells in one society, and intends and thinks like those who compose the society. If the mind be in any society of heaven, it then intends and thinks like those who compose that society; if it be in any society of hell, it intends and thinks like those who are in the same society; but so long as a man lives in the world, so long he wanders from one society to another, according to the changes of the affections of his will and of the consequent thoughts of his mind: but after death his wanderings are collected into one, and a place is accordingly allotted him, in hell if he is evil, in heaven if he is good. Now since all in hell are influenced by a will of evil, all there are viewed from that will; and since all in heaven are influenced by will of good, all there are viewed from that will; wherefore imputations after death take place according to the quality of every one's will and understanding. The case is similar with adulteries, whether they be fornications, whoredoms, concubinages, or adulteries; for those things are imputed to every one, not according to the deeds themselves, but according to the state of the mind in the deeds; for deeds follow the body into the tomb, whereas the mind rises again.

531. VI. THUS CONJUGIAL LOVE IS IMPUTED TO EVERY ONE. There are marriages in which conjugial love does not appear, and yet is: and there are marriages in which conjugial love appears and yet is not: there are several causes in both cases, which may be known in part from what was related concerning love truly conjugial, n. 57-73; concerning the cause of colds and separations, n. 234-260; and concerning the causes of apparent love and friendship in marriages, n. 271-292: but external appearances decide nothing concerning imputation; the only thing which decides is the conjugial principle, which abides in every one's will, and is guarded, in whatever state of marriage a man is. The conjugial principle is like a scale, in which that love is weighed; for the conjugial principle of one man with one wife is the storehouse of human life, and the reservoir of the Christian religion, as was shewn above, n. 457, 458; and this being the case, it is possible that that love may exist with one married partner, and not at the same time with the other; and that it may lie deeper hid than that the man (homo) himself can observe any thing concerning it; and also it may be inscribed in a successive progress of the life. The reason of this is, because that love in its progress accompanies religion, and religion, as it is the marriage of the Lord and the church, is the beginning and inoculation of that love; wherefore conjugial love is imputed to every one after death according to his spiritual rational life; and for him to whom that love is imputed, a marriage in heaven is provided after his decease, whatever has been his marriage in the world. From these considerations then results this short concluding observation, that no inference is to be drawn concerning any one, from appearances of marriages or of adulteries, whereby to decide that he has conjugial love, or not; wherefore Judge not, lest ye be condemned. Matt. vii. 1.

532. To the above I will add the following MEMORABLE RELATION. I was once raised, as to my spirit, into one of the societies of the angelic heaven; and instantly some of the wise men of the society came to me, and said, "What news from the earth?" I replied, "This is new; the Lord has revealed arcana which in point of excellence surpass all the arcana heretofore revealed since the beginning of the church." They asked, "What are they?" I said, "The following: 1. That in every part of the Word there is a spiritual sense corresponding to the natural sense; and that by means of the former sense the men of the church have conjunction with the Lord and consociation with angels; and that the sanctity of the Word resides therein. 2. That the correspondences are discovered of which the spiritual sense of the Word consists." The angels asked, "Have the inhabitants of the earth had no previous knowledge respecting correspondences?" I said, "None at all;" and that the doctrine of correspondences had been concealed for some thousands of years, ever since the time of Job; and that with those who lived at that time, and before it, the science of correspondences was their chief science, whence they derived wisdom, because they derived knowledge respecting the spiritual things of heaven and the church; but that this science, on account of its being made idolatrous, was so extirpated and destroyed by the divine providence of the Lord that no visible traces of it were left remaining; that nevertheless at this time it has been again discovered by the Lord, in order that the men of the church may have conjunction with him, and consociation with the angels; which purposes are effected by the Word, in which all things are correspondences. The angels rejoiced exceedingly to hear that it has pleased the Lord to reveal this great arcanum, which had lain so deeply hid for some thousands of years; and they said it was done in order that the Christian church, which is founded on the Word, and is now at its end, may again revive and draw breath through heaven from the Lord. They inquired whether by that science it is at this day discovered what are signified by baptism and the holy supper, which have heretofore given birth to so many various conjectures about their true meaning. I replied, that it is. 3. I said further, that a revelation has been made at this day by the Lord concerning the life of man after death? The angels said, "What concerning the life after death? Who does not know that a man lives after death?" I replied, "They know it, and they do not know it: they say that it is not the man that lives after death, but his soul, and that this lives a spirit; and the idea they have of a spirit is as of wind or ether, and that it does not live a man till after the day of the last judgement, at which time the corporeal parts, which had been left in the world, will be recollected and again fitted together into a body, notwithstanding their having been eaten by worms, mice, and fish; and that thus men will rise again." The angels said, "What a notion is this! Who does not know that a man lives a man after death, with this difference alone, that he then lives a spiritual man, and that a spiritual man sees a spiritual man, as a material man sees a material man, and that they know no distinction, except that they are in a more perfect state?" 4. The angels inquired, "What do they know concerning our world, and concerning heaven and hell?" I said, "Nothing at all; but at this day it has been revealed by the Lord, what is the nature and quality of the world in which angels and spirits live, thus what is the quality of heaven and of hell; and further, that angels and spirits are in conjunction with men; besides many wonderful things respecting them." The angels were glad to hear that it has pleased the Lord to reveal such things, that men may no longer be in doubt through ignorance respecting their immortality. 5. I further said, that at this day it has been revealed from the Lord, that in your world there is a sun, different from that of our world, and that the sun of your world is pure love, and the sun of our world is pure fire; and that on this account, whatever proceeds from your sun, since it is pure love, partakes of life, and whatever proceeds from our sun, since it is pure fire, does not partake of life; and that hence is the difference between spiritual and natural, which difference, heretofore unknown, has been also revealed: hereby also is made known the source of the light which enlightens the human understanding with wisdom, and the source of the heat which kindles the human will with heat. 6. It has been further discovered, that there are three degrees of life, and that hence there are three heavens; and that the human mind is distinguished into those degrees, and that hence man (homo) corresponds to the three heavens. The angels said, "Did not they know this heretofore?" I answered, "They were acquainted with a distinction of degrees in relation to greater and less, but not in relation to prior and posterior." 7. The angels inquired whether any other things have been revealed? I replied "Several; namely, concerning the last judgement: concerning the Lord, that he is God of heaven and earth; that God is one both in person and essence, in whom there is a divine trinity; and that he is the Lord: also concerning the new church to be established by him, and concerning the doctrine of that church; concerning the sanctity of the sacred scripture; that the Apocalypse also has been revealed, which could not be revealed even as to a single verse except by the Lord; moreover concerning the inhabitants of the planets, and the earths in the universe; besides several memorable and wonderful relations from the spiritual world, whereby several things relating to wisdom have been revealed from heaven."

533. The angels were exceedingly rejoiced at this information; but they perceived that I was sorrowful, and asked the cause of my sorrow. I said, because the above arcana, at this day revealed by the Lord, although in excellence and worth exceeding all the knowledges heretofore published, are yet considered on earth as of no value. The angels wondered at this, and besought the Lord that they might be allowed to look down into the world: they did so, and lo! mere darkness was therein: and they were told, that those arcana should be written on a paper, which should be let down to the earth, and they would see a prodigy: and it was done so; and lo! the paper on which those arcana were written, was let down from heaven, and in its progress, while it was in the world of spirits, it shone as a bright star; but when it descended into the natural world, the light disappeared, and it was darkened in the degree to which it fell: and while it was let down by the angels in companies consisting of men of learning and erudition, both clergy and laity, there was heard a murmur from many, in which were these expressions, "What have we here? Is it any thing or nothing? What matters it whether we know these things or not? Are they not mere creatures of the brain?" And it appeared as if some of them took the paper and folded it, rolling and unrolling it with their fingers, that they might deface the writing; and it appeared as if some tore it in pieces, and some were desirous to trample it under their feet: but they were prevented by the Lord from proceeding to such enormity, and charge was given to the angels to draw it back and secure it: and as the angels were affected with sadness, and thought with themselves how long this was to be the case, it was said, For a time, and times, and half a time, Rev. xii. 14.

534. After this I conversed with the angels, informing them that somewhat further is revealed in the world by the Lord. They asked, "What?" I said, "Concerning love truly conjugial and its heavenly delights." The angels said, "Who does not know that the delights of conjugial love exceed those of all other loves? and who cannot see, that into some love are collected all the blessednesses, satisfactions, and delights, which can possibly be conferred by the Lord, and that the receptacle thereof is love truly conjugial, which is capable of receiving and perceiving them fully and sensibly?" I replied, "They do not know this, because they have not come to the Lord, and lived according to his precepts, by shunning evils as sins and doing goods; and love truly conjugial with its delights is solely from the Lord, and is given to those who live according to his precepts; thus it is given to those who are received into the Lord's new church, which is meant in the Apocalypse by the New Jerusalem." To this I added, "I am in doubt whether in the world at this day they are willing to believe that this love in itself is a spiritual love, and hence grounded in religion, because they entertain only a corporeal idea respecting it." Then they said to me, "Write respecting it, and follow revelation; and afterwards the book written respecting it shall be sent down from us out of heaven, and we shall see whether the things contained in it are received; and at the same time whether they are willing to acknowledge, that that love is according to the state of religion with man, spiritual with the spiritual, natural with the natural, and merely carnal with adulterers."

535. After this I heard an outrageous murmur from below, and at the same time these words, "Do miracles; and we will believe you." And I asked, "Are not the things above-mentioned miracles?" Answer was made, "They are not." I again asked, "What miracles then do you mean?" And it was said, "Disclose and reveal things to come; and we will have faith." But I replied, "Such disclosures and revelation are not granted from heaven; since in proportion as a man knows things to come, in the same proportion his reason and understanding, together with his wisdom and prudence, fall into an indolence of inexertion, grow torpid, and decay." Again I asked, "What other miracles shall I do?" And a cry was made, "Do such miracles as Moses did in Egypt." To this I answered, "Possibly you may harden your hearts against them as Pharaoh and the Egyptians did." And reply was made, "We will not." But again I said, "Assure me of a certainty, that you will not dance about a golden calf and adore it, as the posterity of Jacob did within a month after they had seen the whole Mount Sinai on fire, and heard Jehovah himself speaking out of the fire, thus after the greatest of all miracles;" (a golden calf in the spiritual sense denotes the pleasure of the flesh;) and reply was made from below, "We will not be like the posterity of Jacob." But at that instant I heard it said to them from heaven, "If ye believe not Moses and the prophets,—that is, the Word of the Lord, ye will not believe from miracles, any more than the sons of Jacob did in the wilderness, nor any more than they believed when they saw with their own eyes the miracles done by the Lord himself, while he was in the world."

"At last the little doctor told them that I was an English prisoner, whom the young French officer (who was with us) had in custody. Their merriment immediately gave place to pity.

"'Ah, the poor fellow!' said one to another, 'he is merry, however, in all his trouble,'

"'And what will they do with him?' said a young woman to the traveler.

"'Oh, nothing of consequence,' replied he; 'perhaps shoot him or cut off his head.'

"The honest souls seemed quite distressed for me, and when I mentioned that I was thirsty, a bottle of wine was immediately placed before me, nor could I prevail on them to take a recompense. In short, I departed, loaded with their good wishes and benedictions, and I suppose I furnished a theme of conversation throughout the village."

Years afterward, when Mr. Irving was minister to Spain, he went some miles out of his way to visit this town. Says he:

"As my carriage rattled through the quiet streets of Tonneins, and the postilion smacked his whip with the French love of racket, I looked out for the house where, forty years before, I had seen the quilting party. I believe I recognized the house; and I saw two or three old women, who might once have formed part of the merry group of girls; but I doubt whether they recognized in the stout, elderly gentleman, who thus rattled in his carriage through their streets, the pale young English prisoner of forty years since."

* * * * *

In this manner he wandered about for nearly two years. He visited Genoa, the birthplace of Columbus, and climbed Mount Vesuvius. He dined with Madame de Stael, the famous author of "Corinne." At Rome he met Washington Allston, the great American painter, then a young man not much older than he. They became good friends, and Allston afterward illustrated some of Irving's works. Irving was tempted to remain in Rome and become a painter like Allston. But he finally decided that he did not have any special talent for art, and went home to finish his study of law.

CHAPTER V

"SALMAGUNDI"

Washington Irving returned to New York, quite restored to health; and there he soon became a social hero. Trips to Europe were so uncommon in those days that to have made one was a distinction in itself. Besides, Irving was now a polished young gentleman, very fond of amusement; and having become a lawyer with little to do, he made up his mind to enjoy himself.

He and his brother Peter, with a number of young men about the same age, called themselves "the nine worthies," or the "lads of Kilkenny," and many a gay time they had together,—rather too gay, some people thought. One of their favorite resorts was an old family mansion, which had descended from a deceased uncle to one of the nine lads. It was on the banks of the Passaic river, about a mile from Newark, New Jersey. It was full of antique furniture, and the walls were adorned with old family portraits. The place was in charge of an old man and his wife and a negro boy, who were the sole occupants, except when the nine would sally forth from New York and enliven its solitudes with their madcap pranks and orgies.

"'Who would have thought," said Irving at the age of sixty-three to another of those nine lads, "that we should ever have lived to be two such respectable old gentlemen!"

About this time Irving and a friend named James K. Paulding proposed to start a paper, to be called "Salmagundi." It was an imitation of Addison's Spectator, and consisted of light, humorous essays, most of them making fun of the fads and fancies of New York life in those days. The numbers were published from a week to a month apart, and were continued for about a year.

The young men had no idea of making money by the venture, for they were then well-to-do; but to their surprise it proved a great success, and the publisher is said to have made ten or fifteen thousand dollars out of it. He afterwards paid the editors four hundred dollars each.

Irving now visited Philadelphia, Boston, and other places. He thought of trying for a government office, and was tempted into politics. His description of his experience is amusing enough.

"Before the third day was expired, I was as deep in mud and politics as ever a moderate gentleman would wish to be; and I drank beer with the multitude; and I talked handbill-fashion with the demagogues, and I shook hands with the mob—whom my heart abhorreth. 'Tis true, for the two first days I maintained my coolness and indifference…. But the third day—ah! then came the tug of war. My patriotism all at once blazed forth, and I determined to save my country! O, my friend, I have been in such holes and corners; such filthy nooks, sweep offices, and oyster cellars!"

He closes by saying that this saving one's country is such a sickening business that he wants no more of it.

CHAPTER VI

"DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER"

On October 26, 1809, there appeared in the New York Evening Post the following paragraph:

"DISTRESSING.

"Left his lodgings, some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry street, or at the office of this paper, will be thankfully received.

"P.S. Printers of newspapers will be aiding the cause of humanity in giving an insertion to the above."

Two weeks later a letter was printed in the Evening Post, signed "A Traveler," saying that such a gentleman as the one described had been seen a little above King's Bridge, north of New York, "resting himself by the side of the road."

Ten days after this the following letter was printed:

"To the Editor of the Evening Post:

"Sir,—You have been good enough to publish in your paper a paragraph about Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was missing so strangely some time since; but a very curious kind of a written book has been found in his room, in his own handwriting. Now I wish to notice[+] him, if he is still alive, that if he does not return and pay off his bill for boarding and lodging, I shall have to dispose of his book to satisfy me for the same.

[Footnote +: Legal term, meaning "to give notice to."]

"I am, sir, your obedient servant,

"Seth Handaside,

"Landlord of the Independent Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street."

On November 28th there appeared in the advertising columns the announcement of "A History of New York," in two volumes, price three dollars.

The advertisement says, "This work was found in the chamber of Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, the old gentleman whose sudden and mysterious disappearance has been noticed. It is published in order to discharge certain debts he has left behind."

When the book was published the people took it up, expecting to find a grave and learned history of New York. It was dedicated to the New York Historical Society, and began with an account of the supposed author, Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker. "He was a small, brisk-looking old gentleman, dressed in a rusty black coat, a pair of olive velvet breeches, and a small cocked hat. He had a few gray hairs plaited and clubbed behind…. The only piece of finery which he bore about him was a bright pair of square silver shoe-buckles." The landlord of the inn, who writes this description, adds: "My wife at once set him down for some eminent country schoolmaster."

Imagine for yourself the astonishment, and then the amusement—in some cases even the anger—of those who read, to find a most ludicrous description of the old Dutch settlers of New York, the ancestors of the most aristocratic families of the metropolis of America. The people that laughed got the best of it, however, and the book was considered one of the popular successes of the day. The real author of this book was, of course, Washington Irving. When forty years later the book was to be included in his collected works he wrote an "Apology," in which he says, "When I find, after a lapse of nearly forty years, this haphazard production of my youth still cherished among them (the New Yorkers); when I find its very name become a 'household word,' and used to give the home stamp to everything recommended for popular acceptance, such as Knickerbocker societies, Knickerbocker insurance companies, Knickerbocker steamboats, Knickerbocker omnibuses, Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker ice,—and when I find New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding themselves upon being 'genuine Knickerbockers,' I please myself with the persuasion that I have struck the right chord."

CHAPTER VII

A COMIC HISTORY OF NEW YORK

"Knickerbocker's History of New York" was undertaken by Irving and his brother Peter as a parody on a book that had lately appeared, entitled "A Picture of New York." The two young men, one of whom had already proved himself something of an author, were so full of humor and the spirit of mischief that they must amuse themselves and their friends, and they thought this a good way of doing it. There was to be an introduction giving the history of New York from the foundation of the world, and the main body of the book was to consist of "notices of the customs, manners, and institutions of the city; written in a serio-comic vein, and treating local errors, follies, and abuses with good-humored satire."

The introduction was not more than fairly begun when Peter Irving started for Europe, leaving the completion of the work to the younger brother. Washington decided to change the plan, and merely give a humorous history of the Dutch settlement of New York.

Let us take a peep into this amusing history. First, here is the portrait of "that worthy and irrecoverable discoverer (as he has justly been called), Master Henry Hudson," who "set sail from Holland in a stout vessel called the Half-Moon, being employed by the Dutch East India Company to seek a northwest passage to China."

"Henry (or as the Dutch historians call him, Hendrick) Hudson was a seafaring man of renown, who had learned to smoke tobacco under Sir Walter Raleigh, and is said to have been the first to introduce it into Holland, which gained him much popularity in that country, and caused him to find great favor in the eyes of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General, and also of the honorable East India Company. He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighborhood of his tobacco pipe.

"He wore a commodore's cocked hat on one side of his head. He was remarkable for always jerking up his breeches when he gave out his orders, and his voice sounded not unlike the brattling of a tin trumpet—owing to the number of hard northwesters which he had swallowed in the course of his seafaring.

"Such was Hendrick Hudson, of whom we have heard so much and know so little."

You must read in the history itself the amusing account of Ten Breeches and Tough Breeches. One of the Dutch colonists bought of the Indians for sixty guelders as much land as could be covered by a man's breeches. When the time for measuring came Mr. Ten Breeches was produced, and peeling off one pair of breeches after another, soon produced enough material to surround the entire island of Manhattan, which was thus bought for sixty guelders, or Dutch dollars.

In due time came the first Dutch governor, Wouter Van Twiller.

Governor Van Twiller was five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference, his figure "the very model of majesty and lordly grandeur." On the very morning after he had entered upon his office, he gave an example of his great legal knowledge and wise judgment.

As the governor sat at breakfast an important old burgher came in to complain that Barent Bleecker refused to settle accounts, which was very annoying, as there was a heavy balance in the complainant's favor. "Governor Van Twiller, as I have already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise a mortal enemy to multiplying writings—or being disturbed at his breakfast. Having listened attentively to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his mouth,—either as a sign that he relished the dish or comprehended the story,—he called unto him his constable, and pulling out of his breeches pocket a huge jack-knife, dispatched it after the defendant as a summons, accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant."

When the account books were before him, "the sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway into a great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the air of a man who had just caught a subtle idea by the tail, he slowly took his pipe from his mouth, puffed forth a column of tobacco smoke, and with marvelous gravity and solemnity pronounced, that, having carefully counted over the leaves and weighed the books, it was found that one was just as thick and heavy as the other; therefore, it was the final opinion of the court that the accounts were equally balanced; therefore, Wandle should give Barent a receipt, and Barent should give Wandle a receipt, and the constable should pay the costs."

It is not wonderful that this was the first and last lawsuit during his administration, and that no one was found who cared to hold the office of constable.

This is only one of scores of droll stories to be found in this most interesting "history."

CHAPTER VIII

FIVE UNEVENTFUL YEARS

It seems strange that the success of the "History of New York" did not make Irving a professional man of letters at once. The profits on the first edition were three thousand dollars, and several other editions were to follow steadily. But though he wished to be a literary man, and now knew that he might make a fair living by his writings, there was still lacking the force to compel him to work. He had always lived in easy circumstances, doing as he liked, enjoying society, and amusing himself, and it was hard for him to devote his attention strictly to any set task.

He applied for a clerkship at Albany, but failed to get it. Then his brothers, with whom he must have been a great favorite, as he was the youngest of the family, arranged a mercantile business in which he was to be a partner. Peter was to buy goods in England and ship them to New York, while Ebenezer was to sell them. Washington was to be a silent partner, and enjoy one fifth of the profits. At first he objected to taking no active part in the business; but his brothers persuaded him that this was his chance to become independent and have his entire time for literary work.

But five years passed away and little was accomplished. This covered the period of the War of 1812. At first Irving was opposed to the war; but when he heard the news of the burning of Washington his patriotism blazed forth. "He was descending the Hudson in the steamboat when the tidings first reached him," says his nephew in the biography which he wrote. "It was night and the passengers had betaken themselves to their settees to rest, when a person came on board at Poughkeepsie with the news of the inglorious triumph, and proceeded in the darkness of the cabin to relate the particulars: the destruction of the president's house, the treasury, war, and navy offices, the capitol, the depository of the national library and the public records. There was a momentary pause after the speaker had ceased, when some paltry spirit lifted his head from his settee, and in a tone of complacent derision, 'wondered what Jimmy Madison would say now.' 'Sir,' said Mr. Irving, glad of an escape to his swelling indignation, 'do you seize on such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me tell you, sir, it is not now a question about Jimmy Madison or Jimmy Armstrong.[+] The pride and honor of the nation are wounded; the country is insulted and disgraced by this barbarous success, and every loyal citizen should feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge it.' 'I could not see the fellow,' said Mr. Irving when he related the anecdote, 'but I let fly at him in the dark.'"

[Footnote +: The Secretary of War.]

As soon as he reached New York, Irving went to the governor and offered his services. He was immediately appointed military secretary and aide with the rank of colonel. His duties were neither difficult nor dangerous, and he enjoyed his position; but he was glad when the war came to an end the following year.

When the War of 1812 was over, his friend Commodore Decatur invited him to accompany him on an expedition to the Mediterranean, the United States having declared war against the pirates of Algiers. Irving's trunks were put on board the Guerriere, but as the expedition was delayed on account of the escape of Napoleon from Elba, he had them again brought ashore, and finally gave up his plan of going with Decatur. His mind was set on visiting Europe, however, and he immediately took passage for Liverpool in another vessel. Little did he think that he was not to return for seventeen years.

One of Irving's married sisters was living in Birmingham, and his brother Peter was in Liverpool managing the business in which he was a partner. Soon after Washington's arrival, however, Peter fell ill, and the younger brother was obliged to take charge of affairs. He found a great many bills to pay, and very little money with which to pay them. He was now beginning to face some of the stern realities of life. He worked hard; but the black cloud of ruin came nearer and nearer. Other difficulties were added to those they already had to face, and finally, in 1818, the brothers were obliged to go into bankruptcy.

It was now absolutely necessary that Irving should earn his living in some way. His brothers procured him an appointment at Washington; but to their astonishment he declined it and said he had made up his mind to live by his pen.

He immediately went to London and set to work on the "Sketch Book," and during the next dozen years wrote the greater number of his more famous works.

CHAPTER IX

FRIENDSHIP WITH SIR WALTER SCOTT

While he was worrying over the failure of his business, Irving was fortunate enough to make some distinguished literary friendships. He had already helped to introduce Thomas Campbell's works in the United States, and had written a biography of Campbell; one of the first things he did, therefore, after reaching Liverpool, was to go to see the English poet.

It was not until a little later that he became acquainted with Sir Walter Scott, who was the literary giant of those times. In 1813 Henry Brevoort, one of Irving's most intimate boyhood friends, had presented to Scott a copy of the "History of New York," and Scott had written a letter of thanks in which he said, "I have been employed these few evenings in reading the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker aloud to Mrs. S, and two ladies who are our guests, and our sides have been absolutely sore with laughing. I think, too, there are passages which indicate that the author possesses powers of a different kind."

Irving, too, had been a great admirer of Scott's "Lady of the Lake." Campbell gave him a letter of introduction to the bard, and in a letter to his brother, Irving gives a delightful description of his visit to Abbotsford, Scott's home.

"On Saturday morning early," says he, "I took a chaise for Melrose; and on the way stopped at the gate of Abbotsford, and sent in my letter of introduction, with a request to know whether it would be agreeable for Mr. Scott to receive a visit from me in the course of the day. The glorious old minstrel himself came limping to the gate, and took me by the hand in a way that made me feel as if we were old friends; in a moment I was seated at his hospitable board among his charming little family, and here I have been ever since…. I cannot tell you how truly I have enjoyed the hours I have passed here. They fly by too quickly, yet each is loaded with story, incident, or song; and when I consider the world of ideas, images, and impressions that have been crowded upon my mind since I have been here, it seems incredible that I should only have been two days at Abbotsford."

And here is Scott's impression of Irving: "When you see Tom Campbell," he writes to a friend, "tell him, with my best love, that I have to thank him for making me known to Mr. Washington Irving, who is one of the best and pleasantest acquaintances I have made this many a day."

When the "Sketch Book" was coming out in the United States, and Irving was thinking of publishing it in England, he received some advice and assistance from Scott; and finally Scott persuaded the great English publisher Murray to take it up, even after that publisher had once declined it. On this occasion Irving wrote to a friend as follows:

"He (Scott) is a man that, if you knew, you would love; a right honest-hearted, generous-spirited being; without vanity, affectation, or assumption of any kind. He enters into every passing scene or passing pleasure with the interest and simple enjoyment of a child."

CHAPTER X

"RIP VAN WINKLE"

Irving's most famous work is undoubtedly the "Sketch Book"; and of the thirty-two stories and essays in this volume, all Americans love best "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."

After the failure of his business, when Irving saw that he must write something at once to meet his ordinary living expenses, he went up to London and prepared several sketches, which he sent to his friend, Henry Brevoort, in New York. Among them was the story of Rip Van Winkle. This, with the other sketches, was printed in handsome form as the first number of a periodical, which was offered for sale at seventy-five cents. Though "The Sketch Book," as the periodical was called, professed to be edited by "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.," every one knew that Washington Irving was the real author. In fact, the best story in the first number, "Rip Van Winkle," was represented to be a posthumous writing of Diedrich Knickerbocker, the author of the "History of New York."

There are few Americans who do not know the story of "Rip Van Winkle" by heart; for those who have not read the story, have at least seen the play in which Joseph Jefferson, the great actor, has made himself so famous.

Attached to the story is a note supposed to have been written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, which a careless reader might overlook, but which is an excellent introduction to the story. Says he:

"The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvelous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this in the villages along the Hudson; all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when I last saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so perfectly rational and consistent on every point, that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have seen a certificate on the subject, taken before a country justice, and signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt."

Rip was truly an original character. He had a shrewish wife who was always scolding him; and he seems to have deserved all the cross things she said to him, for he had "an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor—in other words, he was as lazy a fellow as you could find in all the country side."

Nevertheless, every one liked him, he was so good-natured. "He was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who took his part in all the family squabbles; and never failed whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood."

You can't find much fault with a man who is so well liked that even the dogs will not bark at him. You are reminded of Irving himself, who for so many years was so idle; and yet who, out of his very idleness, produced such charming stories.

"Rip Van Winkle," continues the narrative, "was one of those happy mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family."

This description is as perfect and as delightful as any in the English language. Any one who cannot enjoy this has no perception of human nature, and no love of humor in his composition. In time Rip discovered that his only escape from his termagant wife was to take his gun, and stroll off into the woods with his dog. "Here he would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a fellow sufferer in persecution. 'Poor Wolf,' he would say, 'thy mistress leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!' Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully into his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity, I verily believe he reciprocated with all his heart."

Rip is just the sort of fellow to have some sort of adventure, and we are not at all astonished when we find him helping the dwarf carry his keg of liquor up the mountain. The description of "the odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins" whom he finds on entering the amphitheater, is a perfect picture in words; for the truly great writer is a painter of pictures quite as much as the great artist.

"They were dressed in a quaint outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large head, broad face, and small piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them…. What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder."

But now comes a surprise. Rip indulges too freely in the contents of the keg and falls asleep. When he wakes he finds a rusty old gun beside him, and he whistles in vain for his dog. He goes back to the village; but every thing and everybody is strange and changed. Putting his hand to his chin he finds that his beard has grown a foot. He has been sleeping twenty years.

But you must read the story for yourselves. It will bear reading many times, and each time you will find in it something to smile at and enjoy.

CHAPTER XI

LITERARY SUCCESS IN ENGLAND

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" also purports to be written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, and it is only less famous than "Rip Van Winkle." When he was a boy, Irving had gone hunting in Sleepy Hollow, which is not far from New York city; and in the latter part of his life he bought a low stone house there of Mr. Van Tassel and fitted it up for his bachelor home.

"The outline of this story," says his nephew Pierre Irving, "had been sketched more than a year before[+] at Birmingham, after a conversation with his brother-in-law, Van Wart, who had been dwelling on some recollections of his early years at Tarrytown, and had touched upon a waggish fiction of one Brom Bones, a wild blade, who professed to fear nothing, and boasted of his having once met the devil on a return from a nocturnal frolic, and run a race with him for a bowl of milk punch. The imagination of the author suddenly kindled over the recital, and in a few hours he had scribbled off the framework of his renowned story, and was reading it to his sister and her husband. He then threw it by until he went up to London, where it was expanded into the present legend."

[Footnote +: That is, before it was finally written and published.]

No sooner had the first number of the "Sketch Book," as published in New York, come to England, than a periodical began reprinting it, and Irving heard that a publisher intended to bring it out in book form. That made him decide to publish it in England himself, and he did so at his own expense. The publisher soon failed, and by Scott's help, as already explained, Irving got his book into the hands of Murray. Murray finally gave him a thousand dollars for the copyright. But when it was published, it proved so very popular that Murray paid him five hundred more. From that time forward he received large sums for his writings, both in the United States and in England.

The "Sketch Book" was followed by "Bracebridge Hall," consisting of stories and sketches of the same character; and later by the "Tales of a Traveller."

In the "Tales of a Traveller" we are most interested in "Buckthorne and his Friends," a series of English stories, with descriptions of literary life in London. Most famous of all is the account of a publishers' dinner, with a description of the carving partner sitting gravely at one end, with never a smile on his face, while at the other end of the table sits the laughing partner; and the poor authors are arranged at the table and are treated by the partners according to the number of editions their books have sold.

Irving's father was a Scotchman, and his mother was an Englishwoman; and one of his sisters and one of his brothers, as we have already learned, lived in England for many years. It is not strange, then, that England became to him a second home, and that many of his best stories and descriptions in the "Sketch Book," "Bracebridge Hall," and the "Tales of a Traveller" relate to English characters and scenes.

CHAPTER XII

IRVING GOES TO SPAIN

When Irving went to Liverpool in 1815, it was his intention to travel on the continent of Europe. As we have seen, business reasons made that impossible. But after the publication and success of the "Sketch Book" he was free. He was now certain of an income, and his reputation was so great that he attracted notice wherever he went.

In 1820, after having spent five years in England, he at last set out on his European journey. We cannot follow him in all his wanderings; but one country that he visited furnished him the materials for the most serious, and in one way the most important part of his literary work. This was Spain. Here he spent a great deal of time, returning again and again; and finally he was appointed United States minister to that country.

He first went to Spain to collect materials for the "Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus." This was a much more serious work than anything he had before undertaken. It was, unlike the history of New York, a genuine investigation of facts derived from the musty old volumes of the libraries of Spanish monasteries and other ancient collections. It was a record of the life of the discoverer of America that was destined to remain the highest authority on that subject. Murray, the London publisher, paid him over fifteen thousand dollars for the English copyright alone.

In his study among the ruins of Spain, Irving found many other things which greatly interested him—legends, and tales of the Moors who had once ruled there, and of the ruined beauties of the Moorish palace of the Alhambra. His imagination was set on fire, he was delighted with the images of by-gone days of glittering pageantry which his fancy called up. Before his history of Columbus was finished, he began the writing of a book so precisely to his taste that he could not restrain himself until it was finished. This was the "Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada"—a true history, but one which reads more like a romance of the Middle Ages than a simple record of facts.

This was followed by four other books based on Spanish history and legend. It seemed as if Irving could never quite abandon this entrancing subject, for during the entire remainder of his life he went back to it constantly.

When his great history of the life of Columbus was published and proved its merit, Irving was honored in a way he had little expected in his more idle days. The Royal Society of Literature bestowed upon him one of two fifty-guinea[+] gold medals awarded annually, and the University of Oxford conferred the degree of L.L.D.

[Footnote +: Two hundred and fifty dollars.]

The "Life of Columbus" was followed in 1831 by the "Voyages of the
Companions of Columbus." In the following year Irving returned to the
United States after an absence of seventeen years.

He was no longer an idle young man unable to fix his mind on any serious work; he had become the most famous of American men of letters. When he reached New York his countrymen hastened to heap honors upon him, and almost overwhelmed him with public attentions.

CHAPTER XIII

"THE ALHAMBRA"

Just before Irving's return to the United States in 1832, he prepared for publication some sketches which he had made three or four years before while living for a few months in the ruins of the Alhambra, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings when they ruled the kingdom of Granada. Next to the stories of "Rip Van Winkle" and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," nothing that Irving has written has proved more popular than this volume of "The Alhambra;" and it has made the ancient ruin a place of pilgrimage for tourists in Europe ever since.

In this volume Irving not only describes in his own peculiarly charming manner his experiences in the halls of the Alhambra itself, but he gives many of the stories and legends of the place, most of which were told to him by Mateo Ximenes, a "son of the Alhambra," who acted as his guide. This is the way he came to secure Mateo's services:

"At the gate were two or three ragged, super-annuated soldiers, dozing on a stone bench, the successors of the Zegris and the Abencerrages; while a tall, meagre valet, whose rusty-brown cloak was evidently intended to conceal the ragged state of his nether garments, was lounging in the sunshine and gossipping with the ancient sentinel on duty. He joined us as we entered the gate, and offered his services to show us the fortress.

"I have a traveler's dislike to officious ciceroni, and did not altogether like the garb of the applicant.

"'You are well acquainted with the place, I presume?'

"'Nobody better; in fact, sir, I am a son of the Alhambra.'

"'The common Spaniards have certainly a most poetical way of expressing themselves. 'A son of the Alhambra!' the appellation caught me at once; the very tattered garb of my new acquaintance assumed a dignity in my eyes. It was emblematic of the fortunes of the place, and befitted the progeny of a ruin."

Accompanied by Mateo, the travelers pass on to "the great vestibule, or porch of the gate," which "is formed by an immense Arabian arch, of the horseshoe form, which springs to half the height of the tower. On the keystone of this arch, is engraven a gigantic hand. Within the vestibule, on the keystone of the portal, is sculptured, in like manner, a gigantic key," emblems, say the learned, of Moorish superstition and religious belief.

"A different explanation of these emblems, however, was given by the legitimate son of Alhambra, and one more in unison with the notions of the common people, who attach something of mystery and magic to everything Moorish, and have all kinds of superstitions connected with this old Moslem fortress. According to Mateo, it was a tradition handed down from the oldest inhabitants, and which he had from his father and grandfather, that the hand and key were magical devices on which the fate of the Alhambra depended. The Moorish king who built it was a great magician, or, as some believed, had sold himself to the devil, and had laid the whole fortress under a magic spell. By this means it had remained standing for several years, in defiance of storms and earthquakes, while almost all other buildings of the Moors had fallen to ruin and disappeared. This spell, the tradition went on to say, would last until the hand on the outer arch should reach down and grasp the key, when the whole pile would tumble to pieces, and all the treasures buried beneath it by the Moors would be revealed."

The travelers at once made application to the governor for permission to take up their residence in the palace of the Alhambra, and to their astonishment and delight he placed his own suite of apartments at their disposal, as he himself preferred to live in the city of Granada.

Irving's companion soon left him, and he remained sole lord of the palace. For a time he occupied the governor's rooms, which were very scantily furnished; but one day he came upon an eerie suite of rooms which he liked better. They were the rooms that had been fitted up for the beautiful Elizabetta of Farnese, the second wife of Philip V.

"The windows, dismantled and open to the wind and weather, looked into a charming little secluded garden, where an alabaster fountain sparkled among roses and myrtles, and was surrounded by orange and citron trees, some of which flung their branches into the chambers." This was the garden of Lindaraxa.

"Four centuries had elapsed since the fair Lindaraxa passed away, yet how much of the fragile beauty of the scenes she inhabited remained! The garden still bloomed in which she delighted; the fountain still presented the crystal mirror in which her charms may once have been reflected; the alabaster, it is true, had lost its whiteness; the basin beneath, overrun with weeds, had become the lurking-place of the lizard, but there was something in the very decay that enhanced the interest of the scene, speaking as it did of the mutability, the irrevocable lot of man and all his works."

In spite of warnings of the dangers of the place, Irving had his bed set up in the chamber beside this little garden. The first night was full of frightful terrors. The garden was dark and sinister. "There was a slight rustling noise overhead; a bat suddenly emerged from a broken panel of the ceiling, flitting about the room and athwart my solitary lamp; and as the fateful bird almost flouted my face with his noiseless wing, the grotesque faces carved in high relief in the cedar ceiling, whence he had emerged, seemed to mope and mow at me.

"Rousing myself, and half smiling at this temporary weakness, I resolved to brave it out in the true spirit of the hero of the enchanted house," says the narrator. So taking his lamp in his hand he started out to make a midnight tour of the palace.

"My own shadow, cast upon the wall, began to disturb me," he continues. "The echoes of my own footsteps along the corridors made me pause and look around. I was traversing scenes fraught with dismal recollections. One dark passage led down to the mosque where Yusef, the Moorish monarch, the finisher of the Alhambra, had been basely murdered. In another place I trod the gallery where another monarch had been struck down by the poniard of a relative whom he had thwarted in his love."

In a few nights, however, all this was changed; for the moon, which had been invisible, began to "roll in full splendor above the towers, pouring a flood of tempered light into every court and hall."

Says Irving, "I now felt the merit of the Arabic inscription on the walls—'How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? Nothing but the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded sky!"

"On such heavenly nights," he goes on, "I would sit for hours at my window inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered fortunes of those whose history was dimly shadowed out in the elegant memorials around. Sometimes, when all was quiet, and the clock from the distant cathedral of Granada struck the midnight hour, I have sallied out on another tour and wandered over the whole building; but how different from my first tour! No longer dark and mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was open, spacious, beautiful; everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies; Lindaraxa once more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of Moslem Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions!

"Who can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and in such a place? The temperature of a summer night in Andalusia is perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into an ethereal atmosphere; we feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of frame, which render mere existence happiness. But when moonlight is added to all this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories. Every rent and chasm of time; every moldering tint and weather-stain is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness; the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are illuminated with a softened radiance—we tread the enchanted palace of an Arabian tale!"

When one may journey with such a companion, through a whole volume of enchantment and legend and moonlight, it is not strange that "The Alhambra" has been one of the most widely read books ever produced by an American writer.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST YEARS OF IRVING'S LIFE

Some people have thought that Irving's long residence abroad indicated that he did not care so much as he should for his native land. But the truth is, the years after his return to the United States were among the happiest of his life; and more and more he felt that here was his home.

In 1835 he purchased, as I have already said, a small piece of land on the Hudson, on which stood the Van Tassel house mentioned in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." It was an old Dutch cottage which had stood for so many years that it needed to be almost entirely rebuilt; and Irving spent a considerable sum of money to fit it up as his bachelor quarters. First he shared it with one of his bachelor brothers; but soon he invited his brother Ebenezer to come with his family of girls to occupy it with him.

As the years went on, Irving took a delight in this cottage that can hardly be expressed. At first he called it "Wolfert's Roost"; afterward the name was changed to "Sunnyside," the name by which it is still known. Little by little he bought more land, he planted trees, and cultivated flowers and vegetables. At one time he boasts that he has become so proficient in gardening that he can raise his own fruits and vegetables at a cost to him of little more than twice the market price.

During this period several books were published, among them a description of a tour on the prairies which he took soon after his return from abroad; a collection of "Legends of the Conquest of Spain" which had been lying in his trunk since his residence in the Alhambra seven or eight years before; and "Astoria," a book of Western life and adventure, describing John Jacob Astor's settlement on the Columbia river.

It was his wish to write a history of the conquest of Mexico, for which he had collected materials in Spain; but hearing that Prescott, the well-known American historian, was at work on the same subject, he gave it up to him.

The chief work of his later years was his "Life of George Washington." This was a great undertaking, of which he had often thought. He was actually at work on it for many years, and it was finally published only a short time before his death in 1859.

Irving's friends in the United States had long wished to give him some honor or distinction. He had been offered several public offices, among them the secretaryship of the navy; but he had declined them all. But in 1842, when Daniel Webster was secretary of state, Irving was nominated minister to Spain. It was Webster's idea, and he took great delight in carrying out his plan. After the notification of his nomination had been sent to Irving, and Webster thought time enough had elapsed for him to receive it, he remarked to a friend: "Washington Irving is now the most astonished man in the city of New York."

When Irving heard the news he seemed to think less of the distinction conferred upon him than of the unhappiness of being once more banished from his home. "It is hard—very hard," he murmured, half to himself; "yet," he added, whimsically enough (says his nephew), being struck with the seeming absurdity of such a view, "I must try to bear it. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." Later, however, Irving speaks of this as the "crowning honor of his life."

He remained abroad four years, when he sent in his resignation, and hurried home to spend his last years at Sunnyside.

His first thought was to build an addition to his cottage, in order to have room for all his nieces and nephews. His enjoyment in every detail of the work was almost that of a boy. Though now an old man, he seemed as sunny and as gay as ever. Every one who knew him loved him; and all the people who now read his books must have the same affectionate fondness for this most delightful of companions.

In the United States he met both Dickens and Thackeray. His friendship with Dickens was begun by a letter which Irving wrote to the great novelist, enthusiastically praising his work. At once Dickens replied in a long letter, fairly bubbling over with delight and friendship. Here is a part of it:

"There is no man in the world who could have given me the heartfelt pleasure you have. There is no living writer, and there are very few among the dead, whose approbation I should feel so proud to earn. And with everything you have written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart of hearts, I may honestly and truly say so.

"I have been so accustomed to associate you with my pleasantest and happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, that I rush at once into full confidence with you, and fall, as it were, naturally, and by the very laws of gravity, into your open arms…. My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you enough for your cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and lasting gratification it has given me. I hope to have many letters from you, and to exchange a frequent correspondence. I send this to say so….

"Always your faithful friend,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

The warmth of feeling which Dickens displays on receiving his first letter from Irving, we must all feel when we have become as well acquainted with Irving's works as Dickens was.

Washington Irving died on the 28th of November, 1859, at his dear Sunnyside, and now lies buried in a cemetery upon a hill near by, in a beautiful spot overlooking the Hudson river and Sleepy Hollow.

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NOTE.—The thanks of the publishers are due to G. P. Putnam's Sons for kind permission to use extracts from the Works of Washington Irving.