Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/540

444 What is signified by the rib, and what by flesh, will be shown elsewhere.

It follows from this primitive formation that the male is born intellectual, and the female is born voluntary; or what is the same, that the male is born into an affection for knowing, understanding, and being wise, and the female into the love of conjoining herself with that affection in the male. And since the interiors form the exteriors to their likeness, and the masculine form is a form of intellect, and the feminine form is a form of the love of that intellect, hence it is that the male has a different face, a different voice, and a different body from the female; that is to, say, a harder face, a harsher voice, and a stronger body, and moreover a bearded chin; in general, a form less beautiful than the female. They differ also in bearing and in manners. In a word, nothing whatever is alike in them; and yet in the least things there is what is conjunctive. Nay, in the male the masculine is masculine in every even the least part of his body; and also in every idea of his thought, and in every particle of his affection. In like manner the feminine in the female. And as the one cannot therefore be changed into the other, it follows that the male is male, and the female is female after death. (C. L. n. 32, 33).

Because the male is then a male, and the female a female, and the masculine in the male is masculine entirely and in his every part, and likewise the feminine in the female, and as in their single, yea in their very minutest parts there is what is conjunctive, therefore the love of the sex remains with man (homo) after death. Now, because this that is conjunctive was implanted from creation, and therefore perpetually inheres, it follows that the one desires and breathes forth conjunction with- the other. Love in itself regarded is nothing else than a desire and hence an urging to conjunction; and conjugial love, to conjunction into one. For the male and female man were so created that from two they may become as one man, or one flesh; and when they