Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/572

 476 MABRIAGE. are marriages in the heavens, the most perfect in the third or highest heaven; and that on earth, besides the marriages among men, it is in all the subjects of the animal kingdom, even down to the worms; and, also, in all the subjects of the vegetable kingdom, from the olives and palms down to the smallest grasses. This sphere is more universal than the sphere of heat and light that proceeds from the sun of our world; of which reason may be convinced, from the fact that it is even opera- tive in the absence of the sun's heat, as in the winter, and in the absence of its light, as in the night, especially among men. The reason why it is thus operative is that it is from the sun of the angelic heaven, and there is a constant equalization of the heat and light therefrom, that is, a conjunction of good and truth; for heaven is in perpetual spring. The changes of good and truth, or of the heat and light of that sun, are not such variations of it as those that take place on earth by the changes of the heat and light from the sun there, but arise from the subjects that receive them. (0. L. n. 222.)

Origin of the Love of Infants. Tlie love of infants is originally from conjugial love. It is known that mothers have a more and fathers a less tender love of infants. It is evident from the lovely and winning affection of little girls for infants, and for the images of them which they carry, dress, kiss, and press to their very heart, that the love of infants is inscribed upon the conjugial love into which women are born. With boys there is no such affection. It appears as if mothers had the love of infants from the nourishment of them in the womb from their own blood, and hence from the appropria- tion of their own life to them, and so from a sympathetic union. But yet this is not the origin of that love ; for if witliout the mother's knowledge, after birth, another infant be substituted for the genuine one, she will love this with just as much tenderness as if it were her own. Besides, infants are sometimes loved by their nurses more than by their mothers. It follows from all tliis, that that love is from no other source than the conjugial love implanted in every woman ; to which is adjoined the love of conceiving, from the delight of which the wife is prepared for reception. This is the beginning of that love, which after the birth passes fully over, with its dehght, to the offspring. (C. L. n. 393.) A sphere of innocence flows into infants, and through them into parents and affects them. That infants are innocent is known, but it has not been known that their innocence flows into them from the Lord. It flows in from the liOrd because He