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37—39. The reason why the love of the sex remains with man (homo) after death, is, because after death a male is a male and a female a female; and the male principle in the male is male (or masculine) in the whole and in every part thereof; and so is the female principle in the female; and there is a tendency to conjunction in all their parts, even the most singular; and as this conjunctive tendency was implanted from creation, and thence perpetually influences, it follows, that the one desires and seeks conjunction with the other. Love, considered itself, is a desire and consequent tendency to conjunction; and conjugial love to conjunction into a one; for the male-man and the female-man were so created, that from two they may become as it were one man, or one flesh; and when they become a one, then, taken together they are a man (homo) in his fulness; but without such conjunction, they are two, and each is a divided or half-man. Now as the above conjunctive tendency lies concealed in the inmost of every part of the male, and of every part of the female, and the same is true of the faculty and desire to be conjoined together into a one, it follows, that the mutual and reciprocal love of the sex remains with men (homines) after death.

38. We speak distinctively of the love of the sex and of conjugial love, because the one differs from the other. The love of the sex exists with the natural man; conjugial love with the spiritual man. The natural man loves and desires only external conjunctions, and the bodily pleasures thence derived; whereas the spiritual man loves and desires internal conjunctions and the spiritual satisfactions thence derived; and these satisfactions he perceives are granted with one wife, with whom he can perpetually be more and more joined together into a one: and the more he enters into such conjunction the more he perceives his satisfactions ascending in a similar degree, and enduring to eternity; but respecting anything like this the natural man has no idea. This then is the reason why it is said, that after death conjugial love remains with those who go to heaven, which is the case with all those who become spiritual here on earth.

39. V.. That a man (homo) lives as a man after death, and that in this case a male is a male, and a female a female; and that every one's peculiar love remains with him after death, especially the love of the sex and conjugial love, are positions which I have wished hitherto to conflrm by such arguments as respect the understanding, and are called rational; but since man (homo) from his infancy, in consequence of what has been taught him by his parents and masters, and afterwards by the learned and the clergy, has been induced to believe, that he shall not live a man after death until the day of the last judgement, which has now been expected for six thousand years; and several have regarded this article of faith as one which ought to be believed, 40