Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/170

 cational, artistic, moral and religious elements. Again, we speak of the form of a church, or of church polity; and by this we mean the order, relation, subordination, etc., of its various functionaries, the mode of their appointment, and their respective duties.

When it is said, therefore, that heaven is in the human form, the meaning is that it is in human order; that all the innumerable societies of which it consists, are so arranged and adjusted as to express most perfectly the truly human principles which constitute the essential spirit and life of heaven. In other words, the relation, mutual dependence, and intercommunication of the societies composing the whole angelic heaven, and the uses they respectively perform, correspond to those existing among the various organs of the human body, and to their respective uses. One is a perfect representative image of the other.

Accordingly, Swedenborg often speaks of the angelic societies as located in different organs of the Grand Man; of some as in the head, some in the heart, some in the spleen, some in the liver; and of others, again, as in the eye, ear, knee, or foot. And his meaning is, that such societies correspond to these bodily organs; that is to say, their relation to the other societies of heaven and the special functions which they perform in the Grand Man, correspond to the relation existing among such bodily organs, and to their respective uses in the human body.

"It has also," he says, "been given me to know what particular angelic societies belong to each particular province of the body, also what are their qualities; as,