Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/58

52 than our knowledge of the body. A science of the body, had we such that displayed its uses, or its specific fitness to serve the soul, would as evidently give the motives of the attachment of the soul to the body, as the capabilities of the pen account for its connection with the fingers of the ready writer. In both cases it is the bond of service, of liking, of utility; for to intelligent life what other connecting principle is possible? If this is too simple for philosophers, still it is the ground of every connexion they themselves form with man or thing.

"For the purpose of breaking abstruseness from the argument, let us look upon the natural body as the well furnished house, the admirable circumstance and worldly fortune of the soul. Then, steadily regarding the soul as the man, something like the following analogical discourse may result from this point of view, in which we take our stand inwards, to gain distance for the object.

"The soul being the man or real body, the natural body represents the appliances and arts of life, whether economic or aesthetic. The eye is its window, telescope, microscope, and answers to the series of means that transparent substance lends to vision, and which