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 We speak, also, of the form of society in a particular age or nation; and by this is meant the nature and relation of the several parts composing such society—the nature and arrangement of its social, industrial, commercial, educational, artistic, moral, and religious elements. Again, we speak of the form of a church, or of church polity; and by this we mean the character, connection, order, 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 its parts, or 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 their respective uses. One is a perfect type or representative image of the other.

Accordingly, Swedenborg often speaks of the angelic societies as located in different parts or organs of the Grand Man; of some as in the head, some in the heart, some in the spleen, some in the