Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/25

 nor hear without an organ which is the subject of his hearing. Sight and hearing are nothing without these, nor can they exist. It is the same also with thought, which is internal sight; and with perception, which is internal hearing: unless these existed in and from substances, which are organic forms that are the subjects of these faculties, they could not exist at all.

From these considerations it may be seen that the spirit of man is in a form as well as his body, and that its form is the human; and that it enjoys sensories and senses when separated from the body, just the same as when it was in it; and that all of the life of the eye, and all of the life of the ear, in a word, all of the sensitive life that man enjoys, belongs not to his body, but his spirit; for his spirit dwells in them, and in every minutest part thereof. Hence it is that spirits see, hear and feel, the same as men; but after separation from the body, not in the natural but in the spiritual world. The natural sensation which the spirit had when it was in the body, was by means of the material which was adjoined to it; but even then it enjoyed spiritual sensation at the same time, by thinking and willing.

These observations are made in order that the rational man may be convinced, that man, in himself considered, is a spirit, and that the corporeal frame adjoined to him for the sake of performing functions in the natural and material world, is not