Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 1.djvu/41



HE form of man's spirit is the human for the spirit is a man even in respect to its form. This is evident from the consideration that man is man by virtue of his spirit, and not by virtue of his body; and that the corporeal form is added to the spirit according to the form thereof, and not the reverse; for the spirit is clothed with a body according to its own form. Therefore the spirit of man acts upon every part of the body, even the most minute, insomuch that the part which is not acted upon by the spirit, or in which the spirit is not active, does not live. Every one may know this from the single consideration, that thought and will actuate all parts of the body, both in general and in particular, so absolutely that every part responds to their behests; and whatever does not respond is no part of the body, and is also cast out as a thing void of any living principle. Thought and will belong to the spirit of man, and not to the body.

Although the spirit is in the human form, it is not seen by man after its separation from the body; nor is it seen in another man while living in the world; because the eye,—the organ of bodily sight, so far as