EXTRACTS FROM THE ARCANA COELESTIA RESPECTING KNOWLEDGES.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Swedenborg, Emanuel and Ager, John C. (John Curtis)
[In these extracts scientia, scientificum and cognitio are alike rendered knowledge, because any distinction between them intended by the author is not sufficiently obvious to be uniformly indicated in English. — Tr.]
Man ought to be fully instructed in knowledges [scientiis et cognitionibus], since by means of them he learns to think [cogitare], afterwards to understand what is true and good, and finally to be wise (n. 129, 1450, 1451, 1453, 1548, 1802).
Knowledges [scientifica] are the first things on which the life of man, civil, moral, and spiritual, is built and founded, and they are to be learned for the sake of use as an end (n. 1489, 3310).
Knowledges [cognitiones] open the way to the internal man, and afterwards conjoin that man with the external in accordance with uses (n. 1563, 1616).
The rational faculty has its birth by means of knowledges [scientias et cognitiones] (n. 1895, 1900, 3086).
But not by means of knowledges [cognitiones] themselves, but by means of affection for the uses derived from them (n. 1895).
[2] There are knowledges [scientifica] that give entrance to Divine truths, and knowledges [scientifica] that do not (n. 5213).
Empty knowledges [scientifica] are to be destroyed (n. 1489, 1492, 1499, 1581).
Empty knowledges [scientifica] are such as have the loves of self and of the world as an end, and sustain those loves, and withdraw from love to God and love towards the neighbor, because such knowledges close up the internal man, even to the extent that man becomes unable to receive any thing from heaven (n. 1563, 1600).
Knowledges [scientifica] are means to becoming wise and means to becoming insane and by them the internal man is either opened or closed, and thus the rational is either enriched or destroyed (n. 4156, 8628, 9922).
[3] The internal man is opened and gradually perfected by means of knowledges [scientifica] if man has good use as an end, especially use that looks to external life (n. 3086).
Then knowledges [scientificis], which are in the natural man, are met by spiritual and heavenly things from the spiritual man, and these adopt such of them as are suitable (n. 1495).
Then the uses of heavenly life are drawn forth by the Lord and perfected and raised up out of the knowledges [scientificis] in the natural man by means of the internal man (n. 1895, 1896, 1900, 1901, 1902, 5871, 5874, 5901).
While incongruous and opposing knowledges [scientifica] are rejected to the sides and banished (n. 5871, 5886, 5889).
[4] The sight of the internal man calls forth from the knowledges [scientificis] of the external man only such things as are in accord with its love (n. 9394).
As seen by the internal man what pertains to the love is at the center and in brightness, but what is not of the love is at the sides and in obscurity (n. 6068, 6084).
Suitable knowledges [scientifica] are gradually implanted in man's loves and as it were dwell in them (n. 6325).
If man were born into love towards the neighbor he would be born into intelligence, but because he is born into the loves of self and of the world he is born into total ignorance (n. 6323, 6325).
Knowledge [scientia], intelligence, and wisdom are sons of love to God and of love towards the neighbor (n. 1226, 2049, 2116).
[5] It is one thing to be wise, another thing to understand, another to know [scire], and another to do; nevertheless, in those that possess spiritual life these follow in order, and exist together in doing or deeds (n. 10331).
Also it is one thing to know [scire], another to acknowledge, and another to have faith (n. 896).
[6] Knowledges [scientifica], which pertain to the external or natural man, are in the light of the world, but truths that have been made truths of faith and of love, and have thus acquired life, are in the light of heaven (n. 5212).
The truths that have acquired spiritual life are comprehended by means of natural ideas (n. 5510).
Spiritual influx is from the internal or spiritual man into the knowledges [scientifica] that are in the external or natural man (n. 1940, 8005).
Knowledges [scientifica] are receptacles, and as it were vessels, for the truth and good that belong to the internal man (n. 1469, 1496, 3068, 5489, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071, 6077, 7770, 9922).
Knowledges [scientifica] are like mirrors in which the truths and goods of the internal man appear as an image (n. 5201).
There they are together as in their outmost (n. 5373, 5874, 5886, 5901, 6004, 6023, 6052, 6071).
[7] Influx is not physical but spiritual, that is, influx is from the internal man into the external, thus into the knowledges of the external; and not from the external into the internal, thus not from the knowledges [scientificis] of the external into truths of faith (n. 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427, 5428, 5478, 6322, 9110).
A beginning must be made from the truths of doctrine of the church, which are from the Word, and those truths must first be acknowledged, and then it is permissible to consult knowledges [scientifica] (n. 6047).
Thus it is permissible for those who are in an affirmative state in regard to truths of faith to confirm them intellectually by means of knowledges [scientifica], but not for those who are in a negative state (n. 2568, 2588, 4760, 6047).
He that will not believe Divine truths until he is convinced by means of knowledges [scientificis] will never believe (n. 2094, 2832).
To enter from knowledge [scientificis] into the truths of faith is contrary to order (n. 10236).
Those who do so become demented respecting the things of heaven and the church (n. 128, 129, 130).
They fall into the falsities of evil (n. 232, 233, 6047).
In the other life when they think about spiritual matters they become as it were drunken (n. 1072).
More respecting the character of such (n. 196).
Examples showing that things spiritual cannot be comprehended when entered into through knowledges [scientifica] (n. 233, 2094, 2196, 2203, 2209).
In spiritual things many of the learned are more demented than the simple, for the reason that they are in a negative state, which they confirm by means of the knowledges [scientifica] which they have continually and in abundance before their sight (n. 4760, 8629).
[8] Those who reason from knowledges [scientificis] against the truths of faith reason keenly because they reason from the fallacies of the senses, which are engaging and convincing, because they cannot easily be dispelled (n. 5700).
What things are fallacies of the senses, and what they are (n. 5084, 5094, 6400, 6948).