and his
will bad. Yet when he thinks about the will and the understanding he does
not make them two and distinguish them, but confounds them, since his
thought then acts in common with the bodily sight. When writing he
apprehends still less that will and understanding are two distinct things,
because his thought then acts in common with the sensual, that is, with
what is the man's own. From this it is that some can think and speak well,
but cannot write well. This is common with women. It is the same with many
other things. Is it not known by everyone from common perception that a
man whose life is good is saved, but that a man whose life is bad is
condemned? Also that one whose life is good will enter the society of
angels, and will there see, hear, and speak like a man? Also that one who
from justice does what is just and from what is right does right, has a
conscience? But if one lapses from common perception, and submits these
things to thought, he does not know what conscience is; or that the soul
can see, hear, and speak like a man; or that the good of life is anything
except giving to the poor. And if from thought you write about these
things, you confirm them by appearances and fallacies, and by words of
sound but of no substance. For this reason many of the learned who have
thought much, and especially who have written much, have weakened and
obscured, yea, have destroyed their common perception; while the simple
see more clearly what is good and true than those who think themselves
their superiors in wisdom. This common perception comes by influx from
heaven, and descends into thought even to sight; but thought separated
from common perception falls into imagination from the sight and from
what is man's own. You may observe that this is so. Tell some truth to
any one that is in common perception, and he will see it; tell him that
from God and in God we are and live and are moved, and he will see it;
tell him that God dwells with man in love and in wisdom, and he will see
it; tell him further that the will is the receptacle of love, and the
understanding of wisdom, and explain it a little, and he will see it;
tell him that God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, and he will see it;
ask him what conscience is, and he will tell you. But say the same things
to one of the learned, who has not thought from common perception, but
from principles or from ideas obtained from the world through sight, and
he will not see. T