from conjugial love. VII. The impurity and the purity in the church are similarly circumstanced. VIII. Adulterous love more and more makes a man not a man (homo), and not a man (vir), and conjugial love makes a man more and more a man (homo), and a man (vir). IX. There are a sphere of adulterous love and a sphere of conjugial love. X. The sphere of adulterous love ascends from hell, and the sphere of conjugial love descends from heaven. XI. Those two spheres mutually meet each other in each world; but they do not unite. XII. Between those two spheres there is an equilibrium, and man is in it. XIII. A man is able to turn himself to whichever he pleases; but so far as he turns himself to the one, so far he turns himself from the other. XIV. Each sphere brings with it delights. XV. The delights of adulterous love commence from the flesh and are of the flesh even in the spirit; but the delights of conjugial love commence in the spirit, and are of the spirit even in the flesh. XVI. The delights of adulterous love are the pleasures of insanity; but the delights of conjugial love are the delights of wisdom. We proceed to an explanation of each article.
424. I. It is not known what adulterous love is, unless it be known what conjugial love is. By adulterous love we mean the love of adultery, which destroys conjugial love, as above, n. 423. That it is not known what adulterous love is, unless it be known what conjugial love is, needs no demonstration, but only illustration by similitudes: as for example; who can know what is evil and false, unless he know what is good and true? and who knows what is unchaste, dishonorable, unbecoming, and ugly, unless he knows what is chaste, honorable, becoming, and beautiful? and who can discern the various kinds of insanity, but he that is wise, or that knows what wisdom is? also, who can rightly perceive discordant and grating sounds, but he that is well versed in the doctrine and study of harmonious numbers? in like manner, who can clearly discern what is the quality of adultery, unless he has first clearly discerned what is the quality of marriage? and who can make a just estimate of the filthiness of the pleasures of adulterous love, but he that has, first made a just estimate of the purity of conjugial love? As I have now completed the treatise on Conjugial Love and its chaste Delights, I am enabled, from the intelligence I thence acquired, to describe the pleasures respecting adulterous love.
425. II. Adulterous love is opposed to conjugial love. Every thing in the universe has its opposite; and opposites, in regard to each other, are not relatives, but contraries. Relatives are what exist between the greatest and the least of the same thing; whereas contraries arise from an opposite in contrariety thereto; and the latter are relatives in regard to each other, as the former are in their regard one to another; wherefore also the relations themselves are opposites. That all things have their
