and hence is common to every animal. Every man is born corporeal, and becomes more and more interiorly natural; and as he loves intelligence he becomes rational, and afterwards if he loves wisdom he becomes spiritual. . . . If he stand still in the first threshold in the progression to wisdom, the form of his natural mind remains, and this receives the influx of the universal sphere (which is of the marriage of good and truth) no otherwise than do the inferior subjects of the animal kingdom—the beasts and birds—receive it; and as these are merely natural, man becomes like unto them [in the matter we are now speaking of], and so loves the sex in like manner as they do.
"But conjugial love is of the internal or spiritual man, because, as a man becomes more intelligent and wise, he becomes more internal or spiritual; and in the same degree the form of his mind is more perfected, and this form receives conjugial love; for it therein is sensible of a spiritual joy which is inwardly blessed, and from this a natural joy which derives soul, life and essence from that."—C. L. n. 94, 95.But conjugial love may be said to be included in the love of the sex like a gem in its matrix. It is the spiritual internal whereof the love of the sex is the natural external. It is the love of the sex regenerated, spiritualized, cleansed of its defilements, lifted from earth to heaven. The love of the sex, like all other natural loves, is first in time—first in the order of development; but conjugial love, like all spiritual loves and the spiritual man himself, is first in end—first in the order of importance.
We thus see how the love between married pairs in heaven, called conjugial love, differs from the natural man's love of the sex—a love which often leads to unions
