only allowable but required."[1] (Vaihinger: Kant Commentar: ii., p. 143.)
- ↑ The Doctrine of the Reason as taught by Swedenborg and its bearing on our knowledge of reality may in general be seen from the following extracts from the "Arcana," and other works:—
"Three things constitute the external man: the rational, the scientific, and the external sensuous. The rational is interior, and is that through which the interior man is conjoined with the external; in itself it is nothing unless affection flows into it and makes it active; and it thence becomes such as is the affection. When the affection of good inflows, this becomes in the rational the affection of truth; the contrary when the affection of evil inflows." (Swedenborg's Arcana Cœlestia, 1589.)
"What goes on in the internal man cannot be apprehended by the man himself because it is above the rational from which he thinks. To the inmost or internal man is subject the rational faculty or principle which appears as if belonging to man. Into this there inflow through the internal man the celestial things of love and of faith; and through this rational down into the scientific things which belong to the external man. But the things which flow in are received according to the state of each." (Ibid., 1941.)
"Man is born into nothing rational, but only into the faculty of receiving it, and as he learns and imbues all things so he becomes rational. This is done by the way of the body. But there is something constantly flowing in from the interior which receives the things thus entering [through the bodily senses] and disposes them into order. Hence is their order and the relationships among them, from which it is evident that the rational faculty of man is from divine celestial good as its father." (Ibid., 2557.)
"The things of reason illustrated by the divine are appearances of truth. All appearances [phenomena] of truth in which is the divine are of the rational faculty, insomuch that rational truths and appearances of truth are the same, whereas scientific things belong to the natural plane. Rational truths can never be and come forth except from an inflowing of the divine into the rational faculty of man; and through the things of reason into the scientific things which belong to the natural plane of the mind. The things that then
