gainst divine providence. Upon
this the three, believing alike, became warm friends and set out together
on the path of one's own prudence, which leads to hell.

198. It was shown above that man can have no thought except from some
affection of his life's love and that the thought is nothing other than
the form of the affection. Now, man sees his thought but cannot see his
affection, which he feels; it is therefore from sight which dwells on the
appearance, and not from affection which does not come into sight but
into feeling, that he concludes that one's own prudence does all things.
For affection shows itself only in a certain enjoyment of thought and in
pleasure ever reasoning about it. This pleasure and enjoyment make one
with the thought in those who, from self-love or love of the world,
believe in one's own prudence. The thought glides along in its enjoyment
like a ship in a river current to which the skipper does not attend,
attending only to the sails he spreads.

199. Man can indeed reflect on what his external affection finds
enjoyable when it is also an enjoyment of a bodily sense, but he still
does not reflect that that enjoyment comes from the enjoyment of his
affection in thought. For example, when a lecher sees a lewd woman his
eyes light with a lascivious fire and from this he feels a physical
pleasure; he does not, however, feel his affection's enjoyment or that of
the lust in his thought, only a strong desire more nearly physical. The
same is true of the robber in a forest at sight of travelers and of the
pirate at sea on sighting vessels, and so on. Obviously a man's
enjoyments govern his thoughts, and the thoughts are nothing apart from
them; but he thinks he has only the thoughts, when nevertheless these are
affections put into forms by his life's love so that they appear in the
light; for all affection has heat for its element and thought has light.

[2] The external affections of thought manifest themselves in bodily
sensation, and sometimes in the thought of the mind, but the internal
affections of the thought from which the external exist never make
themselves manifest to man. Of these he knows no more than a rider asleep
in a carriage does of the road or than one feels the rotation of the
earth. Now, when man knows nothing of the things beyond number that take
place in the interiors of his mind, and the few external things which
come to the sight of his thought are produced from the interiors