c Wisdom about Divine Love and Wisdom_ it was shown
that there is only one life and that men are recipients of life; also
that the human will is the receptacle of love, and the human
understanding the receptacle of wisdom; love and wisdom are the one life.
It was also demonstrated that by creation and steadily therefore by
divine providence this life appears in the human being quite as though it
sprang from him and hence was his own, but that this is the appearance so
that man can be a receptacle. It was also shown above (nn. 288-294) that
no one thinks from himself but from others, nor the others from
themselves, but all from the Lord, an evil person as well as a good
person. We showed further that this is well known in Christendom,
especially to those who not only say but also believe that all good and
truth, all wisdom and thus all faith and charity are from the Lord, also
that all evil and falsity are from the devil or hell.

[2] One can only conclude from all this that everything which a man
thinks and wills flows into him. And since all speech flows from thought
as an effect from its cause, and all action flows similarly from the
will, it follows that everything which one speaks and does also flows in,
albeit derivatively or indirectly. It is undeniable that all which one
sees, hears, smells, tastes or feels flows in; why not then what he
thinks and wills? Can there be any difference other than this, that
entities in the natural world flow into the organs of the external senses
or of the body, while entities in the spiritual world flow into the
organic substances of the internal senses or of the mind? Hence as the
organs of the external senses or of the body are receptacles of natural
objects, so the organic substances of the internal senses or of the mind
are receptacles of spiritual objects. As this is man's situation, what
then is his proprium? It cannot consist in his being such or such a
receptacle, for then it would only be the man's manner of reception, not
the life's proprium. No one understands by proprium anything else than
that he lives of himself and consequently thinks and wills of himself;
but that there is no such proprium and indeed cannot be with anyone
follows from what was said above.

309. But let me relate what I have heard from some in the spiritual
world. They were of those who believe that one's own prudence is
everything and divine providence nothing. I remarked that man has no
proprium u