ense that man has, belongs not to
his body but to his spirit, which dwells in these organs and in their
minutest particulars. This is why spirits see, hear, and feel, as
well as men. But when the spirit has been loosed from the body, these
senses are exercised in the spiritual world, not in the natural
world. The natural sensation that the spirit had when it was in the
body it had by means of the material part that was added to it; but
it then had also spiritual sensations in its thinking and willing.

435. All this has been said to convince the rational man that viewed
in himself man is a spirit, and that the corporeal part that is added
to the spirit to enable it to perform its functions in the natural
and material world is not the man, but only an instrument of his
spirit. But evidences from experience are preferable, because there
are many that fail to comprehend rational deductions; and those that
have established themselves in the opposite view turn such deductions
into grounds of doubt by means of reasonings from the fallacies of
the senses. Those that have established themselves in the opposite
view are accustomed to think that beasts likewise have life and
sensations and thus have a spiritual part, the same as man has, and
yet that part dies with the body. But the spiritual of beasts is not
the same as the spiritual of man is; for man has what beasts have
not, an inmost, into which the Divine flows, raising man up to
Itself, and thereby conjoining man to Itself. Because of this, man,
in contrast with beasts, has the ability to think about God and about
the Divine things of heaven and the church, and to love God from
these and in these, and thus be conjoined to Him; and whatever can be
conjoined to the Divine cannot be dissipated, but whatever cannot be
conjoined is dissipated. The inmost that man has, in contrast with
beasts, has been treated of above (n. 39), and what was there said
will here be repeated, since it is important to have the fallacies
dispelled that have been engendered in the minds of many who from
lack of knowledge and trained intellect are unable to form rational
conclusions on the subject. The words are these:

I will mention a certain arcanum respecting the angels of the three
heavens, which has not hitherto come into any one's mind, because
degrees have not been understood. In every angel and in every man
there is an inmost or highest degree, or an inmost or highest
something, into whic