e. The reason why on our approach there breathed on
you as it were a vernal warmth, is, because conjugial love and that
warmth in our heaven act in unity; for warmth with us is love; and the
light, wherewith warmth is united, is wisdom; and use is as it were the
atmosphere which contains each in its bosom. What are heat and light
without that which contains them? In like manner, what are love and
wisdom without their use? In such case there is nothing conjugial in
them, because the subject is wanting in which they should exist to
produce it. In heaven where there is vernal warmth, there is love truly
conjugial; because the vernal principle exists only where warmth is
equally united to light, or where warmth and light are in equal
proportions; and it is our opinion, that as warmth is delighted with
light, and _vice versa_, so love is delighted with wisdom, and wisdom in
its turn with love." He further added, "With us in heaven there is
perpetual light, and on no occasion do the shades of evening prevail,
still less is there darkness; because our sun does not set and rise like
yours, but remains constantly in a middle altitude between the zenith
and the horizon, which, as you express it, is at an elevation of 45
degrees. Hence, the heat and light proceeding from our sun cause
perpetual spring, and a perpetual vernal warmth inspires those with whom
love is united with wisdom in just proportion; and our Lord, by the
eternal union of heat and light, breathes nothing but uses: hence also
come the germinations of your earth, and the connubial associations of
your birds and animals in the spring; for the vernal warmth opens their
interiors even to the inmost, which are called their souls, and affects
them, and communicates to them its conjugial principle, and causes their
principle of prolification to come into its delights, in consequence of
a continual tendency to produce fruits of use, which use is the
propagation of their kind. But with men (_homines_) there is a perpetual
influx of vernal warmth from the Lord; wherefore they are capable of
enjoying marriage delights at all times, even in the midst of winter;
for the males of the human race were created to be recipients of light,
that is, of wisdom from the Lord, and the females to be recipients of
heat, that is, of the love of the wisdom of the male from the Lord.
Hence then it is, that, as we approached, there breathed on you a vernal
warmth attended with an odoriferous fra