THIS IS BECAUSE THE SOUL OF THE OFFSPRING IS
FROM THE FATHER AND ITS CLOTHING FROM THE MOTHER. No wise man entertains
a doubt that the soul is from the father; it is also manifestly
conspicuous from minds, and likewise from faces which are the types of
minds, in descendants from fathers of families in a regular series; for
the father returns as in an image, if not in his sons, yet in his
grandsons and great grandsons; and this because the soul constitutes a
man's (_homo_) inmost principle, which may be covered and concealed by
the offspring nearest in descent, but nevertheless it comes forth and
manifests itself in the more remote issue. That the soul is from the
father, and its clothing from the mother, may be illustrated by
analogies in the vegetable kingdom. In this kingdom the earth or ground
is the common mother, which in itself, as in a womb, receives and
clothes seeds; yea, as it were conceives, bears, brings forth, and
educates them, as a mother her offspring from the father.

207. To the above I will add TWO MEMORABLE RELATIONS. FIRST. After some
time I was looking towards the city Athens, of which mention was made in
a former memorable relation, and I heard thence an unusual clamor. There
was in it something of laughter, and in the laughter something of
indignation, and in the indignation something of sadness: still however
the clamor was not thereby dissonant, but consonant: because one tone
was not together with the other, but one was within another. In the
spiritual world a variety and commixture of affections is distinctly
perceived in sound. I inquired from afar what was the matter. They said,
"A messenger is arrived from the place where the new comers from the
Christian world first appear, bringing information of what he has heard
there from three persons, that in the world whence they came they had
believed with the generality, that the blessed and happy after death
enjoy absolute rest from labor; and since administrations, offices, and
employments, are labor, they enjoy rest from these: and as those three
persons are now conducted hither by our emissary, and are at the gate
waiting for admission, a clamor was made, and it was deliberately
resolved they should not be introduced into the Palladium on Parnassus,
as the former were, but into the great auditory, to communicate the news
they brought from the Christian world: accordingly some deputies have
been sent to introduce them in form." Being at that ti