self, resists,
and bursts forth against the assailant, and acts as an enemy by virtue
of its own strength and ability, which is like flame bursting from a
fire upon him who stirs it: that it is like fire, appears from the
sparkling of the eyes from the face being inflamed, also from the tone
of the voice and the gestures. This is the effect of love, as being the
heat of life, to prevent its extinction, and with it the extinction of
all cheerfulness, vivacity, and perceptibility of delight, grounded in
its own love.

360. It may be expedient here to show how the love by being assaulted is
inflamed and kindled into zeal, like fire into flame. Love resides in a
man's will; nevertheless it is not inflamed in the will itself, but in
the understanding; for in the will it is like fire, and in the
understanding like flame. Love in the will knows nothing about itself,
because there it is not sensible of anything relating to itself, neither
does it there act from itself; but this is done in the understanding and
its thought: when therefore the will is assaulted, it provokes itself to
anger in the understanding, which is effected by various reasonings.
These reasonings are like pieces of wood, which the fire inflames, and
which thence burn: they are therefore like so much fuel, or so many
combustible matters which give occasion to that spiritual flame, which
is very variable.

361. We will here unfold the true reason why a man becomes inflamed in
consequence of an assault of his love. The human form in its inmost
principles is from creation a form of love and wisdom. In man there are
all the affections of love, and thence all the perceptions of wisdom,
compounded in the most perfect order, so as to make together what is
unanimous, and thereby a one. Those affections and perceptions are
rendered substantial; for substances are their subjects. Since therefore
the human form is compounded of these, it is evident that, if the love
is assaulted, this universal form also, with everything therein, is
assaulted at the same instant, or together with it. And as the desire to
continue in its form is implanted from creation in all living things,
therefore this principle operates in every general compound by
derivation from the singulars of which it is compounded, and in the
singulars by derivation from the general compound: hence when the love
is assaulted, it defends itself by its understanding, and the
understanding (defends itself) by ra