9062. And if he shall knock out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth. That this signifies if he shall destroy truth or the affection of it in the sensuous man, is evident from the signification of “tooth,” as being the exterior intellectual, and consequently truth in the natural man (of which above, n. 9052), here truth in the ultimate of the natural, that is, in the sensuous, because it is said of a manservant and of a maidservant; from the signification of a “maidservant,” as being the affection of this truth (of which also above, n. 9059); and from the signification of “knocking out,” as being to destroy. (What the sensuous is, and what is its quality, see n. 4009, 5077, 5079, 5084, 5089, 5091, 5125, 5128, 5580, 5767, 6183, 6201, 6310, 6311, 6313, 6315, 6316, 6564, 6598, 6612, 6614, 6622, 6624, 6948, 6949, 7693)

6598. Continuation about influx, and about the interaction of the soul and the body.

It is known that one man excels another in the capacity to understand and perceive what is honorable in moral life, what is just in civil life, and what is good in spiritual life. The cause of this consists in the elevation of the thought to the things that pertain to heaven, whereby the thought is withdrawn from the external things of sense; for they who think solely from things of sense cannot see one whit of what is honorable, just, and good, and therefore they trust to others and speak much from the memory, and thereby appear to themselves wiser than others. But they who are able to think above the things of sense, provided the things in the memory have been set in order, possess a greater capacity than others to understand and perceive, and this according to the degree in which they view things from what is interior.