560. THE INTERNAL SENSE

Before one can go any further, reference must be made to the Church as it was before the Flood. In general it went the same way as subsequent Churches, as the Jewish Church before the Lord's Coming and the Christian Church after; that is, people corrupted and adulterated the cognitions of true faith. In particular as regards the member of the Church before the Flood, he conceived dreadful persuasions in the process of time and immersed the goods and truths of faith in filthy desires, to such an extent that scarcely any remnants resided with him. And once they had become such those people suffocated themselves so to speak, for nobody can live without remnants. Indeed, as already stated, it is remnants that make man's life superior to that of animals; it is from remnants, or from the Lord through them, that anyone is enabled to be a human being, to know what good and truth are, and to reflect on individual things, and so to think and to reason. For remnants alone are what contain spiritual and celestial life.