296. The reason we are controlled by the Lord through spirits is that we are not in the pattern of heaven. We are in fact born into evils that are from hell and are therefore exactly opposite to the divine pattern. This means that we need to be brought back into the pattern, and we cannot be brought back except through the agency of spirits. It would be different if we were born into the good that accords with heaven's pattern. Then we would not be controlled by the Lord through the agency of spirits but through the pattern itself and therefore through a general inflow.
This [general] inflow determines the way things move from thought and intent into act and therefore determines our speech and actions, since these both do flow according to a natural pattern. So the spirits who are with us have nothing to do with these processes.
Animals are also controlled through a general inflow from the spiritual world because they are in the pattern proper to their life, a pattern that they can neither distort nor destroy, because they do not have a rational faculty. 1 (On the difference between humans and animals see above, 39.)
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1. [Swedenborg's footnote] The difference between us and animals is that we can be raised by the Lord to himself, can think about the Divine and love it, and so can be united to the Lord and have eternal life, which is not true of animals: 4525, 6323, 9231. Animals are in the pattern proper to their lives and are therefore born into things that are suited to their natures; but we are not, so we need to be led into the pattern proper to our lives by cognitive means: 637, 5850, 6323. Thought descends into speech and intention into actions for us according to a general inflow: 5862, 5990, 6192, 6211. On the general inflow of the spiritual world into the lives of animals: 1633, 3646.
