4803. A matter wholly unknown in the world and worthy of mention is this: The states in which good spirits and angels live undergo constant change and perfection. In this way they are conveyed to the more internal parts of the province in which they dwell, and so into more excellent functions. For in heaven purification takes place constantly, which is so to speak a new creation. Yet the situation is that no angel to all eternity can possibly attain complete perfection. The Lord alone is the perfect One, He being the root and the source of all perfection. Those who correspond to the mouth constantly wish to be speaking, for speaking gives them utmost pleasure. While undergoing perfection they are restricted to speaking nothing but that which is beneficial to companions, the community, heaven, and the Lord. The delight they take in speaking in that way grows in the measure that the desire to regard themselves in what they speak and to strive after wisdom from what is properly their own passes away from them.

10029. 'And you shall take all the fat' means the accommodated good. This is clear from the meaning of 'the fat' as good, dealt with in 5943. The good is described as being accommodated because the subject here is the purifying of the external or natural man, also the implanting of truth and good and so the joining together of the two there; for these things are what are meant by sacrifices and burnt offerings. Here therefore the fat from the young bull serves to mean good which has been accommodated to the natural or external man and is able to be joined to the truth there. For truth must be accommodated to its good and good to its truth, the reason being that they must exist as one. It should also be remembered that truth and good in the natural or external man are different from truth and good in the internal man, just as outer and inner are different, or lower and higher, or - what amounts to the same thing - posterior and prior. Truth as it exists in the natural man is factual knowledge, and good as it exists there is the accompanying delight. Both of these are perceptible to a person while in the world, for when he gives thought to them they are immediately apparent. Truth in the internal man however is not like factual knowledge immediately making itself apparent; rather it is truth implanted in the understanding part of the internal man. The good too implanted in the internal man is not perceptible, for it is implanted in the will part there. Both belong to the person's inner life, in which the truth is the truth of faith and the good is the good of love. Such is the difference between the truth and good in the internal or spiritual man and the truth and good in the external or natural man. The implantation and joining together of the truth and good in the external man is meant by the sacrifice of the young bull, but the implantation and joining together of the two in the internal man is meant by the burnt offering of the ram, described further on in this chapter. From all this it is evident what should be understood by the accommodated good, meant by 'the fat' from the young bull.