6400. 'Biting the horse's heels' means false notions received from the lowest natural level. This is clear from the meaning of 'biting' as clinging to and thereby causing harm, and from the meaning of 'the horse's heels' as false notions received from the lowest natural level; for 'the heel' is the lowest and bodily part of the natural, 259, 4938-4952. While 'horse' is the understanding part of the mind, 2761, 2762, 3217, 5321, 6125. 'Horse' here means false notions because the lowest natural level of the understanding, which is that of the senses, is meant. People who are guided by truth but not as yet by good are subject to false notions received from that lowest natural level. This may be recognized from the consideration that truth is not in any light unless good resides with it or exists within it. For good is like a flame radiating light, and when that good meets some truth it not only throws light on it but also draws it into that radiating light, towards itself. People therefore who are guided by truth but not as yet by good are in a kind of gloom and darkness, because truth possesses no light at all of its own, and the light which those people receive from good is as feeble as light which fades away. When such people therefore think and engage in reasoning about truth, and from truth about good, they are like those who see apparitions in the darkness and believe them to be real bodies. Or they are like people who in the gloom see streaks on a wall and whose imagination leads them to make some shape out of them, either of a human being or of some other living creature. But when daylight comes it is seen that they are merely streaks without any such shape. It is much the same with the truths residing with them; for they see as truths what are not truths, which ought rather to be likened to apparitions or streaks on the wall. What is more, people of this kind - those who have been guided by some truth from the Word but not by any good - have been the source of all the heresies that have arisen within the Church; for heretical belief has been seen by them to be altogether the truth. So too with falsities within the Church. Those who have disseminated them have not been guided by good, as may be recognized from the consideration that they cast the good of charity far behind the truth of faith and as a consequence have for the most part invented ideas which are in no way compatible with the good of charity.

[2] Since it is said that those who are guided by truth but not as yet by good use false notions received from the lowest natural level to reason about truth and about good, let something also be said about what false notions are. Take for example a person's life after death. People subject to false notions received from lowest nature, such as those who are guided by truth but not as yet by good, do not believe that any part of a person except his body has life, or that a person can possibly rise again when he dies unless he gets back his body. If these people are told that the interior man is the one who has life within the body and who is raised up by the Lord when the body dies, and that this interior man has a body like those that spirits or angels have, and that like a person in the world he can see, hear, talk, mix with others, and seem to himself to be altogether a person, they cannot grasp any of it. False notions received from the lowest natural level cause them to believe that such things cannot be true.

[3] The chief reason why they do not believe them to be true is that they cannot see those things with their physical eyes. When such people think about the spirit or soul, the only idea they can have of it is that it is like things the eye cannot see in the natural world. Consequently they consider it to be either something breath-like, or else something air-like, ether-like, or flame-like, or - according to some - something purely thought-like, which possesses scarcely any vitality until it is joined again to the body. These people think the way they do because to them everything of an interior nature is gloom and darkness and only those of an external nature are in light. This shows how easily such people can fall into error; for if they limit their thought to the body and how it will be reassembled, to the destruction of the world and the fact that it has been awaited in vain for so many centuries, to animals and the fact that they have life not unlike man's life, or to the fact that no dead persons reappear and declare their state of life, they easily recede - when they think of these and other such things - from belief in resurrection, as they do from many other matters of belief. The reason they recede from that belief is that they are not guided by good and do not through good see in the light. Such being their condition it also says, 'And its rider will fall backwards; I wait for Your salvation, O Jehovah', meaning a receding from [the truth] unless the Lord comes to their aid.

6125. 'In exchange for horses' means factual knowledge supplied from the understanding. This is clear from the meaning of 'horses' as ideas forming the understanding, dealt with in 2760-2762, 3217, 5321; and since they are spoken of in connection with Egypt, which means factual knowledge, 'horses' here are factual knowledge supplied from the understanding. But what factual knowledge supplied from the understanding is must be stated. There is an understanding part and there is a will part in the human mind, and these are situated not only in his internal man but also in his external. The human understanding is developing and growing from early childhood through to manhood, and it consists in a discernment of things gained from experience and formal knowledge, also a discernment of causes from effects as well as of consequences from a chain of causes. Thus the understanding part consists in a comprehension and perception of such things as are part of everyday life, public and private. An inflowing of light from heaven brings it into existence, and for that reason everyone's understanding is capable of being made more perfect. Understanding is given to everyone in accordance with his effort to make use of what he knows, in accordance with the life he leads, and in accordance with his individual character; no one lacks it provided he is of sound mind. A person is given it to the end that he may have freedom of choice, that is, have the freedom to choose good or evil. Unless he possesses an understanding like the one just described, he has no power of his own to make that choice; thus nothing could possibly be made his own.

[2] In addition to this it should be recognized that the understanding part of a person's mind is that which receives what is spiritual, so that it is the recipient of spiritual truth and good. For no good at all, that is, no charity, nor any truth at all, that is, any faith, can be instilled into anyone if he does not have that understanding part; but they are instilled in the measure that he does have it. This also explains why a person is not regenerated by the Lord until adult life when he does possess an understanding. Till then the good of love and the truth of faith fall like seed into utterly infertile soil. But once a person has been regenerated his understanding serves the function of enabling him to see and perceive what good is and from this what truth is. For the understanding converts things belonging to the superior light of heaven into those belonging to the inferior light of the natural world, as a consequence of which the former are then seen within the latter in the same way as a person's inner affections are seen in his face when it lacks all pretence. And because the understanding serves that function, many places in the Word where the spiritual side of the Church is referred to refer also to its power of understanding, a matter which will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with elsewhere.

[3] From all this one may now see what is meant by factual knowledge supplied from the understanding, namely known facts which lend support to the things a person grasps and perceives with his understanding, whether those things are bad or good. Such facts are what are meant in the Word by 'horses from Egypt', as in Isaiah,

Woe to those who go down into Egypt for help, and rely on horses and trust in chariots because they are many, and on horsemen because they are extremely strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel and do not seek Jehovah. For Egypt is man (homo), not God; and his horses are flesh, not spirit. Isaiah 31:1, 3.

'Horses from Egypt' stands for factual knowledge supplied from a perverted understanding.

[4] In Ezekiel,

He rebelled against him by sending his ambassadors to Egypt, that ha might give him horses and many people. Will he prosper? Will he who does this be rescued? Ezekiel 17:15.

'Horses from Egypt' again stands for factual knowledge supplied from a perverted understanding, which knowledge is resorted to in matters of faith, though there is no belief in the Word, that is, in the Lord, apart from what that knowledge provides. Thus no belief ever comes to exist, for within a perverted understanding a negative attitude reigns.

[5] The destruction which such factual knowledge underwent is represented by the drowning of Pharaoh's horses and chariots in the Sea Suph; and since that knowledge is meant by 'horses' and false matters of doctrine by 'chariots', his horses and chariots are mentioned so many times in the description of that event, see Exodus 14:17-18, 27, 26, 28. And the Song of Moses and Miriam consequently contains these words,

Pharaoh's horse went, also his chariot, also his horsemen, into the sea; but Jehovah made the waters of the sea come back over them. Sing to Jehovah, for He has highly exalted Himself; He has thrown the horse and its rider into the sea. Exodus 15:19, 21.

[6] Similar factual knowledge is also meant by the things required before-hand for a king over Israel, in Moses,

If they desire a king, from among their brothers shall a king be set over them. Only let him not multiply horses for himself nor lead the people back into Egypt in order to multiply horses. Deuteronomy 17:15-16.

'A king' represented the Lord as regards Divine Truth, 1672, 1728, 2015, 2069, 3009, 3670, 4575, 4581, 4789, 4966, 5044, 5068, thus as regards intelligence since this comes, when it is genuine, from Divine Truth. The need for intelligence to be acquired through the Word, which is Divine Truth, and not through factual knowledge taken from one's own understanding is meant by the injunction that the king should not multiply horses or lead the people back into Egypt in order to multiply horses.