8858. A person's whole character is determined by the nature of whatever dominates his life; this is what marks him off from others. His heaven is formed in accordance with it if he is good, or his hell if he is bad. For it constitutes his true will and so the true being of his life, which is unchangeable after death. From all this one may see what the life is like in a person who has been regenerated, and what it is like in one who has not been regenerated.

9394. 'And put it in bowls' means present with a person, in the things forming his memory. This is clear from the meaning of 'bowls' as the things which form the memory. The reason why 'bowls' are things forming the memory is that vessels in general mean known facts, 1469, 1496, 3068, 3079, and known facts are nothing other than things forming the memory. Consequently 'bowls' here are the kinds of things forming the memory which hold within themselves God's truths, meant in general by 'blood'. What known facts are in relation to the truths and forms of the good of life with a person must be stated briefly. All the things which are learned and stored in the memory, from where they can be called forth before the sight of the understanding, are called known facts. In themselves they are things which constitute the understanding part of the natural or external man. Since known facts include items of knowledge concerning inner realities, or cognitions, they serve the sight of the internal or rational man as a sort of mirror. For they then become things that can be seen by the internal man, just as fields full of plants, flowers, and various kinds of crops and trees, or as gardens adorned with various things growing there for use and to delight the senses, are accustomed to be seen in the material world by the external man. But internal sight, which is the understanding, sees in the fields or gardens of things forming the memory only those which are in keeping with the loves that govern a person, and which are also in agreement with the chief ideas he loves.

[2] Those therefore who are governed by self-love and love of the world see only such things as agree with those loves. They call them truths and also by means of illusions and appearances make them like truths. And they go on to see such things as accord with the chief ideas they have adopted and love because they themselves are the author of them. From this it is evident that known facts and cognitions, which are the things forming the memory, serve people governed by those two loves as the means to lend support to falsities against truths and evils against forms of good, and so as the means to destroy the Church's truths and forms of good. So it is that the learned who are like this are less sane than simple people; privately they reject the existence of God, providence, heaven, hell, life after death, and the truths of faith. This is transparently evident from the learned of the present-day European world who are in the next life, where a huge number of them are atheists at heart. For in the next life people's hearts speak and not their lips. From all this it is now clear what use it is to which cognitions and known facts are put by those whose thoughts are ruled by delights belonging to self-love and love of the world.

[3] But it is altogether different with those who are governed by delights belonging to heavenly loves, which are love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour. Because they are guided in their thinking by the Lord through heaven, they see and select in the fields and gardens of the things forming their memory only those which are in agreement with the delights belonging to those loves and which are in agreement with their Church's teachings that they love. For these people the things that form the memory are like the paradise gardens of heaven; they are also represented and in the Word are meant by paradise gardens, see 3220.

[4] Furthermore it should be recognized that when known facts or things in the memory become part of a person's life they fade from his exterior memory, in the same way as other things normally do when continual practice or habit makes them spontaneous and instinctive so to speak - the way he carries himself and acts, the things he speaks, contemplates, and intends, and in general all his thoughts and affections. But no other facts become part of the person's life except those which enter into and give form to the delights that belong to his loves, thus those which enter his will. On these matters see what has been stated and shown in 8853-8858; and regarding the exterior memory, which belongs to the body, and the interior memory, which belongs to its spirit, 2469-2494.

[5] The reason why known facts are vessels, and in the Word are meant by every type of vessel, such as bowls, cups, waterpots, and the like, is that each known fact is a kind of general container holding particular and specific truths that accord with their general container. Such general containers in the Word have been arranged into series and so to speak into bundles; and these bundles and series have in turn been so set in order that they resemble the form that heaven takes, thus are set in order from most specific truths to most general ones. An idea of such series can be gained from the series and bundles of muscular tissue in the human body. Each bundle there consists of a number of motor fibres, and each motor fibre consists of blood vessels and nerve fibres. Each bundle of muscular tissue too, which taken as a whole is called a muscle, is enveloped in its own outer covering which sets it apart from others; and the same is so for the smaller bundles within, called motor fibres. Yet all the muscles and motor fibres within them, which are present in the whole body, have been so set in order that they may co-ordinate with one another to act in whatever way the will pleases; and they do so in a manner that surpasses all understanding. The situation is similar with known facts in the memory. These in a similar way are aroused and made to act by that which is the delight of a person's love, that is, of his will, but through the instrumentality of the understanding part. What has become part of a person's life, that is, what has become part of his will or love, is that which arouses them. For the inner man always has these things in his field of vision and takes delight in them to the extent that they are in agreement with his loves. And whatever enters fully into those loves, becoming spontaneous and so to speak instinctive, fades from the external memory but remains ingrained in the internal memory from which it can never be blotted out. This is how known facts become part of life.

[6] From all this it is also evident that known facts are as it were the vessels that belong to the interior man's life, and that this is why known facts are meant by various types of vessels, and in the present instance by 'bowls'. The same is meant by 'vessels' and 'bowls' in Isaiah,

I will fasten him like a peg in a sure place, so that he may be a throne of glory to his father's house; and on him they may hang all the glory of the house of his father, sons, and grandsons, every small vessel - from the vessels of bowls even to all the vessels of stringed instruments. Isaiah 22:23-24.

This refers in the internal and representative sense to the Lord's Divine Human, declaring that all truths and forms of good from first to last come through Him and from Him. Factual knowledge of truth of a celestial type is meant by 'the vessels of bowls', and factual knowledge of truth of a spiritual type by 'the vessels of stringed instruments'. And in Zechariah,

On that day there will be on the horses' bells, Holiness to Jehovah. And the pots in the house of Jehovah will be as the bowls before the altar. Zechariah 14:20.

'The horses' bells' stands for factual knowledge of truth which comes from an enlightened understanding, 2761, 2762, 5321; and 'the bowls before the altar' stands for factual knowledge of good. Similar knowledge is meant by 'the bowls of the altar' at Exodus 27:3; 38:3.

4156. 'And put them in the camel's straw' means in facts. This is clear from the meaning of 'the camel's straw' as facts, 3114. These are called straw not only because straw is the food for camels but also because facts, compared with rational ideas, are coarse and lacking in order. For the same reason too facts are meant by 'the entangled boughs of trees and of the wood', 2831. Also 'camels' means general facts that belong to the natural man, see 3048, 3071, 3143, 3145.

[2] As to the assertion that facts, compared with rational ideas, are coarse and lacking in order and for that reason are meant by 'straw' and also by 'entangled boughs', as has been stated, this idea is not open to those who rely solely on facts and are on that account reputed to be learned. They believe that the amount a person knows, that is, how much knowledge he possesses, determines how wise he is. But the situation is quite different, as has been made clear to me from those in the next life who, when they lived in the world, relied solely on facts and as a result acquired a name and reputation for being learned. Such people are sometimes far more stupid than those who have not possessed any skill in the use of factual knowledge. The reason for that stupidity has also been disclosed to me, which is this: Facts are indeed a means towards becoming wise, but they can also be a means towards becoming insane. For people who are leading a good life facts are a means to becoming wise, but for those leading an evil life they are a means to becoming insane since they use facts to support not only a life of evil but also false assumptions, which they do arrogantly and convincingly because they believe that they are wiser than others.

[3] This leads to the destruction of their rational. It is not the person who is able to reason from facts, doing so sometimes in a seemingly more masterly way than others, who is endowed with rationality. This skill which he possesses is the product of a wholly illusory light. But that person has the proper gift of rationality who is able to see clearly that good is good and truth is truth, and as a consequence that evil is evil and falsity is falsity. But anyone who looks on good as evil and on evil as good, and who also looks on truth as falsity and falsity as truth, cannot in any sense be called rational, but rather irrational, no matter how capable he is at reasoning. With the person who sees clearly that good is good and that truth is truth, and conversely that evil is evil and falsity is falsity, there is light flowing in from heaven and enlightening the area of his understanding and causing reasons which he sees with the understanding to be just so many rays of that light. The same light also gives light to facts so that they serve to support those reasons, besides imposing order and the heavenly form on such facts. People however who stand opposed to good and truth, as all do who are leading an evil life, do not allow that heavenly light in. Instead they take delight solely in their own illusory light, whose nature is such that one sees things rather like a person in the dark who sees streaks on a wall, and is deluded into making all kinds of shapes out of them, when yet they are not shapes, for as daylight falls on them they are seen to be merely streaks.

[4] From all this it may be seen that facts are a means to becoming wise and also a means to becoming insane; that is, that they are a means to perfecting the rational or else a means to destroying it. Those therefore who have destroyed the rational by means of facts are in the next life far more stupid than those who have not possessed any skill in the use of factual knowledge. The coarseness of facts compared with rational ideas is evident from the consideration that they belong to the natural or external man, and that the rational which is cultivated by means of them belongs to the spiritual or internal man. How far facts are different from and distant from the rational as regards purity can be known from what has been stated and shown about the two memories in 2469-2494.