3030. 'Perhaps the woman is not willing to go after me to this land' means doubt in the natural man as to whether that affection was separable. This is clear from the meaning of 'the woman' as truth, here truth from the natural, that was to be joined to the Divine good of the Rational, though as all joining together is effected by means of affection, as stated above in 3024, 'the women' accordingly means the affection for that truth; and from the meaning of 'going after me', or following, 'to this land' as being separated from the natural and joined to the Rational, for 'land' here, as above in 3026, means the good of love which belongs to the Rational. The fact that doubt is meant may be seen from the remark 'perhaps she is not willing to'. From what has been stated above one may see what is embodied in these words and those that follow to verse 8, and beyond that. Yet to make them even more intelligible let a little more be stated here.

[2] The genuine rational derives its being from good but its manifestation from truth. Good flows in by an internal route, but truth by an external route. In this manner good joins itself in the rational to truth and causes it to be the rational. Unless good is joined there to truth it is not the rational, even though it may seem to be because of the person's ability to reason, 1944. This is the normal way in which the rational is formed with man.

[3] Now because the Lord was born like any other, and was willing to be taught like any other, He was also willing in a like manner to make His Rational Divine, that is to say, to make it Divine as regards good through influx from His Divine by the internal route, and as regards truth through influx by the external route. The Rational was therefore so formed as regards good that it was in a state ready to receive truth. (That forming is meant by the opening words of this chapter, 'Abraham, being old, was advanced in years, and Jehovah blessed Abraham in all things', namely, when the state was reached for the Lord's Human to become Divine, and all things had been re-arranged by the Lord into Divine order, see 3016, 3017.) And there now follows the consideration that truth was to be joined to the good of the Rational. And this, as has been stated, was effected in the normal way, that is, by means of facts and cognitions summoned from the natural man.

[4] The good itself of the rational which is formed by the internal route is the ground itself, while truth is the seed that is to be sown in the ground. The genuine rational is born in no other way. So that the Rational might be formed in the same way in the Lord and be made Divine by His own power, the Lord came into the world and was willing to be born like any other. Otherwise he could have assumed a human presence without being born at all as He had done on many occasions in ancient times when He had appeared to men. These are the considerations contained in this chapter, namely the following: The way in which truth was summoned from the natural man to be joined to the good of the rational; and - since the good there was Divine - the truth there was to become Divine too. To man, especially to one who does not know that the rational is anything distinct and separate from the natural and who therefore does not know that the rational is formed by consecutive stages, by means of cognitions, all of this is so utterly obscure as to be unintelligible to him. But to those who do know something about the rational and the natural man, and have some enlightenment, such considerations are among those that are quite easy to grasp. And angels see them plainly as if in broad daylight. To gain some idea of them, see the following points that have been stated and shown already:

As to truth the rational is formed through influx into knowledge and cognitions, 1495, 1563, 1900, 1964.

It is not born from knowledge and cognitions but from the affection for these, 1895, 1900.

Knowledge and cognitions are merely vessels for good, 1469, 1496.

Empty facts have to be destroyed, 1489, 1492, 1499, 1500.

In the rational the affection for good is present as the soul within the affection for truth, 2072.

What the affection for rational truth and for factual truth are, 2503.

By means of cognitions the external man is joined to the internal man, that is, the rational man to the natural man, when cognitions are implanted in the celestial things of love and charity, 1450, 1451, 1453, 1616.

1900. 'Go in now to my servant-girl' means a joining to the more exterior man. This too is clear from what has been stated already - that the rational part of man's mind is conceived and begotten from the internal man as its father and from the exterior as its mother. Man's very life springs from the internal man, which cannot have any communication with the external, other than a very obscure communication, until the formation of recipient vessels belonging to the memory has been effected by means of cognitions and knowledge.

[2] The influx of the internal man occurs as an influx into the cognitions and factual knowledge that are present in the exterior man - affection being the means. Meanwhile, before they are present, a communication does indeed exist, but solely through those affections that control the external man; so that not more than very general stirrings and certain appetites occur there, and also certain blind inclinations such as reveal themselves in small children. But this life grows by degrees more definite as vessels are formed in the memory by means of cognitions and in the inner memory by rational concepts. As these vessels are formed and arranged into a sequence - into such a sequence in fact that they stand mutually related to one another like blood relatives and relatives by marriage, or like communities and families - so the correspondence is perfected of the external man with the internal man, and even better so through rational concepts, which are intermediate.

[3] But if the cognitions by means of which those vessels are formed are not truths, a lack of congruity still exists, for the celestial and spiritual things belonging to the internal man do not discover any correspondence for themselves except within truths. Such truths constituting the organic forms of the two memories ¹ are the genuine vessels into which the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith may be introduced fittingly; for when they are so introduced they are arranged by the Lord according to the pattern and image of the communities of heaven, that is, of the Lord's kingdom - insomuch that the person becomes, in miniature, heaven or the Lord's kingdom, as also in the Word the minds of those people are called in whom the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith are present. But these matters have been stated for the benefit of those minds that like to go more deeply.

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