The Animal Kingdom, Considered Anatomically, Physically, and Philosophically #1

By Emanuel Swedenborg

Study this Passage

  
/ 599  
  

1. THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, CONSIDERED ANATOMICALLY, PHYSICALLY, AND PHILOSOPHICALLY.

PART I. THE VISCERA OF THE ABDOMEN, OR THE ORGANS OF THE INFERIOR REGION.

PROLOGUE.

NOTHING whatever is more to be desired, or more delightful than the light of truth; for it is the source of wisdom. When the mind is harassed with obscurity, distracted by doubts, rendered torpid or saddened by ignorance or falsities, and truth emerges as from a dark abyss, it shines forth instantaneously, like the sun dispersing mists and vapors, or like the dawn repelling the shades of darkness. For truths in the intellect or rational mind are analogous to lights and rays in ocular vision; falsities that have the appearance of truth are analogous to unreal or phosphoric lights; doubts, to clouds and shadows; and ignorance itself is thick darkness and the image of night: thus one thing is represented in another.

  
/ 599