Selection from True Christian Religion ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
These three loves must first be considered for the reason that these three are the universal and fundamental of all loves, and that
charity has something in common with each of them.
• For
the love of heaven means both love to the Lord and love towards the neighbor; and as each of these looks to use as its end, the love of heaven may be called the love of uses.
• The love of the world is not merely a love of wealth and possessions, but is also a love of all that the world affords, and of all that delights the bodily senses, as beauty delights the eye, harmony the ear, fragrance the nostrils, delicacies the tongue, softness the skin; also becoming dress, convenient houses, and society, thus all the enjoyments arising from these and many other objects.
• The love of self is not merely the love of honor, glory, fame, and eminence, but also the love of meriting and seeking office, and so of ruling over others.
Charity has something in common with each of these three loves, because viewed in itself
charity is the love of uses; for charity wishes to do good to the neighbor, and good and use are the same, and from these loves everyone looks to uses as his end;
• the love of heaven looking to spiritual uses,
• the love of the world to natural uses, which may be called civil,
• the love of self to corporeal uses, which may also be called domestic uses, that have regard to oneself and one's own.
That these three loves reside in every man from creation and therefore
from birth, and that when rightly subordinated they perfect him, and when not, they pervert him ...
These three loves are rightly subordinated when
the love of heaven forms the head,
the love of the world the breast and abdomen, and
the love of self the feet and their soles.
The human mind is divided into three regions. From the highest region man looks to God, from the second or middle region to the world, and from the third or lowest to himself. The mind being such it can be raised and can raise itself upward, because to God and to heaven; it can be extended and can extend itself to the sides in all directions, because into the world and its nature; and it can be let downward and let itself downward, because to earth and to hell. In these respects the bodily vision emulates the mind's vision; it also can look upward, round about, and downward.
The human mind is like a house of three stories which communicate by stairs, in the highest of which angels from heaven dwell, in the middle men in the world, and in the lowest one,
genii. The man in whom these three loves are rightly subordinated can ascend and descend in this house at his pleasure; and when he ascends to the highest story, he is in company with angels as an angel; and when he descends from that to the middle story he is in company with men as an angel man; and when from this he descends still further, he is in company with genii as a man of the world, instructing, reproving, and subduing them.
In the man in whom these three loves are rightly subordinated, they are also coordinated thus:
The highest love, which is
the love of heaven, is inwardly in the second, which is
the love of the world, and through this in the third or lowest, which is
the love of self; and the love that is within directs at its will that which is without.
So when the love of heaven is inwardly in the love of the world, and through this in the love of self, man from the God of heaven, performs uses in each. In their operation these three loves are like will, understanding, and action; the will flows into the understanding, and there provides itself with the means whereby it produces action.
(from True Christian Religion 394-395)
