Divine Love and Wisdom (Harleys) n. 366

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366. (iii) Such as life is in its beginnings, such it is in the whole and in its every part. In order that this may be perceived, it shall be explained where in the brains those beginnings are, and how they become derivations. Anatomy shows clearly where they exist. It makes known that there are two brains, and that they are continued from the head into the spinal column; that they consist of two substances, called cortical substance and medullary substance; that cortical substance consists of innumerable gland-like forms, and medullary substance of innumerable fibre-like forms. Now as these glands are the heads of fibrils, they are also their beginnings; for the fibres begin and go forth from these glands, and gradually become bundled together into nerves. These bundles or nerves, when formed, descend to the sensory organs in the face, and to the organs of motion in the body, and form them. Consult anyone skilled in the science of anatomy, and you will be convinced. This cortical or glandular substance forms the surface of the cerebrum, and also the surface of the corpora striata, from which comes the medulla oblongata; it also forms the middle of the cerebellum, and the middle of the spinal marrow. But the medullary or fibrillary substances everywhere begin in and proceed from the cortical; and from this come the nerves, and from them all things of the body. That this is true is proved by dissection. They who know these things, either from study of the science of anatomy or from those skilled in it, can see that the beginnings of life are nowhere else than the commencements of the fibres, and that fibres cannot go forth from themselves, but from those beginnings. These beginnings or origins, which appear as glands, are almost countless; their multitude may be compared to the multitude of stars in the universe; and the multitude of fibrils from them can be compared to the multitude of rays going out from the stars and bearing their heat and light to the earths. The multitude of these glands may also be compared to the multitude of angelic societies in the heavens, which also are countless, and, as I have been told, are in the same order; and the multitude of fibrils going out from these glands can be compared to spiritual truths and goods, which in the same way flow down therefrom like rays. Hence it is like a universe and like a heaven in its least form, as has frequently been said and shown above. From these things it can be established that such as life is in beginnings, such it is in derivatives; or, such as life is in its first things in the brains, so is it in the things arising therefrom in the body.


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