220. (11) The sexual abundance men have is according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom and according to their love of performing useful services. That this is the case is one of the secrets known to people of ancient times and which today have been lost. In ancient times people knew that each and every activity that takes place in the body does so from a spiritual origin. They knew, for example, that actions flow from the will, which in itself is spiritual; that speech flows from thought, which likewise is spiritual; also that natural sight results from spiritual sight, which is one of the intellect; that natural hearing results from spiritual hearing, which is an attention of the intellect and at the same time a conformity of the will; and that the natural sense of smell results from a spiritual one, which is perception; and so on. In similar manner the ancients saw that a man's power of insemination stems from a spiritual origin; and from many evidences of both reason and experience they concluded that it results from the truths of which the intellect consists. Moreover, they said that from the spiritual marriage that exists between goodness and truth, which flows into each and every thing in the universe, nothing else is received by members of the male sex but truth and what relates to truth; and that this, in its descent into the body, is formed into seed or sperm (which is why seeds, spiritually interpreted, mean truths). [2] Regarding the process, they said that the male soul, being intellectual in nature, is therefore truth; for anything intellectual in nature is nothing else. Consequently as the soul descends, truth also descends. This is so, they said, because the soul is the inmost element in man and in every animal, and in its essence is spiritual; and from an inherent effort towards its propagation, in its descent it seeks and endeavors to reproduce itself. Then, when this happens, the whole soul forms itself and clothes itself and becomes seed or sperm. Moreover, this can take place thousands and thousands of times, they said, because the soul is a spiritual essence, which does not have dimension but repleteness, and from which there is no taking away a part, but instead a reproducing of the whole without any loss to it. As a result, the soul is as fully present in its tiniest vessels, which are the seeds or sperm, as it is in its largest one, which is the body. [3] So then, since truth in the soul is the origin of the seed or sperm, it follows that the sexual abundance men have is according to their love of propagating the truths of their wisdom. It is also according to their love of performing useful services, because useful services are the good effects which truths produce. Some people know in the world as well that the diligent have an abundance, and not the lazy. I once asked how something female can be generated from the soul of a man. The answer I received was that it originates from good in the intellect, because this in its essence is truth; for the intellect can think that something is good, thus thinking as true that this something is good. It is different with the will. This does not think about goodness and truth but loves them and does them. Therefore, in the Word, sons symbolize truths, and daughters, qualities of goodness (as may be seen above in no. 120); and when seed is mentioned in the Word, it symbolizes truth (as may be seen in The Apocalypse Revealed, no. 565).