Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 3745

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3745. How far that variety extends, and the nature of it, becomes clear from the variety present in the human body. It is well known that no one organ or member is like another. For example, the organ of sight is unlike the organ of hearing, and likewise unlike the organ of smell, the organ of taste, and also the organ of touch which is spread throughout the whole body. The same applies to members, such as the arms, hands, lower limbs, feet, and soles of the feet; also to inlying viscera, such as those in the head, namely the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, and spinal cord, together with all the parts of organs or viscera, vessels, and fibres which compose them; and those of the body beneath the head, such as the heart, lungs, stomach, liver, pancreas, spleen, intestines, mesentery, and kidneys; and also the reproductive organs in both sexes. Every single one, as is well known, is in form and function unlike the rest, so unlike as to be totally different. The same applies to the forms within forms, which also are so varied that not one form, not even one individual part, is exactly like another, that is to say, so alike that it can take the place of another without some alteration, however tiny. All these, every one, correspond to the heavens, but in such a way that the bodily and material things with man are in heaven celestial and spiritual. They correspond in such a way that they are manifestations of the latter and are kept in being from the latter.


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