319. Everything confirmed by both the will and the understanding remains to eternity because everyone is his own love, and love belongs to the will; also because every man is his own good or his own evil, for everything is called good, and likewise evil, that belongs to the love. Since a man is his own love he is also the form of his love, and may be called the organ of his life's love. It was stated above (n. 279) that the affections of a man's love and his consequent thoughts are changes and variations of the state and form of the organic substances of his mind, and what these changes and variations are and their nature will now be explained. Some idea of these may be obtained from the heart and lungs, where there are alternate expansions and compressions, or dilations and contractions, called in the heart systole and diastole, and in the lungs respirations; these are reciprocal extensions and retractions, or expansions and contractions of their lobes; such are the changes and variations of the state of the heart and lungs. There are similar changes and variations in the other viscera of the body and also in their parts, by which the blood and the animal juices are received and passed on.
[2] There are also similar changes and variations in the organic forms of the mind, which are the subjects of man's affections and thoughts, as was shown above; with this difference, that their expansions and compressions, or reciprocal actions, are respectively in such greater perfection that they cannot be expressed in words of natural language, but only in words of spiritual language which indicate by their sound that these changes and variations are vortex-like inward and outward gyrations, after the manner of perpetually circling spirals wonderfully combined into forms receptive of life.
[3] The nature of those purely organic substances and forms in the wicked and in the good will now be stated. In the good those spiral forms are moved forward but in the wicked backward, and those that are moved forward are turned towards the Lord and receive influx from Him; while those that are moved backward are turned towards hell and receive influx from hell. It should be known that in the degree that they are turned backward, they are open behind and closed in front; and, on the other hand, in the degree that they are turned forward, they are open in front and closed behind.
[4] Hence it may be evident what kind of a form or organ a wicked man is, and what kind of a form or organ a good man is, and that they are turned in opposite directions; and as the turning once established cannot be reversed it is clear that such as a man is when he dies such he remains to eternity. It is the love of man's will that makes this turning, or which converts and inverts; for, as was said above, every man is his own love. Hence it is that after death everyone goes the way of his love: he who is in a good love goes to heaven, and he who is in an evil love goes to hell; nor does man rest but in that society where his ruling love is; and what is wonderful, everyone knows the way, as though he scented it with his nostrils.
