53. In order that this may be more fully understood, however, it is necessary to illustrate it. The Divine cannot regard anything but what is Divine, and it cannot regard this anywhere but in things created by itself. That this is so is evident from this fact, that no one can regard another except from what is his own in himself. He who loves another regards him from his own love in himself; while he who is wise regards another from his own wisdom in himself. He may indeed see that the other either loves him or does not love him, and that he is wise or that he is not wise; but this he sees from the love and from the wisdom in himself. Therefore he conjoins himself to the other so far as the other loves him as he loves the other, or so far as the other is as wise as himself for thus they make one.
[2] It is similar with the Divine in itself for the Divine in itself cannot regard itself from another, as from a man, a spirit or an angel; because there is nothing in them of the originating Divine in itself (a quo), and to regard the Divine from another in whom there is nothing of the Divine would be to regard the Divine from what is not Divine, which is not possible. Hence it is that the Lord is so conjoined to man, spirit and angel that everything that has relation to the Divine is not from them, but from the Lord. For it is known that all the good and all the truth which anyone has is not from himself but from the Lord; indeed, that no one can even name the Lord, or utter His names Jesus and Christ, except from Him.
[3] From this it now follows that the Infinite and Eternal, which is the same as the Divine, regards all things in the finite from the infinite point of view, and that He conjoins Himself to them according to the degree of the reception of wisdom and love in them. In a word, the Lord cannot have an abode in a man and in an angel and dwell with them except in what is His own, and not in what is their proprium,* for this is evil; and if it were good, still it is finite, and this in itself and from itself cannot contain the Infinite. From these things it is clear that it can nowhere be possible for a finite being to regard the Infinite, but that it is possible for the Infinite to regard the Infinite from itself in finite beings.
* The Latin word proprium when used as a substantive means "what is one's own". Swedenborg uses it in a special sense involving what is of the self.
