440. XV. THAT THE DELIGHTS OF SCORTATORY LOVE COMMENCE FROM THE FLESH AND ARE DELIGHTS OF THE FLESH EVEN IN THE SPIRIT; BUT THAT THE DELIGHTS OF CONJUGIAL LOVE COMMENCE IN THE SPIRIT AND ARE DELIGHTS OF THE SPIRIT EVEN IN THE FLESH. That the delights of scortatory love commence from the flesh is because the burning heats of the flesh are their initiaments. That they infect the spirit, and are delights of the flesh even in the spirit, is because it is not the flesh that sensates the things which happen in the flesh, but the spirit. It is the same with this sense as with the others. Thus it is not the eye that sees and distinguishes the varieties in objects, but the spirit. So neither is it the ear that hears and distinguishes the harmonies of melodies in song, and the fitness of the articulation of sounds in speech, but the spirit. And the spirit sensates everything according to its own elevation into wisdom. The spirit which is not elevated above the sensual things of the body and so sticks in them, sensates no other delights than those which flow in from the flesh, and from the world through the senses of the body. These it seizes upon, with these it is delighted, and these it make its own. Now because the initiaments of scortatory love are only the burning heats and prurient itchings of the flesh, it is evident that in the spirit these are filthy allurements which ascend and descend and go back and forth, and thus excite and inflame. In general, the cupidities of the flesh regarded in themselves are nothing else than conglomerated concupiscences of evil and falsity. Hence the truth of the saying in the Church, The flesh lusteth against the spirit,* that is, against the spiritual man. It follows therefore, that in their relation to the delights of scortatory love, the delights of the flesh are nothing but effervescences of lusts which, in the spirit, become the ebullitions of shamelessness.
* Gal. 5:17.