418.  It is the common opinion that wisdom makes the man; therefore when any one is heard to talk and teach wisely he is believed to be wise; yea, he himself believes it at the time, because when he talks or teaches in company he thinks from the memory, and if he is a merely natural man, from the surface of his love, which is a desire for honor, glory, and gain; but when the same man is alone he thinks from the more inward love of his spirit, and then not wisely, but sometimes insanely.  From all this it can be seen that no one is to be judged of by wise speaking, but by his life; that is, not by wise speaking separate from life, but by wise speaking conjoined to life.  By life is meant love.  That love is the life has been shown above.

419. (16) Love or the will is purified in the understanding, if they are elevated together.  From birth man loves nothing but self and the world, for nothing else appears before his eyes, consequently nothing else occupies his mind.  This love is corporeal-natural, and may be called material love.  Moreover, this love has become impure by reason of the separation of heavenly love from it in parents.  This love could not be separated from its impurity unless man had a power to raise his understanding into the light of heaven, and to see how he ought to live in order that his love, as well as his understanding, may be elevated into wisdom.  By means of the understanding, love, that is, the man, sees what the evils are that defile and corrupt the love; he also sees that if he flees from those evils as sins and turns away from them, he loves the things that are opposite to those evils; all of which are heavenly.  Then also he perceives the means by which he is enabled to flee from and turn away from those evils as sins.  This the love, that is, the man, sees, by the exercise of his power to elevate his understanding into the light of heaven, which is the source of wisdom.  Then so far as love gives heaven the first place and the world the second, and at the same time gives the Lord the first place and self the second, so far love is purged of its uncleanness and is purified; in other words, is raised into the heat of heaven, and conjoined with the light of heaven in which the understanding is; and the marriage takes place that is called the marriage of good and truth, that is, of love and wisdom.  Any one can comprehend intellectually and see rationally, that so far as he flees from and turns away from theft and cheating, so far he loves sincerity, rectitude and justice; so far as he flees and turns away from revenge and hatred, so far he loves the neighbor; and so far as he flees and turns away from adulteries, so far he loves chastity; and so on.  And yet scarcely any one knows what there is of heaven and the Lord in sincerity, rectitude, justice, love towards the neighbor, chastity, and other affections of heavenly love, until he has removed their opposites.  When he has removed the opposites, then he is in those