74
STATE OF INFANTS AFTER DEATH.
perfected in the highest degree, it is necessary that they should attain to the fulness and perfection of the angelic form. For in all normal conditions of things endowed with life, the form must correspond to the essence; and to suppose that the perfection of angelic life might exist and manifest itself under the feeble and immature form of a little infant, were not less absurd than to suppose that all the delicious qualities of the full-grown and full-ripe orange, might be imparted to the tender germ of that fruit as soon as the blossom has fallen. Accordingly Swedenborg says:
"Many persons may imagine that infants are for ever infants amongst the angels in heaven. They who do not know what constitutes an angel, may be confirmed in this opinion from the images which are sometimes seen in churches, where angels are exhibited as infants. But the case is altogether otherwise. Intelligence and wisdom constitute an angel; and so long as infants are without intelligence and wisdom, although they are associated with angels, they are not yet angels. When they become intelligent and wise, then they first become angels. I have, indeed, been surprised to see that they then no longer appear as infants, but as adults, for they are then no longer of an infantile disposition, but of a more mature angelic character. Intelligence and wisdom produce this maturity. Infants appear more adult in proportion as they are perfected in intelligence and wisdom, and thus as youths and young men, because intelligence and wisdom constitute essential spiritual nourishment. That which nourishes their minds nourishes also their bodies, from correspondence, because the form of the body is nothing but an external form of the interiors. It is to be observed, that infants who grow up in heaven do not ad-
