the conclusion, that he that has committed fornication cannot be more chaste in marriage?
446. II. The love of the sex, from which fornication is derived, commences when a youth begins to think and act from his own understanding, and his voice to be masculine. This article is adduced to the intent, that the birth of the love of the sex, and thence of fornication, may be known, as taking place when the understanding begins of itself to become rational, or from its own reason to discern and provide such things as are of emolument and use, whereto in such case what has been implanted in the memory from parents and masters, serves as a plane. At that time a change takes place in the mind; it before thought only from things introduced into the memory, by meditating upon and obeying them; it afterwards thinks from reason exercised upon them, and then, under the guidance of the love, it arranges into a new order the things seated in the memory, and in agreement with that order it disposes its own life, and successively thinks more and more according to its own reason, and wills from its own freedom. It is well known that the love of the sex follows the commencement of a man’s own understanding, and advances according to its vigor; and this is a proof that that love ascends and descends as the understanding ascends and descends: by ascending we mean into wisdom, and by descending, into insanity; and wisdom consists in restraining the love of the sex, and insanity in allowing it a wide range: if it be allowed to run into fornication, which is the beginning of its activity, it ought to be moderated from principles of honor and morality implanted in the memory and thence in the reason, and afterwards to be implanted in the reason and in the memory. The reason why the voice also begins to be masculine, together with the commencement of a man’s own understanding, is, because the understanding thinks, and by thought speaks; which is a proof that the understanding constitutes the man (vir), and also his male principle; consequently, that as his understanding is elevated, so he becomes a man-man (homo vir), and also a male man (masculus vir); see above, n. 432, 433.
447. III. Fornication is of the natural man, in like manner as the love of the sex, which, if it becomes active before marriage, is called fornication. Every man (homo) is born corporeal, becomes sensual, afterwards natural, and successively rational; and, if in this case he does not stop in his progress, he becomes spiritual. The reason why he thus advances step by step, is, in order that planes may be formed, on which superior principles may rest and find support, as a palace on its foundations: the ultimate plane, with those that are formed upon it, may also be compared to ground, in which, when prepared, noble seeds are sown. As to what specifically regards the love of the
