4545. 1 De ordine quoad conscientiam
Primum planum est intimum rationalis est [que] perceptionis ita amoris in Dominum, proinde boni et boni veri. Alterum planum est medium rationalis, estque conscientiae boni et veri; ita pietatis, et est Ecclesiae ac Regni Domini. Tertium planum est conscientiae justi et recti: ita functionis in vita civili; proinde societatis et communis boni, est inferioris rationalis. Quartum planum est honesti et decori: ita conversationis, proinde inter amicos et notos, est corporei facultatis. Haec plana possunt conjuncta esse, et interius influere in exterius, et tunc planum ultimum nempe honesti et decori est bonum, quia a sua origine influit.
V:
1. For some years, Swedenborg made a practice of recording his spiritual experiences in a sort of diary, with numbered paragraphs. From Odhner's translator's preface, here's a description of how this section of Swedenborg's diary came to be treated as a distinct work:
"For a period after [Swedenborg] had written paragraph 4544, however, the manuscript was not available to him, [he was travelling, and probably the quarto-sized volume was inconveniently large] and he therefore started afresh with paragraph 4545 in a new, smaller (octavo) blank volume. Its paragraphs he numbered up to 4715, leaving some at the end unnumbered. I refer to this text, formerly called [by Tafel, an earlier translator], the "Minor Diary" as the "Interim Diary," differentiating it from the main text by adding an a to its numbers. When Swedenborg again had access to the main tome, he continued documenting his experiences in it, resuming with the number 4545 and continuing to number 6096 along with 15 unnumbered paragraphs and a notation in Swedish.
[NCBS Editor's Note]: We have not adopted Odhner's numbering method with the added letter a after the paragraph number. Instead, we just use the numbers, and ask readers to recognize that, for example, Section #4600 in Spiritual Experiences (Interim Diary) is different -- and considerably earlier in time -- than #4600 is in the main Spiritual Experiences work. For readers wishing to fit this work into its timeline and context, the preceding section is Spiritual Experiences 4544 and the one that follows the end of this work would be Spiritual Experiences 4545.]
This might help explain it as a work in 3 parts, with the middle one being treated as a work in its own right:
- Spiritual Experiences, Sections 1-4544, from 1748-1751 AD.
- Interim or Minor Diary of Spiritual Experiences (DMin), Sections 4545-4792, in the year 1751 AD.
- Spiritual Experiences, Sections 4545-6110.
Note, too, that in the minor diary, in an older numbering scheme used when Potts compiled his Concordance, the numbering was slightly more granular. From 4730 up, it begins to diverge, so that it ends at 4832, instead of 4792.
