403. II. When the three loves are duly subordinated, they increase a person's perfection; but when they are not, they corrupt and turn him upside down.
Something must first be said about how the three universal loves - love of heaven, love of the world and self-love - are subordinated one to another. Then I shall discuss the way one is introduced into another and exerts an effect upon it; and finally how a person's state depends upon this subordination. The three loves are related like the three regions of the body; the highest is the head, the middle one is the chest and belly, the third the knees, feet and soles of the feet. When the love of heaven makes up the head, the love of the world the chest and belly, and self-love the feet and soles, then a person is in the perfect state for which he was created, since then the two lower loves are at the service of the highest, just as the body and all its parts are at the service of the head. So when the love of heaven makes up the head, this then exerts its influence on the love of the world, which is chiefly the love of wealth, and employs wealth in order to perform services; and through the medium of the love of the world it influences self-love, which is chiefly the love of honours and employs these in order to perform services. Thus the influence each of these loves exerts on another makes all these three loves aim at being of service.
[2] Can anyone fail to understand that when a person wishes to perform services because he is moved by spiritual love - that is, love from the Lord, or what is meant by the love of heaven - it is the natural man who does them by means of his wealth and other possessions, and the sensual man who employs his offices for their production, and this is his honour? Again can anyone fail to understand that all the deeds a person performs with his body are dependent upon the mental state in his head, and if his mind is set on the love of services, the body performs them by means of its limbs? This is because the will and the understanding are present in their origins in the head, but in the derivatives from these in the body, just as the will is present in deeds and thought in the utterances of speech. As a comparison, it is like the fructifying power of the seed present in every single part of a tree, which it employs to serve its purposes, namely to produce its fruits. It is also like fire and light inside a crystal vase, which by their effect becomes warm and shines. So it is with the spiritual vision in the mind and equally the natural vision in the body in the case of a person in whom the three loves are properly and duly subordinated, as the result of the light which flows in from the Lord through heaven; this can be likened to the pomegranate which is translucent to the centre, where the seed-container is. The meaning of these words of the Lord is similar:
The eye is the lamp of the body; if the eye is single (that is, good), the whole body is full of light, Matthew 6:22; Luke 11:34.
[3] No sane person can condemn wealth, for in the body politic it plays the part blood plays in the person; nor can he condemn the honours attached to offices, for officials are the king's hands and pillars of society, so long as their natural and sensual loves are subordinated to spiritual love. There are administrative offices in heaven too, and these have honours attached to them, but those who discharge these offices have no greater love than the performance of services, because they are spiritual people.
