from the spiritual world, then a man is said to die. This occurs when the respiratory motions of the lungs and the systolic motions of the heart cease. But still the man does not die, but is only separated from the corporeal part which was of use to him in the world; for the man himself lives. It is said that the man himself lives, because he is not man by virtue of the body but by virtue of the spirit; since it is the spirit in man which thinks, and thought together with affection makes the man.
Hence it is evident that when man dies, he only passes from one world into another. Hence it is that death, in the internal sense of the Word, signifies resurrection and continuation of life.
The inmost communication of the spirit is with the respiration and with the motion of the heart; its thought with the respiration, and affection which is of love, with the heart. When therefore these two motions cease, the separation of the spirit from the body takes place immediately. These two motions,—the respiratory motion of the lungs and the systolic motion of the heart,—are the very bonds on the sundering of which the spirit is left to itself; and the body being then without the life of its spirit, grows cold and putrefies. The inmost communication of the spirit of man is with the respiration and the heart, because all the vital motions depend upon these two, not only in the body generally, but also in every part of it.
