§404 joy 231
smell from fragrances, of taste from fl avors. Anyone who refl ects knows
what services the individual senses perform, and people familiar with cor-
respondences know this even more fully. The reason sight has the kind of
pleasure it does lies in the service it performs for our discernment, which is
an inner sight. The reason hearing has the kind of pleasure it does lies in
the service it performs for our discernment and our volition by its atten-
tiveness. The reason smell has the kind of pleasure it does lies in the service
it performs for the brain and for the lungs. The reason taste has the kind of
pleasure it does lies in the service it performs for the stomach and indirectly
for the whole body by nourishing it. Marital pleasure, which is a purer and
more delicate pleasure of touch, surpasses all others because of its service,
the procreation of the human race and thus of the angelic heaven.
These pleasures are inherent in the senses because of the infl ow of
heaven, where all pleasure belongs to service and depends on service.
On the basis of an opinion formed in the world, some spirits have 403
believed that heavenly happiness consisted of a life of leisure, being waited
on by others; but they were informed that there is never any happiness in
idling around in order to be content. This would mean wanting the happi-
ness of others for oneself, in which case no one would have any at all. This
kind of life would be idle, not active, a life that would lead to atrophy.
They might in fact have known that apart from an active life, a life has no
happiness, and that idleness serves that life only for refreshment, in order
to return them to the active life with more energy. Then they were shown
in many ways that angelic life consists of worthwhile, thoughtful actions,
actions that are useful to others, and that all the happiness angels have is
found in service, derives from service, and is proportional to service.
So that these people might feel shame (people who have had the
notion that heavenly joy consists of a life of leisure, inhaling eternal bliss)
they are enabled to perceive what kind of life this would be. They see
that it is thoroughly miserable; and once all their delight therefore dies
away, they are very soon disgusted and nauseated.
Some spirits who thought themselves better informed than others 404
claimed that in the world they had held to the belief that heavenly joy
consisted solely in praising and glorifying God, and that this was an
active life. They have been told, though, that praising and glorifying God
is not an appropriate kind of active life, since God has no need of praise
and glorifi cation. Rather, God wants us to be useful to each other, to do
the worthwhile things that are called works of charity. However, they
could not connect any notion of heavenly joy with thoughtful good
deeds, only a notion of slavery. The angels, though, bore witness that it