shut up in the midst, the first will of the Father
labouring to the birth of fire.
42. Now, we are to understand that in the stern
attraction a very unyielding substance and being is
produced. And so then substance from eternity
has its origin; for the drawing gives sting, and the
drawn gives hardness, matter from nothing, a
substance and essentiality. The sting of the draw-
ing dwells now in this essentiality, pierces and
breaks; and all this from the desiring will which
draws.
43. And here we are to recognize two forms ol
Nature, viz. sour (astringent), that is, Desire, and
then the sting, which makes in the desire a breaking
and piercing, whence feeling arises, that is, bitter,
and is the second form of Nature, a cause and
origin of the essences in Nature.
44. Now the first will is not satisfied with this,
nor set at rest, but is brought thereby into a very
great anguish; for it desires freedom in light, and
yet, however, there is no brightness in freedom,
Then it Mis into terrible anguish, and so uplifts
the desii*e for freedom, that the anguish, as a dying
or sinking down through death, introduces its wil
into freedom out of the breaking, piercing, anc
powerful attracting.
45. Here, then, we understand the will in twc
ways : One, which rises in fierceness to generatior
of the wrath-fire; the other, which imaginates aftei
the centre of the word, and, passing out of th«
anguish, as through a dying, sinks into the free life ;
and thus brings with it a life out of the tormenl