understanding, rising up by continuity around the two higher degrees,
receives the light of their wisdom, in the manner stated above (n. 256).
Therefore man has the ability to become rational according to his
elevation; if raised to the third degree he becomes rational from that
degree, if raised to the second degree he becomes rational from that
degree, if not raised he is rational in the first degree. It is said
that he becomes rational from those degrees, because the natural degree
is the general receptacle of their light. The reason why man does not
become rational to the height that he might is, that love, which is of
the will, cannot be raised in the same manner as wisdom, which is of the
understanding. Love, which is of the will, is raised only by fleeing from
evils as sins, and then by goods of charity, which are uses, which the
man thereafter performs from the Lord. Consequently, when love, which is
of the will, is not at the same time raised, wisdom, which is of the
understanding, however it may have ascended, falls back again down to its
own love. Therefore, if man's love is not at the same time raised into
the spiritual degree, he is rational only in the lowest degree. From all
this it can be seen that man's rational is in appearance as if it were of
three degrees, a rational from the celestial, a rational from the
spiritual, and a rational from the natural; also that rationality, which
is the capacity whereby man is elevated, is still in man whether he be
elevated or not.

259. It has been said that every man is born into that capacity, namely,
rationality, but by this is meant every man whose externals have not been
injured by some accident, either in the womb, or by some disease after
birth, or by a wound inflicted on the head, or in consequence of some
insane love bursting forth, and breaking down restraints. In such the
rational cannot be elevated; for life, which is of the will and
understanding, has in such no bounds in which it can terminate, so