spiritual man imbibes precepts through the Word from the Lord, and executes them by the natural man. The natural man, in whom the spiritual degree is open, does not know that he thinks and acts from his spiritual man; for it appears as if it was from himself; when nevertheless it is not from himself, but from the Lord; nor does he know that by his spiritual man he is in heaven; nevertheless, his spiritual man is in the midst of the angels of heaven, and he sometimes even appears to the angels, but disappears after a short stay there, because he retires into his natural man: nor does he know that his spiritual mind is filled by the Lord with a thousand arcana of wisdom, and a thousand delights of love, and that he comes into them after death, when he becomes an angel. The natural man does not know these things, because the communication between the natural and spiritual man is effected by correspondences; and communication by correspondences is not perceived any otherwise in the understanding than that truths are seen in the light, and in the will, than that uses are performed from affection.

253. III. The quality of the natural man in whom the spiritual degree is not opened, but still not shut. The spiritual degree is not opened, but still not shut, in those who have lived in some sort a life of charity, and yet have known but little of genuine truth; for that degree is opened by the conjunction of love and wisdom, or of heat and light; love alone, or spiritual heat alone, does not open it, nor does wisdom alone or spiritual light alone, but both in conjunction; wherefore, if genuine truths, from which wisdom or light is derived, are not known, love has no power to open that degree, but only keeps it capable of being opened; which is meant by its not being shut. The same thing happens in the vegetable kingdom; heat alone does not cause seeds and trees to vegetate, but heat in conjunction with light. It is to be observed, that all truths belong to spiritual light, and all goods to spiritual heat, and that good opens the spiritual degree by truths; for good operates uses by truths, and uses are the goods of love, which derive their essence from the conjunction of good and truth. The lot after death of those in whom the spiritual degree is not opened, and yet not shut, and who are still natural and not spiritual, is, that they are in the lowest parts of heaven, where they sometimes experience severe sufferings; or they are in the boundaries of some superior heaven, as it were in the light of evening for, as was said above, in heaven, and in each society there, the light decreases from the middle to the boundaries, and those are in the middle who exceed others in divine truths, and those are in the boundaries who have few truths; and those have few truths who know no more of religion than simply that there is a God, and that the Lord suffered for them, also that charity and faith are essentials of the church, but do not know what faith and charity are; when nevertheless faith in its essence is truth, and

truth is manifold; and charity is every duty of a man's office that he does from the Lord; which he does from the Lord when he shuns evils as sins. It is exactly as we said before, the end is the all of the cause, and the effect is the all of the end through the cause the end is charity or good, the cause is faith or truth, and the effects are good works or uses; whence it is evident, that charity can only be conveyed into works, in proportion as charity is conjoined to the truths of faith; by these truths charity enters works, and qualifies them.

254. IV. The quality of the natural man in whom the spiritual degree is entirely shut. The spiritual degree is shut in those who are in evils with respect to life, and more so in those who are in falses from evils. The case is like that of the fibril of a nerve, which contracts on the slightest touch of any heterogeneous body; or like that of all the moving fibres of a muscle, or of the whole muscle itself, or of the whole body, on coming in contact with any thing hard or cold. So do the substances or forms of the spiritual degree in man on the approach of evils and consequent false principles, these being heterogeneous: for as the spiritual degree is in the form of heaven, it admits nothing but goods, and truths from good, these being homogeneous to it; evils, and the falses of evil, are heterogeneous to it. This degree is contracted and shut, particularly with those who, in the world, are in the love of rule from the love of self, because this love is opposite to love towards the Lord; it is shut also with those who, from the love of the world, have an inordinate lust of possessing the goods of others, but not so much as in the former case: these loves shut the spiritual degree, because they are the origins of evils. The contraction or shutting of this degree is like the retorsion of a spire the contrary way: hence, after it is shut, it reflects back the light of heaven, and instead of the light of heaven, there is darkness: so that truth, which is in the light of heaven, becomes nauseous. In such persons, not only the spiritual degree, but also the superior region of the natural (degree) called the rational (degree) is shut; until at length the lowest region of the natural degree, called the sensual, alone stands open, this being nearest to the world and the external senses of the body: and from it such a person afterwards thinks, speaks, and reasons. The natural man, who is become sensual by evils and consequent falses, in the spiritual world, in the light of heaven, appears not as a man, but as a monster, and with a retracted nose: he appears with a retracted nose, because the nose corresponds to the perception of truth. He cannot bear a ray of heavenly light. Such persons, in their caverns, have no other light than as of firebrands, or as of a coal fire. Hence it appears, who and of what quality those persons are, in whom the spiritual degree is shut.

255. V. The difference between the life of a natural man and the life of a beast. We shall speak of this difference more

particularly in our following works, where life is treated of; only observing here, that the difference is, that a man has three degrees of mind, or three degrees of understanding and will, and that these degrees may be opened successively, and that as they are transparent, he may be elevated as to the understanding to the light of heaven, and see truths, not only civil and moral, but spiritual truths, and from many truths seen, may conclude truths in order, and so perfect his understanding to eternity. But beasts have not the two higher degrees, but only the natural degrees, which, without the superior degrees, have no faculty of thinking of any thing civil, moral, or spiritual; and as their natural degrees are not capable of being opened, and thereby elevated into superior light, they cannot think in successive order, but only in simultaneous order, which is not thinking, but merely acting from a knowledge corresponding with their love; and as they cannot think analytically, and see their inferior thought from a certain superior thought, therefore they cannot speak, but only utter sounds, agreeably to the knowledge proper to their love. But still the sensual man, or the lowest natural man, differs from a beast only thus far, that he is able to fill his memory with scientifics, and to think and speak from them; an ability which he derives from a faculty proper to every one, of understanding truth if he will, this being his distinguishing faculty; although many, by its abuse, have made themselves inferior to beasts.

256. THAT THE NATURAL DEGREE OF THE HUMAN MIND, CONSIDERED IN ITSELF, IS CONTINUOUS, BUT THAT BY CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE TWO SUPERIOR DEGREES, WHILE IT IS ELEVATED, IT APPEARS

AS IF IT WERE DISCRETE. This, although difficult of comprehension by those who have no knowledge of degrees of altitude, is nevertheless to be revealed, because it is a tenet of angelic wisdom, which wisdom, although it cannot be conceived by the natural man in the same manner as by the angels, yet may be comprehended by the understanding while it is elevated to the degree of light in which the angels are; for the understanding is capable of being so far elevated, and of being enlightened according to its elevation. The enlightenment of the natural mind, however, does not ascend by discrete degrees, but increases by a continuous degree, and as it increases, it is illustrated from within by the light of the two higher degrees. How this is effected, may be comprehended from a perception of the degrees of altitude, in that one is above another, and that the natural or ultimate degree, is as it were the common covering of the two higher degrees; then as the natural degree is elevated to the degree of the higher, so the higher from within acts on the exterior natural, and illuminates it. Illumination is produced indeed from within by the light of the superior degrees; but that light is received by the natural degree, which infolds and surrounds them, by continuity, therefore more clearly and purely

according to its ascent; that is, the natural degree is enlightened from within by the light of the superior degrees discretely, but in itself, continuously. Hence it is evident, that a man, so long as he lives in the world, and is in the natural degree, cannot be elevated into wisdom, like that of the angels, but only into superior light, even to the angels, and to receive enlightenment from their light, which is influent from within and illuminates. These things, however, cannot be more clearly described; they may be comprehended better from effects, for effects place causes, provided these are first a little understood, in the light in themselves, and so illustrate them.

257. Effects are-1. That the natural mind may be elevated to the light of heaven, in which the angels are, and perceive naturally what the angels perceive spiritually, consequently, not so fully; but still the natural mind of man cannot be elevated into true angelic light. 2. That a man, by his natural mind, elevated to the light of heaven, may think with angels, and speak with them; but then the thought and speech of the angels flow into the natural thought and speech of the man, and not vice versa; wherefore the angels speak with man in natural language, or in the man's mother tongue. 3. That this is effected by spiritual influx into the natural principle, and not by natural influx into the spiritual. 4. That human wisdom, which is natural so long as a man lives in the world, cannot possibly be exalted into angelic wisdom, but only into a certain image of it; because the elevation of the human mind is effected by continuity, as from shade to light, or from grosser to purer: but still the man in whom the spiritual degree is open, comes into that wisdom when he dies, and may also come into it by laying asleep the sensations of the body, and by influx from above at the same time into the spirituals of his mind. 5. The natural mind of man consists both of spiritual and natural substances; from its spiritual substances thought is produced, but not from its natural substances; the latter substances recede when a man dies, but not the spiritual substances; hence the same mind after death, when a man becomes a spirit or angel, remains in a form like what it had in the world. 6. The natural substances of that mind, which, as has been said, recede by death, constitute the cutaneous covering of the spiritual body of spirits and angels: by means of this covering, which is taken from the natural world, their spiritual bodies subsist; for the natural is the ultimate continent: hence there is no spirit or angel who was not born a man. These arcana of angelic wisdom are here adduced, that the quality of the natural mind in man may be known; which is also further treated of in what follows.

258. Every man is born into the faculty of understanding truths to the inmost degree, like the angels of the third heaven; for the human understanding, rising by continuity about the two superior degrees, receives the light of the wisdom of those degrees,

as before shown, n. 256. Hence a man may become rational according to this elevation. If it be elevated to the third degree, he becomes rational from the third degree; if to the second, from the second; and if it is not elevated, he is rational in the first degree. We say that he becomes rational from those degrees, because the natural degree is the common receptacle of their light. A man does not become rational to the full height that he may, because love (which belongs to the will) cannot be elevated in the same manner as wisdom, which belongs to the understanding: love, which belongs to the will, is elevated only by shunning evils as sins, and by the goods of charity, which are uses, which a man afterwards performs from the Lord; consequently if love, which belongs to the will, be not elevated at the same time, wisdom, which belongs to the understanding, however it may have ascended, still relapses to its love: hence a man, if his love be not at the same time elevated to the spiritual degree, is still only rational in the ultimato degree. From these considerations it may appear, that a man's rational principle is in appearance as of three degrees, from a celestial ground, from a spiritual ground, and from a natural ground; also that rationality, which is the faculty of being capable of elevation, whether it be elevated or not, still remains in man.

259. We said that every man is born to that faculty, or to rationality, but we mean every man whose externals are not injured by accident, either in the womb, or after birth, by disease, or by wounds of the head, or from some insane love breaking out and loosening all restraints. In such persons, the rational principle cannot be elevated; for life, which belongs to the will and understanding, has in such persons no closing terms or limits, so disposed as to enable it to perform ultimate acts according to order: it acts according to ultimate determinations, but not from them. That rationality cannot have place in infants and children, may be seen below, n. 266, the end.

260. THAT THE NATURAL MIND, BEING THE TEGUMENT AND CONTINENT OF THE HIGHER DEGREES OF THE HUMAN MIND, IS A RE-AGENT, AND IF THE SUPERIOR DEGREES ARE NOT OPENED, IT ACTS AGAINST THEM, BUT IF THEY ARE OPENED, IT ACTS WITH THEM. In the preceding article it was shown, that the natural mind, being in the ultimate degree, surrounds and includes the spiritual and celestial minds, which are higher as to degree; it now comes to be shown, that the natural mind reacts against these higher or interior minds. It reacts, because it covers, includes, and contains them, and this cannot be done without reaction; if it did not react, the interiors or things included would be relaxed and escape, and would be dispersed; just as if the coverings of the human body did not react, in which case the viscera, or interiors of the body, would fall out, and be dispersed; and as if the membrane that covers the moving fibres of a muscle did not react against the powers of those fibres