THE ATMOSPHERES, OF WHICH THERE ARE THREE BOTH IN THE SPIRITUAL AND IN THE NATURAL WORLD, IN THEIR OUTMOSTS CLOSE INTO SUBSTANCES AND MATTERS SUCH AS ARE IN LANDS

DLW 302. It has been shown (n. 173-176), that there are three atmospheres both in the spiritual and in the natural world, which are distinct from each other according to degrees of height, and which, in their progress toward lower things, decrease (in activity) according to degrees of breadth. And since atmospheres in their progress toward lower things decrease (in activity), it follows that they constantly become more compressed and inert, and finally, in outmosts, become so compressed and inert as to be no longer atmospheres, but substances at rest, and in the natural world, fixed like those in the lands that are called matters. As such is the origin of substances and matters, it follows, first, that these substances and matters also are of three degrees; secondly, that they are held together in mutual connection by encompassing atmospheres; thirdly, that they are fitted for the production of all uses in their forms.

DLW 303. That such substances or matters as are in earths, were brought forth by the sun through its atmospheres anyone will readily acknowledge who reflects that there are continual mediations from the First to outmosts, and that nothing can take form except from what is prior to itself, and so finally from the First. The First is the sun of the spiritual world, and the First of that sun is God-Man, or the Lord. Now as atmospheres are those prior things, whereby the spiritual sun manifests itself in outmosts, and as these prior things continually decrease in activity and expansion down to the outmosts, it follows that when their activity and expansion come to an end in outmosts they become substances, and matters such as are in lands, which retain within them, from the atmospheres out of which they originated, an effort and conatus to bring forth uses. Those who do not evolve the creation of the universe and all things thereof by continuous mediations from the First (Being), can but hold hypotheses, disjoined and divorced from their causes, which, when surveyed by a mind with an interior perception of things, do not appear like a house, but like heaps of rubbish.

DLW 304. From this universal origin of all things in the created universe, every particular thereof has a similar order; in that these also go forth from their first to outmosts which are relatively in a state of rest, that they may terminate and become permanent. Thus in the human body fibers proceed from their first forms until at last they become tendons; also fibers with vessels proceed from their first forms until they become cartilages and bones; upon these they may rest and become permanent. Because of such a progression of fibers and vessels in man from firsts to outmosts, there is a similar progression of their states, which are sensations, thoughts, and affections. These, also, from their firsts, where they are in light, proceed through to outmosts, where they are in shade; or from their firsts, where they are in heat, to outmosts where they are not in heat. With such a progression of these there is also a like progression of love and of all things thereof, and of wisdom and all things thereof. In a word, such is the progression of all things in the created universe. This is the same as was shown above (n. 222-229), that there are degrees of both kinds in the greatest and least of all created things. There are degrees of both kinds even in the least things of all, because the spiritual sun is the sole substance from which all things are (according to the spiritual ideas of the angels, n. 300).

Divine Love and Wisdom

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Author:  E. Swedenborg (1688-1772).

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