Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/41

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DISCRETE DEGREES.
35

not shade off into each other, but are distinct and joined by their correspondence whereby the internal operates into the external, as the cause produces and actuates the effect. Such is the relation of a mental cause to its physical effect; such the relation of the spirit in its own body to the physical body; and such the relation of the spiritual world to the natural world. They are not opposites, they are correlatives: neither are they continuous, but separated by a discrete degree; and they are held in vital connection by Correspondence.

The importance of this knowledge to all psychological certainty is inexpressible. It is the missing link that connects and relates the body and the soul. It is the missing "bridge" by which to pass the gulf that separates the "correlated facts of consciousness and the molecular movements of the brain." And it is important to dwell a moment on this fact of the separateness of the two worlds, which is a revelation, and could never have been discovered except to the seer experimentally in both worlds; but which being known is easily confirmed to reason.

The spiritual world is spiritual. Its substances are spiritual; its forms are spiritual; its forces are spiritual. It is a world with