The Philosophy of Creation/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
THE DEGREES IN CREATION.
Without Knowledge Of Degrees Causes Can
Not Be Understood.
Without a knowledge of degrees, a clear, definite, or interior understanding of the universe, in general or in particular, is impossible. Degrees, being the means by which creation took place and is sustained, hold the secret of the philosophy of creation. Through the knowledge of them, interior or prior causes may be investigated and comprehended; but without their acknowledgment, there must result that very confusion which characterizes the thought of to-day.
Continuous Degrees And Discrete Degrees.
There are two general classes of degrees; continuous degrees, and discrete degrees. One may be best understood in contrast with the other. Continuous degrees of any thing exist on the same plane. They may be thought of as degrees of latitude. Discrete degrees exist on different planes. They may be conceived of as degrees of altitude. Continuous degrees are like degrees from hard to soft, from gross to subtile, or from dense to rare, and the like. Light diminishing in degree of intensity from light to shade, or the inverse; the decrease in the degree of sound, as one travels from a sounding body, and of heat as one removes from fire, or the inverse, are illustrations of continuous degrees. The difference between any two degrees marked on a thermometer is a difference in continuous degrees. Discrete degrees are invariably in a series. The discrete degrees of a series, like the continuous degrees of any thing, always proceed from the same origin; but they differ from continuous degrees in existing on different planes. Will, understanding, and act are three discrete degrees. A certain amount of act will not make the understanding, nor will any increase in the understanding necessarily make a like increase in the will. They are three different things on three distinct planes. Yet the will proceeds by the understanding, and produces the act.
Acts are on the plane of the body; thoughts are predicated of the understanding; and affection, or desire, is from the will; consequently affection, thought, and act constitute a like series of discrete degrees. Every work of man exists first in the affections. Take speech for illustration. It exists in the writer or orator first as affection or desire. But no amount of affection constitutes speech. Before speech can be produced there must be thought concerning idea and word. But however much one might desire to write or to speak, or however beautiful and forceful speech might be conceived, desire and thought can not convey themselves to another. To affection and thought some act of the body, as speech written or spoken, must be added as a vehicle. One might have great desire to write a valuable book, but he could not do so until he had gathered the knowledge acquired by the searching study of the scholar. But a collection of books will not make knowledge. The affection is upon one plane, the thoughts are upon another, and books are upon another. Yet it is perceived that affection, thought, and act always have a certain relation. The discrete degrees of every series are related as end, cause, and effect. Assume that a writer loves his country, and desires to benefit it. Use for country is the end existing in his affections. It is the purpose, motive and intent of all further action. Use to country in the affections proceeds by thoughts as a cause to speech, which is the effect. Affection, thought, and speech are therefore not continuous degrees; they are not one thing decreased or refined until it becomes the other; but they form a series of three discrete degrees. Yet each on its own plane is continuous. One may differ from another in having more patriotism or affection, or one may have broader knowledge and more thoughts than another, or one may do greater work. These differences in degree on their respective planes are simply more or less of the same thing, and are continuous degrees; but the planes themselves form a series of discrete degrees. Discrete degrees are differentiated degrees of altitude, related as cause and effect, and nonconvertible one into another.
Continuous degrees can be perceived by the senses, but it is not so with discrete degrees. Yet what discrete degrees are and how they exist in a series can be shown from things that are seen. The physiologist knows that minute fibers are clustered together forming larger ones, and that these larger ones are collected to form the single muscle. The same is true of the nerves. Minute fibers are collected into larger ones, and these larger ones unite to form the nerves. It is similar with the organs and viscera of the body. Discrete degrees and their existence in a series are illustrated also, but less perfectly, by the threefold order constituted by the wood, the inner bark, and the outer bark of trees; by the nut-meat, shell, and bur; by the fluids of fruit, the containing sac or cell, and the rind, and the like. This three-fold order exists in minerals through the collection and arrangement of the constituent units. These examples, taken from similar degrees, illustrate discrete degrees, and show how they are related in a series. The aura, ether, and air, which constitute the earth's atmospheres, are three discrete degrees. So also are charity, faith, and act; love, wisdom, and use; affection, thought, and deed; the soul, the body, and the outward act. A still larger series of discrete degrees is the Creator, the spiritual world, and the natural world.
Homogeneous Degrees And Heterogeneous
Degrees.
The discrete degrees constituting any one thing are always in a series, a lower one of the series being derived from the higher, like end, cause, and effect. End, cause, and effect follow in order, like prior, middle, and ultimate, the end or prior producing the cause or middle, and the cause or middle producing the effect or ultimate. Affection, thought, and act are related as end, cause, and effect. Take the example of speech for illustration. The end existed first as a desire or affection in the mind ot the writer. He desired a book. The desire acting in the intellect produced thought concerning the book, and collected the knowledge essential to write it. Then, when the knowledge was acquired, desire or the end used knowledge as a cause to produce the act. Desire is the end and the first, thought is the cause and middle, and the act is the effect and last, or ultimate. It will be observed that the end, which is first, becomes the last in the effect where it is realized. The affection or use in the book was first as an end, and the last in the effect. Discrete degrees that proceed from the same end and are of the same nature are homogeneous. Degrees that are not of the same nature or that do not come from the same end are heterogeneous. They can never form discrete degrees with the homogeneous. The inward delight from affection, the corresponding thought, and the smile upon the countenance constitute a series of three homogeneous discrete degrees. Inward hatred, the conjoined thought, and the hard expression are also a series of homogeneous discrete degrees, but as compared to the former they are heterogeneous, for they are not derived from the same end, and can not form a series with them.
Discrete Degrees In Successive Order And
In Simultaneous Order.
Discrete degrees are said to be in successive order when conceived of as one following after another from the highest to the lowest. Conceiving our universe in successive order, the sun is thought of as the highest, the atmospheres as lower, and the earth as the lowest. Discrete degrees are said to be in simultaneous order when conceived of from inmost to outermost. In simultaneous order the sun would be thought of as the center, the earth as the circumference, and the atmospheres as intermediates. The highest in successive order always becomes the center or inmost in simultaneous order, the lowest in successive order becomes the circumference or outermost in simultaneous order; and the degrees between the highest and the lowest in successive order become intermediates in simultaneous order. Simultaneous order is conceived of as the same things in successive order, as it were pressed down into a plane. The simultaneous order of discrete degrees in all things natural or spiritual, in particular or in general, is formed from the successive order of the same degrees. In thinking of things being put forth in the process of creating, they are to be conceived of as in successive order. In thinking of things subsisting and existing, they are conceived of as in simultaneous order.
A first, a middle, and a last or ultimate exist in every thing. Things proceed in successive order from the first, and by the middle they proceed to the last or ultimate, wherein they subsist in simultaneous order. Recurring to the former illustration, affection is the highest and first, or the center and inmost; thought is the middle or intermediate, and speech is the lowest and ultimate, or outermost and last. Affection to become realized, to come into the world, must proceed to thought, and clothe itself in a vesture of ideas; and then by thoughts proceed to speech, and take on an outer garment of signs or words, called speech.
Successive order appears in thinking of the origin of speech. Affection is the highest or first, thoughts are the middle, and speech is the lowest or ultimate. But in thinking of speech as a thing produced and in simultaneous order, speech is the outermost or last, thoughts as an intermediate are within speech, and affection is the inmost or center. When speech is produced, thought and affection reside within in simultaneous order, which we may be aided in observing by noticing that they are taken out in an order reverse to that in which they enter. Speech, being in the circumference and the last, makes its address first, and to the eye or the ear. Thought within speech is then discerned by the understanding. Then thoughts yield their contained affections to the will of the reader or hearer. But should one reproduce them, the former order must recur.
The End Terminates In The Effect, And There
Resides In Fulness And In Power.
From what is supreme all things that are beneath proceed by discrete degrees in successive order; they terminate in the lowest, last or ultimate, and there reside in simultaneous order, by virtue of which firsts are in lasts, and supreme things are in their ultimates in fulness and in power. Love has no form or power until it continues to thought; and love and thought have no power until they continue to some act, or speech. But when love by thought proceeds to speech, it terminates in speech, the ultimate, and there resides. Recall the former illustration of one having affection for his country. He desires to render it a service, for which purpose he writes a book. The end is use to country. Affection for use proceeds to thoughts, and continues to speech; and there the end, use to country terminates in words, and abides in all its fulness and power. For before words were produced by the end, the end, use to country, had no power in the world.
This may be further illustrated by the human body, in which we may see an image of creation. There is a continuous connection from the heart to the skin through the viscera, which is the intermediate. The skin, as an ultimate, holds all things interior in connection and order, for were the skin, against which the air presses, removed, the fluids of the body would pass away, and the body would be destroyed. The creative power on the plane of the body flows down through the higher things of the body into ultimates, and forms the skin as an ultimate of the physical forces. The physical forces terminate in the skin, and form a covering for the delicate organs within. If the physical forces had no power to form an ultimate, they could not form interior things, nor could they have any power on the higher planes of the body. The skin is therefore the ultimate and reactive basis from which all things within exist; and by virtue of power there, there is power in higher planes, whereby the organs perform their respective functions. Hence interior things are always terminated in and bounded by ultimates.
Take an illustration from a larger series. In the creation of the human body the brain is first delineated, and from it are put forth extensions, which are developed into heart and lungs, and by these extensions the body is formed. The brain is the material organ of the mind. The mind can not take form without a brain; the brain can not operate the body without heart and lungs; the heart and lungs have no power without the outermost incasing body. Nor have the brain, the mind, or the soul power to act in the world apart from the body. But when the soul has formed a brain, heart and lungs, and a body, the soul dwells in fulness and power in the ultimate body. The soul or mind is supreme and the first. It proceeds by intermediates, the brain, heart, and lungs, to form the body, and then resides therein in fulness and power to perform uses. In a larger series uses were first, and formed the soul as a cause; and the soul as a cause formed the body as an effect. Uses proceeded by the soul to the ultimate body, wherein the first or use becomes the last in the uses of the body. Thus it is in general and in every particular that the end terminates in the effect, and there resides in fulness, perfection, and power. Later we will notice how the Creator as the end, through the spiritual world as a cause, formed the natural world as the effect.
Correspondence.
There is a fixed relation that always exists between end, cause, and effect, or between internals and their ultimates. Kindly affection clothes itself in kindly thought, and kindly thought results in kindly act. Hatred clothes itself in hostile thought, and hostile thought terminates in unkind act. Inward joy produces the outward smile. Grief has its ultimate in weeping. When internal things flow forth into ultimates, they never violate this law of relation. An expression of agony upon the face is a sure sign of inward pain. No one in all the world would ever mistake an enraged countenance for an expression of inward love. When internals flow into externals they produce there with absolute accuracy a representation of themselves. This is from the law of Correspondence. That law of relation between internals and their ultimates; that law according to which affections clothe themselves with thoughts, and thoughts with acts; that law by which ends pass by causes to effects, whereby there is produced in ultimates a representation of things interior, is the law of Correspondence. End, cause, and effect are always related according to the law of Correspondence. Correspondence is the appearance of the internal in the external, and its representation therein.
Since it is not the purpose here to define words any further than is indispensable, further development of the subject is left to the application of the laws of Correspondence in the general context.
With a thorough comprehension of these principles and facts, we may proceed to their application in the general subject of Creation.
The Natural World Is Composed Of Discrete
Degrees.
The universe is a succession of discrete degrees, reaching from the inert rock to the active substance of the Creator. Rock is the least sensitive, the most fixed of substances, and the evident basis of creation. It is the lowest substance in the sense that it acts upon nothing except in a reactive capacity. It is dead, passive, fixed, and reactive. Water is more responsive to incident forces. Its molecules lie loosely; it is mutable, easily and repeatedly changing its form from water to vapor, and again falling as rain; thus acting upon rock and adapting it to the uses of living things. The air is matter of a still higher form. It acts not only upon rock, but upon water. It is more sensitive, its molecules lie more loosely, and it operates in more varied capacities. It is higher than either rock or water because it acts upon them, and employs them as servants under its forces. The air is higher in adaptability than water, and is thus suited to perform superior functions, as exemplified in its capacity to take on the complex activity from which is sound, and to yield its soft vibrations to the delicate structure of the ear. It is also a substance taken in by both plants and animals, as in breathing, for the more direct support of life.
The air, water, and rock constitute three continuous degrees. Yet they are but one discrete degree, for the aqueous and terreous parts of the globe are but continuations of the lower atmosphere or air.
The ether is a still higher form of matter. It acts upon the air, or from within outwardly. It is the substance whereby there exist heat, light, and electricity. Its uses are superior to those of the air, having the nobler function of giving light to the eye. Its uses are more numerous than those of air, water, or rock. From its many uses, as in making land and water plastic to operating forces by means of heat, and giving light for animal and for vegetable life, it is at once recognized as of a distinctly higher order than air. Ether, being differentiated from air, and nonconvertible into it, is the next or second discrete degree of material substance.
That there is such a substance as ether is conceded by all scientists, for the explanation of the phenomenon of light necessitates the existence of a universally diffused medium whose activity produces light. Consequently the existence of such a substantial medium need not be further discussed.
That electricity originates in the same element that light does, and is consequently only another manifestation of ether, is quite evident from the fact that heat and light can be electrically produced similar to that produced by the activity of ether. That light and electricity have their origin in a common medium is experimentally evident from Maxwell's demonstration that the velocities of the propagation of light are substantially the same as of electro-magnetic induction. Science now concedes that electrical activity is the origin of heat and light from the sun.
Of a still higher order than ether is that substance called aura, whereof is the force of gravity that no atom escapes, and that binds all things together in their natural relation, and gives grosser matter its so-called inherent or innate properties according to its form. The aura so lies back of ether, air, and rock, that it is properly called the highest or inmost of these. That the aura is distinct from ether is evident from the independence of their actions and their complete non-interference. The constant, unmodified, independent, and simultaneous activity of gravity and of electricity, which is an activity of ether, in the simple experiment of lifting a bar of iron with an electro-magnet is confirmatory; for the one force of gravity does not merge into the other force of electricity, but both are constant and uninterrupted though acting in opposite directions. The attempts of the most severely materialistic of physicists to level all substance down to the one grade of the grossest matter is effectually defeated not only by the existence of so different forms of matter as aura and air with capacity for so diverse activity, but also by the forced acknowledgment on the part of all that there is a universal medium of ether whose activity gives heat and light. The same process of reasoning that convinces us of the existence of ether, will show also that there is a universal medium of aura permeating ether as ether permeates the air and the earth. The explanation of many phenomena necessitates its existence, which is no more difficult to conceive than it is to conceive of ether. The aura, being distinct from ether, constitutes the third discrete degree of material substance.
Nature's Forces Are Derived From The
Spiritual World.
Observing the order of material substances, there is first noticed rock, the most immobile matter, serving as a basis upon which the higher substances may rest and in which they may terminate; for the active necessitates a passive. Next is water; then air; then ether; then aura. Upon this ordered form of successive degrees, more generally grouped as solids, fluids, and gases, or from within into it, the sun acts, vivifying it with sun-potencies and sun-endeavor. The sun gives heat and light to soften nature's implastic substances that they may be sensitive to the life-forces from the Creator. The life-forces from the Creator pick up the particles of matter, and weave them into mineral, plant, and animal bodies; for though matter is endowed with capillarity, osmosis, magnetism, atomicity, gravity, and kindred forces, which dissolve matter, free atoms, aid in the circulation of sap and blood, and render matter sensitive to incident forces, these forces are, as has been observed, inadequate to account for that systematic distribution of matter in forming the tree, the leaf, the flower, the fruit, and the seed with ability to produce its kind; nor can they explain the gathering of matter into a system of bones, muscles, veins, arteries, nerves, and brains. Much less can they explain the animal instinct, a power preeminently transcending any force inherent in matter. It is hardly necessary to go so far as to suggest that difference which exists between the forces belonging to matter and the affections and thought of the human mind, for which the properties of matter in no degree account. There is no other conclusion possible within the bounds of philosophical reasoning than that there is a realm of forces distinctly superior to the material universe. There are forces that form the vegetable kingdom, and preserve its uses; forces that form the animal body, and endow it with instinct; forces that form the human, and gift man with wisdom and love. Since these forces transcend the capacities of matter, and as there is no force without a substance from which it comes, it is certain that there is a realm of substances superior to those of nature, and that they come down into nature, and produce effects there. Call that realm of substances and forces what one may desire, cause-world, supernatural world, mind-world; but no new name is necessary. It is, as distinguished from the natural world, rightly called the spiritual world,—spiritus, the breath-world, whence comes the breath of life into the natural world.
The Spiritual World, Like The Natural World,
Is Composed Of An Ordinated Series
Of Discrete Degrees Of
Substance.
In the spiritual world the forces in nature have their origin. It is the world of causes. Nature is the world of effects. Since the natural world of effects is a succession and ascending series of planes of matter, the spiritual world of causes must be a corresponding succession and ascending series of planes of spiritual substances. By spiritual substances are meant those superior to the natural world, or belonging to the supernatural world. We are to think of them as real entities, actual, created substances, just as real and tangible to substances on their respective planes as forms of matter are on theirs. The only uncreated substance is that of the Creator Himself; yet that is not called uncreated because it is unreal or a non-entity, but because it never was created, it being the Eternal, Primal Substance, the "I AM." Natural or material substance is the substance belonging to the natural universe, as rock, air, ether, aura. Spiritual substance is that of which the soul is made; that which produces affection and thought in the soul; that of which the spiritual world and all its forms are made. Natural substance or matter commences with the sun, in which spiritual substance terminates. So as we think of something real when we say matter or natural substance, we are to think of something just as real when spiritual substance is mentioned.
Recalling that nature ascends by successive degrees from the implastic, inert rock to the sensitive atmospheres that lie about the sun that they may be charged with its vivifying energies, and communicate them to the air and to the more solid matters of the earth, it may be perceived that nature is an ascending series of effects; that is, the forces in the air, water, and rock are effects of the lowest order, and must originate in a corresponding cause; the forces in ether are effects of a higher order, necessarily from a correspondingly higher cause; the forces in the aura are still higher effects, originating in a still higher cause. Consequently, as there is an ascending series of effects, there must be a like series of causes; or, as the effect- world is an ascending series of effects, the cause-world is an ascending series of causes; and this must be true even though the effects be derived from one general cause, the Creator. The Creator embodies potentially a succession of causes, or more accurately a succession of ends, that supports the proceeding effects.
Again, consider another series. There is the life-force in plants that forms leaves, flowers, and fruits, which are effects that matter is totally incapable of producing of itself. Animal instincts are effects of a still higher cause. Human intelligence is a still higher effect, and must come from a still higher cause. The causes of the powers in plants, animals, and man are manifestly a series of causes superior to the natural world. Therefore, because the natural world is an ascending, ordinated series of effects from causes, which causes are in the spiritual world, it is conclusive that the causes in the spiritual world and consequently the substances in which they inhere—for causes can not exist apart from substance—are, like nature, arranged into a series of distinct degrees, reaching upward from the lowest parts of the spiritual world that lie next to material substance to the great First Cause, the primal fountain of all activity, God, the Creator and Sustainer.
All Activity Is Derived From The Creator
By Correspondence.
It has been shown in a general way what the Creator is; that His substance is Love, constituting the Divine Human, in which are the infinite potencies. All power, every endeavor, the universal energy are gathered into it; or rather, because His Love is infinite, omnipotent, and eternal every power has the springs of its action and its origin in Him, and out of His loving every potency can be unfolded. Now we have but to think of that spiritual world as consisting of an ascending series of contiguous degrees with its lowest substances lying next to nature, and with its highest, purest, and most sensitive substances lying about the Creator, just as the finer atmospheres of the earth lie about the sun, to perceive that it is vivified by the Creator as nature is vivified by the sun. The purest and most sensitive substances of the spiritual world, lying about Him and being plastic and responsive to the vital action of His organism, become charged with energy and activity from Him just as the ether is charged with activity and energy from the sun. The highest atmosphere of the spiritual world communicates its activity to the next lower; likewise activity and energy pass on and down until they reach the highest substances in nature, which, receiving the impact, become imbued with energy and activity. Thence activity in nature is derived, and is passed down the successive degrees of creation to the lowest forms of matter according to the law of Correspondence.
The Quality Of Influx Is Determined By
The Receiving Form.
All qualities and powers being in the Creator as His essential being, it is easy to conceive how they may be communicated, in a less degree than they are in Himself, to the substances that are about Him, and that each object would receive of His nature according to its form. The substances that are nearest to Him would receive and have His activity and nature in the highest degree; they would be alive and potent with His vitality, and capable of yielding it in multiple forms. Those substances more removed from Him would have less of His activity and nature, as material substances have less of the sun's attributes as they are removed from it. The substances nearest to Him, being vitalized by Him through juxtaposition, would be charged with the endeavor to produce His own form in a most perfect degree, just as the sun, so to speak, converts the ether into its image by imbuing it with heat and light. Thus every minutest particle of that highest substance becomes a species of body in which appear and are represented the will and understanding of the Creator. Primary endeavor can have no other effort than to convert into its image the object acted upon. And indeed, the tendency of every force is to convert the substance acted upon into the form of the substance in which the force originates. Consequently the substances of the spiritual world, being in the constant endeavor to produce the image of the Creator, accomplish their effort according to the degree of the acting substance and the form in which the acting substance operates. Thus the Creator's vital action, through the successive discrete degrees in creation, in the mind of man produces love and wisdom in the human degree; in animals, their instincts; in plants, their life, and in matter, its varied properties.
The activity of the highest substance that first receives energy from the Creator, most fully reproduces His image and likeness. And however low that activity passes, it must in some degree reflect the image and likeness of its source. The partial perception of this led Professor Haeckel to declare that "The two fundamental forms of substance, ponderable matter and ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic force, but they are endowed with sensation and will (though naturally of the lowest grade); they exercise an inclination for condensation, a dislike for strain; they strive after one and struggle against the other."[1] It would have been better if Professor Haeckel had said will and understanding instead of will and sensation, for in the descent of influx from the Divine Will and Understanding that endeavor in matter, which the Materialists call inherent, is the appearance of the Divine Will in ultimate matter, and the law according to which that endeavor acts is the appearance of the Divine Understanding in ultimate matter. This again beautifully illustrates Correspondence, for the endeavor in matter and its law of action are in correspondence with the Divine Will and Understanding, and they are their representation in the plane of passive matter.
The Maximus Homo Or Grand Man.
Having the subject matter now so fully presented, the way is better prepared for a statement of the law of Correspondence in its most general application, from which, when understood, particulars are easily and clearly seen.
It has been shown that the Creator is a Divine Human Person of will and understanding, and that from His Human, by influx, creation is sustained. It has also been observed that the higher planes more fully present a resemblance to Him, which resemblance finally diminishes in ultimate matter to what is called the inherent property of matter, its endeavor, and the law of its action, the atom's will and understanding. It has also been shown that in plants the endeavor takes a higher resemblance, that of plant life; in animals, it becomes their instinct and volition; in man it appears as his will and understanding. One thing is in the form of another, all being sustained from the Divine Humanity by Correspondence. The law is universal. A city is but a greater man. It is simply the faculties common to one mind developed in many persons in many directions. A nation is but a greater man, the greater development of what is in potency in one man. The inhabitants of the globe are a still greater man, receiving more from the Divine Humanity. The entire heavens are a still greater man, and all who receive the unperverted influx from the Divine Humianity are the Grand Man, the Maximus Homo. All humanity that receives from the Divine Humanity receives only what is therein, and so, as it were, is as a whole a humanity.
Notice how the mind is a little kingdom of powers that serve one another. Reflection, memory, perception, reason, judgment, and the like, serve one another, and make the mind what it is. This is illustrated by the body with its organs and members. The eyes, the hands, the feet, the stomach, and all the organs and members of the body serve one another just as the mental faculties do, just as men in various offices do. They constitute a little kingdom of uses. So also of society; so of the human family. They are kingdoms of uses, each person being in some use, and exercising some particular faculty. So of the heavens. They constitute a kingdom of uses, each member being in his use. The use of one may be on the spiritual plane like that of the eye on the material plane, which is to discern truth in spiritual light. The use of another is that of doing on the spiritual plane as do the hands on the material plane. Another performs some function in the will, like that of directing; another is in some function of the understanding. Each one in the heavens is the incarnation as a ruling factor of some potency from the Divine Humanity, whereby the more that enter the heavens, the more perfectly do they represent as a unit the Divine Humanity. The heavens are before the Lord as one man, of which the individual members are the faculties. Or it may be said that all who are in the kingdom of the Lord are as one human body, each being in some organ. Since the heavens are sustained by influx from the Lord, He, looking upon them in general view, sees the reflection of His Divine Humanity as in a mirror. In general those who are in supreme love to the Lord are the head of this Maximus Homo, this Grand Man. Those who are in love to the neighbors, are in the body; and those who are in simply the love of the external order and life of heaven, are in the feet; and each according to his use is in his particular part of his division. Now the point to be grasped is this. There is an influx from the Divine Humanity into the interiors of the heavens, into their highest functions, from which there is faculty to perform uses. And this influx descends to the spiritual body, and operates its organs from Correspondence. Men upon the earth receive this influx, which by Correspondence descends, and operates the mind and all the organs of the material body. Thus man upon the earth lives by influx from the Divine Humanity, and the organs of the material body are in Correspondence with the Grand Man, which is in Correspondence with the Divine Humanity. Therefore Paul said, "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another, having their gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us." So the church, composed of many members and receiving varied and many graces from the Divine Humanity, is sometimes spoken of as the body of the Lord. Out of this doctrine of the Grand Man, all particulars of creation unfold. Without some understanding of it, how things in creation are sustained can not be comprehended.
- ↑ The Riddle of the Universe, McCobb's Translation, p. 220.