258. Every person is born into the faculty of understanding truths, and this even to the inmost degree in which angels of the third heaven dwell. For the human intellect, rising up by a continuous ascent around the two higher degrees, receives the light of the wisdom of those degrees in the manner described above in no. 256. Therefore a person can become rational in the measure of his elevation. If he is elevated to the third degree, he becomes rational from the third degree. If he is elevated to the second degree, he becomes rational from the second degree. And if he 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 vessel receptive of their light. [2] If a person does not become rational to the highest level of which he is capable, it is because the love which resides in his will cannot be elevated in the same way as the wisdom which resides in his intellect. The love which resides in his will can be elevated only by his refraining from evils as being sins, and afterward by his doing goods of charity, or useful services, which the person then does from the Lord. Consequently, if the love residing in his will is not elevated at the same time, then no matter how far the wisdom residing in his intellect may ascend, still it sinks back down again to his love. Therefore if a person's love is not elevated at the same time into the spiritual degree, he still is rational only in the lowest degree. It can be seen from this that a person's rationality is in appearance as though of three degrees-a rationality from the celestial degree, a rationality from the spiritual degree, and a rationality from the natural degree. It can be seen, too, that whether a person's rationality is elevated or not, still it remains in the person as a faculty that can be elevated.