340. (iii) There is continuous influx from the spiritual world into the natural world. He who does not know that there is a spiritual world, or that it is distinct from the natural world as what is prior is distinct from what is posterior, or as cause from the thing caused, cannot know anything about this influx. This is why those who have written about the origin of vegetables and animals could only deduce that the origin was from nature, and if from God, that God had implanted in nature from the beginning the power of producing such things-not knowing that no power is implanted in nature, for nature in herself is dead and contributes no more to the production of those things than, for instance, a tool does to the work of a mechanic, the tool having to be perpetually moved to cause action. It is the spiritual which derives its origin from the Sun where the Lord is, and proceeds to the ultimates of nature, that produces the forms of vegetables and animals and shows forth the marvels existing in both, and fills the forms with matters from the earth that they may become fixed and enduring. Now because it is not known that there is a spiritual world, and that the spiritual is from the spiritual Sun where the Lord is, and which is from the Lord, and that the spiritual is what impels nature to act, as what is living impels what is dead, also that the same things exist in the spiritual world as in the natural world, it can be seen that vegetables and animals have had their existence only from the Lord through that world, and through that world they have continuous existence. Thus there is continuous influx from the spiritual world into the natural. That this is the case will be abundantly confirmed in the section following. Noxious things are produced on earth through influx from hell by the same law of permission whereby evils themselves inflow from hell into men. This law will be set forth in the ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE.