Divine Love and Wisdom (Ager) n. 66

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66. In the natural world there are three degrees of ascent, and in the spiritual world there are three degrees of ascent. All animals are recipients of life. The more perfect are recipients of the life and the three degrees of the natural world, the less perfect of the life of two degrees of that world, and the imperfect of one of its degrees. But man alone is a recipient of the life both of the three degrees of the natural world and of the three degrees of the spiritual world. From this it is that man can be elevated above nature, while the animal cannot. Man can think analytically and rationally of the civil and moral things that are within nature, also of the spiritual and celestial things that are above nature, yea, he can be so elevated into wisdom as even to see God. But the six degrees by which the uses of all created things ascend in their order even to God the Creator, will be treated of in their proper place. From this summary, however, it can be seen that there is an ascent of all created things to the first, who alone is Life, and that the uses of all things are the very recipients of life; and from this are the forms of uses.


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