Because there is nothing in the universe that is not a portrayal of the kingdom of the Lord, we are able to be taught by everything that comes before our eyes, even about the fact that very inward and innermost things are unfathomable. Specifically, [we can learn this] just from the development of the human body in the womb, also from the progressive formation then of everything in the tender little body, namely that only several members become active and many remain without any function, such as the lungs, the stomach, the intestines, the kidneys, and many others, as well as muscles and organs of sensation. Yet the development is such that they are looking to the phases ahead, and are meanwhile growing toward their uses. So for many months all, down to the very least parts, are looking to the uses that follow, then others come up to be of service that in the meantime have been fitted to their functions, such, for example, as the oval foramen, etc. This is a portrayal of innermost and very inward things, or of the Lord [working] through innermost and very inward things, for which reason they are inscrutable, namely what use these organs will perform in the successive chain of time and space, which nevertheless contain within themselves the series of things to follow, even up to the ultimate moment [of birth]. And so it goes on in the subsequent stage that what is to follow is constantly looked to. 1748, 1 July.