22 HEAVEN and HELL §37
f. All things come into being from things prior to them and therefore from a First. They are
maintained in being in the same way, since continuance in being is constant coming into being.
Therefore, nothing unconnected exists: 3626 , 3627 , 3628 , 3648 , 4523 , 4524 , 6040 , 6056.
g. More inward and more outward realities are not on a continuum, but are arranged in distinct
and discrete levels, with each level having a boundary: 3691 , 4145 [ 5145 ], 5114 , 8603 , 10099. Each
level is formed from another, and things formed in this way are not on a continuum from fi ner to
cruder: 6326 , 6465. Anyone who does not understand the difference between more inward and
more outward realities according to levels of this kind cannot understand the inner and the outer
person or the more inward and more outward heavens: 5146 , 6465 , 10099 , 10181.that is not connected to the First by some intermediary does not endure,
but disintegrates and becomes nothing.f38 Anyone who does not know how the divine design is arranged in
levels cannot grasp how the heavens are distinguished from each other,
or for that matter, what the inner person and the outer person are (in an
individual). The only idea most people in this world have about inner
and outer things is one of continuity, or of a coherence along a contin-
uum from the fi ner to the coarser. Inner and outer things are not arranged
in a continuum, though, but with defi nite boundaries.
There are two kinds of levels, continuous and noncontinuous. Con-
tinuous levels are like decreasing levels of light from a fl ame, all the way
to darkness, or like decreasing amounts of sight from objects in the light
to objects in the shade, or like levels of density of the atmosphere from
the lowest to the highest. These levels are measured by distance.
[ 2 ] Noncontinuous or distinct levels, though, are separated like prior
and posterior, cause and effect, producer and product. Anyone who looks
closely will discover that there are these kinds of stages of production and
composition in everything in the world, no matter what, with one thing
arising from another, and a third from that, and so forth.
[ 3 ] People who do not acquire a grasp of these levels have no way of
knowing how the heavens are arranged or the arrangement of our own
deeper and more outward abilities, or the difference between the spiritual
world and the natural world, or the difference between our spirit and our
body. This also means they cannot understand what correspondences
and images are or what infl ow is like. People who are attentive only to
their physical senses do not grasp these differences, but regard them as
instances of increase and decrease on the model of continuous levels. As a
result, they cannot think of the spiritual except as a kind of purer natural;
so they stand outside, far removed from intelligence.g