§108 earth corresponds to heaven 57
a. Everything in the world and its three kingdoms corresponds to heavenly things that are in
heaven; or things in the natural world correspond to things in the spiritual world: 1632 , 1881 ,
2758 , 2890 – 2893 [ 2990 – 2993 ], 2897 – 3003 [ 2987 – 3003 ], 3213 – 3227 , 3483 , 3624 – 3649 [ 3624 – 3639 ],
4044 , 4053 , 4116 , 4366 , 4939 , 5116 , 5377 , 5428 , 5477 , 9280. Through correspondences, the natural
world is united with the spiritual world: 8615. So nature in its entirety is a theater portraying the
Lord’s kingdom: 2758 , 2999 , 3000 , 3483 , 4938 , 4939 , 8848 , 9280.
b. Everything in both heaven and this world that is in accord with the design goes back to what is
good and what is true: 2451 , 3166 , 4390 , 4409 , 5232 , 7256 , 10122 ; and to the union of the two, if it
is actually to be anything: 10555.
In a word, absolutely everything in nature, from the smallest to the 106
greatest, is a correspondence.a The reason correspondences occur is that
the natural world, including everything in it, arises and is sustained from
the spiritual world, and both worlds come from the Divine. We say that
it also is sustained because everything is sustained from that from which
it arose, enduring being in fact a perpetual arising; and since nothing can
endure independently, but needs something prior, it therefore needs a
First, and if it were separated from that First, it would utterly perish and
disappear.
Everything is a correspondent that arises and endures in nature 107
according to the divine design. What makes the divine design is the
divine good that emanates from the Lord. It begins from him, emanates
from him through the heavens in sequence into the world, and there
comes to a close in things most remote. Things there that are in accord
with the design are correspondences. The things that are in accord with
the design are everything that is good and is perfected for some use, for
everything good is good according to its usefulness. Its form refl ects what
is true because the true is the form of the good. This is why everything in
the whole world and in the world of nature that is in the divine design
goes back to what is good and what is true.b
The fact that everything in this world arises from the Divine and is 108
clothed with the kinds of elements in nature that enable it to be present
there, serve some use, and therefore correspond, follows clearly from lit-
tle things we can observe in both the animal and the plant kingdoms. In
each there are things that anyone, with some deeper thought, can see
must come from heaven. By way of illustration I may mention only a few
out of the countless many.
First, some from the animal kingdom. In this fi eld, many people
realize what kind of knowledge is virtually instinctive in any creature you