ot in him, and
what is external to him cannot be perfected in him. This perfecting is
meant by the

"Good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over" which
will be given into the bosom of those who forgive and give to others (Lu
6:37, 38),

that is, those who are in the good of charity.

335. (ii) _The activity of divine providence is maintained steadily out
of pure mercy through means._ Divine providence has means and methods.
Its means are the things by which man becomes man and is perfected in
will and understanding; its methods are the ways this is accomplished.
The means by which man becomes man and is perfected in understanding are
collectively called truths. In the thought they become ideas, are called
objects of the memory, and in themselves are forms of knowledge from
which information comes. All these means, viewed in themselves, are
spiritual, but as they exist in what is natural, they seem by reason of
their covering or clothing to be natural and some of them seem to be
material. They are infinite in number and variety, and more or less
simple or composite, and also more or less imperfect or perfect. There
are means for forming and perfecting natural civil life; likewise for
forming and perfecting rational moral life; as there are for forming and
perfecting heavenly spiritual life.

[2] These means advance, one kind after another, from infancy to the last
of man's life, and thereafter to eternity. As they come along and mount,
the earlier ones become means to the later, entering into all that is
forming as mediate causes. From these every effect or conclusion is
efficacious and therefore becomes a cause. In turn what is later becomes
means; and as this goes on to eternity, there is nothing farthest on or
final to make an end. For as what is eternal is without end, so a wisdom
that increases to eternity is without end. If there were an end to wisdom
for a wise man, the enjoyment of his wisdom would perish, which consists
in the perpetual multiplication and fructification of wisdom. His life's
enjoyment would also perish; in its place an enjoyment of glory would
succeed, in which by itself there is no heavenly life. The wise man then
becomes no longer like a youth but like an old man, and at length like a
decrepit one.

[3] Although a wise man's wisdom increases forever in heaven, angelic
wisdom cannot approximate the divine wisdom so much as to touch it. It is
relatively like what is sai