he
natural world (n. 4067, 6982, 6985, 6996).

{Footnote 2} All things spring from things prior to themselves,
thus from a First, and in like inner subsist, because
subsistence is unceasing springing forth; therefore nothing
unconnected is possible (n. 3626-3628, 3648, 4523, 4524, 6040,
6056).

38. Only he who knows how degrees are related to Divine order can
comprehend how the heavens are distinct, or even what is meant by the
internal and the external man. Most men in the world have no other
idea of what is interior and what is exterior, or of what is higher
and what is lower, than as something continuous, or coherent by
continuity, from purer to grosser. But the relation of what is
interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous. Degrees are
of two kinds, those that are continuous and those that are not.
Continuous degrees are related like the degrees of the waning of a
light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the
decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the shade,
or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top. These
degrees are determined by distance. [2] On the other hand, degrees
that are not continuous, but discrete, are distinguished like prior
and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what produces and what
is produced. Whoever looks into the matter will see that in each
thing and all things in the whole world, whatever they are, there are
such degrees of producing and compounding, that is, from one a
second, and from that a third, and so on. [3] Until one has acquired
for himself a perception of these degrees he cannot possibly
understand the differences between the heavens, nor between the
interior and exterior faculties of man, nor the differences between
the spiritual world and the natural world, nor between the spirit of
man and his body. So neither can he understand the nature and source
of correspondences and representations, or the nature of influx.
Sensual men do not apprehend these differences, for they make
increase and decrease, even according to these degrees, to be
continuous, and are therefore unable to conceive of what is spiritual
otherwise than as a purer natural. And in consequence they remain
outside of and a great way off from intelligence.{1}

{Footnote 1} Things interior and things exterior are not
continuous but distinct and discrete according to degrees, and
each degree has its bounds (n. 3691