the eye be evil the whole body is darkened. If, therefore,
the light . . . be darkness, how great is the darkness" (vi. 22, 23).

Here, again, the "eye" signifies the understanding of truth and belief
in it, which is called a lamp from the light of truth that man has from
understanding and belief. And because a man becomes wise from
understanding and believing in truth, it is said "if the eye be sound
the whole body is light." The "body" means the man, and "to be light"
means to be wise. But it is the reverse with the "evil eye," that is,
understanding and believing in falsity. "Darkness" means falsities, "if
the light be darkness" signifies if the truth be false or falsified, and
because truth falsified is worse than any other falsity, it is said, "If
the light be darkness, how great is the darkness."

These few examples make clear what correspondence is and what influx is,
namely, that the eye is a correspondence of the understanding and faith,
the heart a correspondence of the will and love, the ears a
correspondence of obedience, the lamp and light correspondences of
truth, and darkness a correspondence of falsity, and so on; and as the
one is spiritual and the other is natural, and the spiritual acts into
the natural and forms it to a likeness of itself that it may appear
before the eyes or before the world, so that action is influx. Such is
the Word in each and every particular. (A.E., n. 1081.)

The spiritual by influx presents what is correspondent to itself in the
natural, in order that the end may become a cause, and the cause become
an effect, and thus the end through the cause may present itself in the
effect as visible and sensible. This trine, namely, end, cause, and
effect, exists from creation in every heaven. The end is good of love,
the cause is truth from that good, and the effect is use. The producing
force is love, and the product therefrom is of love from good by means
of truth. The final products, which are in our world, are various, as
numerous as the objects are in its three kingdoms of nature, animal,
vegetable, and mineral. All products are correspondences. As this
trine, namely, end, cause, and effect, exists in each heaven, there must
be in each heaven products that are correspondences, and that are like
in form and aspect the objects in the three kingdoms of our earth; from
which it is clear that each heaven is like our earth in outward
appearance, differing only in excellence