greatest and in the least of all things there are degrees of two
kinds, namely, degrees of height and degrees of breadth. This is also
true of the natural mind in its greatest and its least parts. Degrees
of height are what are now referred to. The natural mind, by its two
capacities called rationality and freedom, is in such a state as to be
capable of ascending through three degrees, or of descending through
three degrees; it ascends by goods and truths, and descends by evils and
falsities. When it ascends, the lower degrees which tend to hell are
shut, and when it descends, the higher degrees which tend to heaven are
shut; for the reason that they are in reaction. These three degrees,
higher and lower, are neither open nor shut in man in earliest infancy,
for he is then ignorant both of good and truth and of evil and falsity;
but as he lets himself into one or the other, the degrees are opened
and shut on the one side or the other. When they are opened towards hell,
the reigning love, which is of the will, obtains the highest or inmost
place; the thought of the false, which is of the understanding from that
love, obtains the second or middle place; and the result of the love
through the thought, or of the will through the understanding, obtains
the lowest place. The same is true here as of degrees of height treated
of above; they stand in order as end, cause, and effect, or as first end,
middle end, and last end. The descent of these degrees is towards the
body, consequently in the descent they wax grosser, and become material
and corporeal. If truths from the Word are received in the second degree
to form it, these truths are falsified by the first degree, which is the
love of evil, and become servants and slaves. From this it can be seen
what the truths of the church from the Word become with those who are in
the love of evil, or whose natural mind is in form a hell, namely, that
they are profaned because they serve the devil as means; for the love of
evil reigning in the natural mind that is a hell, is the devil, as was
said above.

275. (3) The three degrees of the natural mind that is a form and image
of hell, are opposite to the three degrees of the spiritual mind which
is a form and image of heaven. It has been shown above that there are
three degrees of the mind, called natural, spiritual, and celestial, and
that the human mind, made up of these degrees, looks towards heaven, and
turns itself about in that di