which are Divine truths, in the exercise of that freedom of thinking and
willing according to reason, which they possess from the Lord as if it
were their own. By this they have a reception, as if from themselves, of
Divine Good and of Divine Truth, and by this there is a reciprocation of
love; for, as was said above, love is impossible unless it is reciprocal.
The same is true of men on the earth. From what has been said it can now
first be seen that all things of the created universe are recipients of
the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of God-Man.

58. It cannot yet be intelligibly explained how all other things of the
universe which are unlike angels and men, that is, the things below man
in the animal kingdom, and the things below these in the vegetable
kingdom, and the things still below these in the mineral kingdom, are
also recipients of the Divine Love and of the Divine Wisdom of God-Man;
for many things need to be said first about degrees of life, and degrees
of the recipients of life. Conjunction with these things is according to
their uses; for no good use has any other origin than through a like
conjunction with God, but yet different according to degrees. This
conjunction in its descent becomes successively such that nothing of
freedom is left therein, because nothing of reason, and therefore nothing
of the appearance of life; but still they are recipients. Because they
are recipients, they are also re-agents; and forasmuch as they are
re-agents, they are containants. Conjunction with uses which are not good
will be discussed when the origin of evil has been made known.

59. From the above it can be seen that the Divine is in each and every
thing of the created universe, and consequently that the created universe
is the work of the hands of Jehovah, as is said in the Word; that is, the
work of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, for these are meant by the hands
of Jehovah. But though the Divine is in each and all things of the
created universe there is in their esse nothing of the Divine in itself;
for the created universe is not God, but is from God; and since it is
from God, there is in it an image of Him like the image of a man in a
mirror, wherein indeed the man appears, but still there is nothing of
the man in it.

60. I heard several about me in the spiritual world talking together,
who said that they were quite willing to acknowledge that the Divine is
in each and every thing of the universe, becaus