DEGREES FROM LAST THINGS TO
MAN, AND THROUGH MAN TO GOD THE CREATOR, FROM WHOM THEY ARE.

Last things, as was said above, are each and all things of the mineral
kingdom, which are materials of various kinds, of a stony, saline, oily,
mineral, or metallic nature, covered over with soil formed of vegetable
and animal matters reduced to the finest dust. In these lie concealed
both the end and the beginning of all uses which are from life. The end
of all uses is the endeavor to produce uses, and the beginning is the
acting force from that endeavor. These pertain to the mineral kingdom.
Middle things are each and all things of the vegetable kingdom, such as
grasses and herbs of every kind, plants and shrubs of every kind, and
trees of every kind. The uses of these are for the service of each and
all things of the animal kingdom, both imperfect and perfect. These they
nourish, delight, and vivify; nourishing the bellies of animals with
their vegetable substances, delighting the animal senses with taste,
fragrance, and beauty, and vivifying their affections. The endeavor
towards this is in these also from life. First things are each and all
things of the animal kingdom. Those are lowest therein which are called
worms and insects, the middle are birds and beasts, and the highest,
men; for in each kingdom there are lowest, middle and highest things,
the lowest for the use of the middle, and the middle for the use of the
highest. Thus the uses of all created things ascend in order from outmost
things to man, who is first in order.

66. In the natural world there are three degrees of ascent, and in the
spiritual world there are three degrees of ascent. All animals are
recipients of life. The more perfect are recipients of the life and the
three degrees of the natural world, the less perfect of the life of two
degrees of that world, and the imperfect of one of its degrees. But man
alone is a recipient of the life both of the three degrees of the natural
world and of the three degrees of the spiritual world. From this it is
that man can be elevated above nature, while the animal cannot. Man can
think analytically and rationally of the civil and moral things that are
within nature, also of the spiritual and celestial things that are above
nature, yea, he can be so elevated into wisdom as even to see God. But
the six degrees by which the uses of all created things ascend in their
order even to God the Creator, will be treated of in th