eir proper place.
From this summary, however, it can be seen that there is an ascent of
all created things to the first, who alone is Life, and that the uses
of all things are the very recipients of life; and from this are the
forms of uses.

67. It shall also be stated briefly how man ascends, that is, is elevated,
from the lowest degree to the first. He is born into the lowest degree
of the natural world; then, by means of knowledges, he is elevated into
the second degree; and as he perfects his understanding by knowledges
he is elevated into the third degree, and then becomes rational. The
three degrees of ascent in the spiritual world are in man above the three
natural degrees, and do not appear until he has put off the earthly body.
When this takes place the first spiritual degree is open to him,
afterwards the second, and finally the third; but this only with those
who become angels of the third heaven; these are they that see God. Those
become angels of the second heaven and of the last heaven in whom the
second degree and the last degree can be opened. Each spiritual degree
in man is opened according to his reception of Divine Love and Divine
Wisdom from the Lord. Those who receive something thereof come into the
first or lowest spiritual degree those who receive more into the second
or middle spiritual degree, those who receive much into the third or
highest degree. But those who receive nothing thereof remain in the
natural degrees, and derive from the spiritual degrees nothing more than
an ability to think and thence to speak, and to will and thence to act,
but not with intelligence.

68. Of the elevation of the interiors of man, which belong to his mind,
this also should be known. In everything created by God there is reaction.
In Life alone there is action; reaction is caused by the action of Life.
Because reaction takes place when any created thing is acted upon, it
appears as if it belonged to what is created. Thus in man it appears as
if the reaction were his, because he has no other feeling than that life
is his, when yet man is only a recipient of life. From this cause it is
that man, by reason of his hereditary evil, reacts against God. But so
far as man believes that all his life is from God, and that all good of
life is from the action of God, and all evil of life from the reaction
of man, so far his reaction comes to be from [God's] action, and man
acts with God as if from himself. The equilibrium