Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/115

Rh receive; and they treasure up in them its fire, and temper, and convey it as heat to the earth, which is the dwelling-place of men. And in like manner the light.

The difference between the spiritual atmospheres and the natural is, that the spiritual atmospheres are receptacles of Divine fire and Divine light, thus of love and wisdom, for they contain these within them; while the natural atmospheres are not receptacles of Divine fire and Divine light, but of the fire and light of their own sun, which in itself is devoid of life (as was shown above); and therefore they contain nothing from the sun of the spiritual world, but still are surrounded by spiritual atmospheres which come from that sun. That this is the difference between the spiritual atmospheres and the natural is learned from the wisdom of the angels.

The existence of atmospheres in the spiritual world as well as in the natural, is evident from the fact that angels and spirits breathe, speak, and hear equally with men in the natural world; and respiration, speech, and hearing are effected by means of the air or ultimate atmosphere. Also from the fact that angels and spirits see equally with men in the natural world; and sight is not possible but by means of an atmosphere purer than air. From this also, that angels and spirits think and are affected equally with men in the natural world; and thought and affection do not exist but by means of still purer atmospheres. And lastly from the fact, that all things belonging to the bodies of angels and spirits, as well external as internal, are held in proper connection by atmospheres; their externals by an aerial atmosphere, and their internals by ethereal atmospheres. Were it not for the circumpressure and action of these atmospheres, it is evident that the interior and exterior forms of the body would be dissolved. Since the angels are spiritual, and each and all things of their bodies are held in their connection, form, and order, by atmospheres, it follows that those atmospheres also are spiritual; and they are spiritual because they originate from the spiritual sun, which is the first going forth of the Divine love and Divine wisdom of the Lord. (D. L. W. n. 174-176.)

That substances or matters, such as are in the earth, have been produced from the sun through its atmospheres, who does not affirm that considers well that there are perpetual mediations from the first to the last, and that nothing can come into existence but from something prior to itself and finally from a First. The First is the sun of the spiritual world; and the First of that sun is God Man, or the Lord. Now as the atmospheres are the prior things through which that sun presents