Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/117

Rh to man, and through man to God the Creator, from whom they originate.

Creation is in continual progression to this ultimate end, by the three [gradations], end, cause and effect; for these three exist in God the Creator, and the Divine is in all space without space, and is the same in the greatest and least things. Hence it is evident that the created universe, in its general progression to its ultimate end, is relatively the mediate end; for forms of uses are continually raised from the earth by the Lord the Creator, in their order up to man, who as to his body is likewise from the earth. Next, man is elevated by the reception of love and wisdom from the Lord; and all means are provided that he may receive them; and he is made such that he can receive them if he will. (D. L. W. n. 170, 171.)

Man was called a microcosm by the ancients, because he resembled the macrocosm, which is the universe in the whole complex. But at this day it is not known why man was so called by the ancients; for there appears in him nothing more of the universe or the macrocosm than that he is nourished and lives, as to his body, from its animal and vegetable kingdoms, and that he is kept in a living state by its heat, sees by its light, and hears and breathes by its atmospheres. These, however, do not make man a microcosm, as the universe with all things therein is a macrocosm. The ancients called man a microcosm, or little universe, from the knowledge of correspondences which the most ancient people possessed, and from their communication with the angels of heaven; for the angels of heaven know, from the visible things about them, that all things in the universe, viewed as to uses, represent man in an image.

But that man is a microcosm, or little universe, because the created universe viewed as to uses is man in an image, cannot enter the thought and knowledge of any one, except from an idea of the universe as seen in the spiritual world. It cannot therefore be shown but by some angel in the spiritual world, or by some one to whom it has been granted to be in that world, and to see the things therein. As this has been granted to me, I am enabled, by what I have seen there, to reveal this arcanum. Be it known that the spiritual world, in external appearance, is altogether similar to the natural world. Lands, mountains, hills, valleys, plains, fields, lakes, rivers and fountains appear there, consequently all things of the mineral kingdom; also