Page:Swedenborg's Doctrine of Correspondence.djvu/78

72 heaven, which maintains all order and keeps all things alive. The lateral influx is from the world of spirits; and from the good and evil populations on the earth in connection with them. The abyssal influences are from the hells, from which disease and death perpetually assault us. All these are of human conditions, and are virtually 'in us, from us, and of us.' They are firmaments of influx above and below, and operate by induction; they are forces of influx at the sides, and act by spiritual pressure. Hence it is that evil powers operate generally and not according to the lives of individuals. Wherever a swamp and putridity of circumstance lies, they are congenially attracted, and godly and godless folk are smitten if they dwell upon that region. All who do not dwell there, if they correspond to the infernal influences in their lives and characters, will in the hereafter likewise perish.' "

We are now prepared to enter more fully into the consideration of Correspondence and influx. Correspondence is of the natural world with the spiritual; of the internal with the external. It is the law of the causal