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84 quainted with correspondences, but did not think from the knowledge of them, because they were in natural good, and not, like their predecessors, in spiritual good. That period was called the copper age. I was told that after those times man gradually became external, and at length corporeal; and that then the knowledge of correspondences was wholly lost; and with it, the knowledge of heaven and of nearly everything relating to it.

These ages were named from gold, silver and copper; because gold from correspondence signifies celestial good, in which the most ancient people were principled; silver, spiritual good, which was the characteristic of the ancients who succeeded them; and copper, natural good, in which the next succeeding race were principled. But iron, from which the last age was named, signifies hard truth without good. (H. H., n. 104-115.)