earth as a planet, pervade the earth, and govern every atom from its surface to its centre.

The time must come, and may be near, when the New Church, and all who are willing and able to see the truth, will learn, that these laws, considered together with the fact that the one Divine Reason comes into the human mind and there forms and fills and constitutes everything of human reason, and comes into the material universe and there forms and fills and constitutes every law, every force, every activity and every form, lead to a rigorous and logical demonstration, that the material universe in the whole and in every conceivable portion or element, is an expression, a clothing, and a mirror of the universe of Mind.

Then will the Science of Correspondence be demonstrated; and then will it take its rightful place, as the centre and foundation and light of all Science.

The especial subject of this Essay, is the clouds; the clouds of the sky, and the clouds of the mind. But it is impossible to write upon any subject, in any connection with the doctrines or principles of the New Church, without reference to this correspondence of the things of the spirit with those of the body. In some or other of its forms and effects it forces itself upon all but the most superficial or careless observation. A large part of the best literature of all ages recognizes it to a greater or less extent, and with more or less of clearness.

From time to time, since those distant periods in

which the record of human thought began, there have been efforts to discover and apply this correspondence in a religious sense; and some occasional endeavors to use it for the illustration of science. But while Swedenborg asserts the absolute reality and universality of the fact of correspondence, he also reveals its cause and ground, and systematizes its laws. He declares that everything in earth, be it substance, phenomenon, law, force, cause or effect, exists as the correspondent of that which exists in the world of thought and in the spiritual world. And not only exists as such correspondent, but because it is in this correspondence; and beside the ground of this correspondence, which has already been indicated, there is yet another; or rather there is yet another way of saying the same thing. It is, that this whole external universe is caused by an internal universe; and the internal causes the external by coming forth into an external form; or, in other words, by becoming that external.

There is so little in existing science, so very little in the common notions of mankind, or in prevailing habits of thought, to welcome or appreciate any truth which implies the positive and definite existence of a spiritual world, real and substantial, and actually composed of spiritual things, that it must be very difficult to comprehend a system of correspondence between these spiritual things and the things of the natural world. It is, however, possible that this difficulty may become less, if we are able to see

with some clearness, some principles which may be regarded as introductory to the science of correspondence. One of them is, that this correspondence is not so much between some thing in the one world and some other thing in the other world, as it is between the appearance, the form, the action and operation of the same thing as it exists in the one way, and in the other way; or in one world and in the other world. But to comprehend this, we must again go back, or rather upwards, to a point above both of these worlds; that is, to their Creator. For, as creation by God, is of necessity a creation from God, so it is a coming forth of something in God, which He forms into an element of being outside of Himself.

Because in God there are inexhaustible infinities of Divine life, there may be in all worlds a variety in the forms of life or modes of being, which eternity will not exhaust. All of these, as they exist in Him, are as perfectly incomprehensible by human thought as they are inaccessible to human touch. They become comprehensible by descending within reach of human thought; that is, by putting on forms or modes of being that are within the reach, first of the senses, and then of the mind. Because each one of the elements of Divine life is capable of an infinite variety of manifestations, there are not only two worlds, one of which is spiritual and the other natural; but a vast variety in the planes of being, or modes of being, in each world.

Thus, in the natural world, we have the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, and a great variety of beings in each of them; and there is a similar, although far greater, variety in the spiritual world. To express these modes of being, the phrase "planes of life" is used; because the word plane, which means only level, leads the mind, by suggestion, to the idea that these different classes of being stand on different levels, higher or lower, or are so arranged as to be at different distances from Him who is the source of all and above all.

We then add, that as all creation is caused by effluence from the universal Father,. and as each thing is caused or created by the effluence of its inmost and incomprehensible essence from the Father, which essence, as it flows forth, clothes itself with what it needs to play its part on the material plane of being or on the spiritual planes, while it remains itself unchanged, so the forms or manifestations which it puts on upon either of these planes, correspond to those which it puts on in the other. And, as has been said, this correspondence is not so much between one thing in one state and another thing in another state, as between the one thing in one state and the same thing in the other state; or between the forms and appearances of the same things, in these two different states.

After this it is important to keep in mind, that while the most general division of creation is into two worlds, the spiritual and the natural, the next

most general division of each world, is into the internal and the external; or into that which being within causes and forms what is without, and that which being without is the effect and the form of that which is within; or, again, as it may help us to say, into the soul and the body. It is easy to speak of a man's soul and his body, and no one is disturbed by such words. But should we say that every animal has a soul? No; because it seems better to reserve the word soul for the interior principle or form of life of a human being. Still less therefore would we say that the interior and causative principle of life of a tree or plant was its soul; and when we pass down to the mineral kingdom, no life whatever seems to be there.

And yet the generic distinction of soul and body is real and universal. But by soul, in this wide sense, we must mean what everything has, whether stone, tree, beast, or man; and that is an interior principle of being as well as an exterior manifestation of that being; an essence as well as an existence; and an essence which coming forth into existence creates the form, creates it for the clothing, for the instrument, and for the body of the essence.

The relation between the interior and exterior, or the soul and the body, and also the nature and quality of each, are very different in different things; as, for example, in the case of the man, the beast, the tree, and the stone; but it is perfectly true in all cases, that whatever exists, has this interior which