1196. After these things I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude in heaven.- This signifies the joy and gladness of the angels of the higher heavens on account of the damnation and casting out of those who are signified by Babylon and the beasts of the dragon, and the consequent shedding forth of the light of Divine Truth for a New Church, which is to be established by the Lord. Because these things form the contents of the following chapters, it is evident that by the voice of a great multitude in heaven such things are signified. The damnation and casting out of those who are meant by Babylon are treated of in verses 2, 3; the damnation and casting out of the beasts of the dragon, verses 19-21; joy on account of a New Church to be established by the Lord, verses 7-9, 17, 18; and of the light springing forth thence, verses 11-16.
[2] Continuation.- Something shall be said here concerning the life of animals, and afterwards concerning the soul of plants. The whole world and everything in it, both generally and particularly, have existed and still subsist from the Lord the Creator of the universe. There are two suns, one the Sun of the spiritual world, and the other the sun of the natural world. The Sun of the spiritual world is the Divine Love of the Lord; the sun of the natural world is pure fire. From the sun which is Divine Love the whole work of creation had its beginning, and by means of the sun which is fire it was completed. Everything proceeding from the Sun which is Divine Love is called spiritual, and everything proceeding from the sun which is fire is called natural.
[3] That which is spiritual has from its origin life in itself, but that which is natural has from its origin nothing of life in itself; and because from these two sources of the universe all things contained in both worlds have existed and still subsist, it follows that the Spiritual and the Natural exist in every created thing in this world, the Spiritual being as a soul and the Natural as the body; or the Spiritual as the internal and the Natural as the external; or the Spiritual as the cause and the Natural as the effect.
Every wise man is aware that these two things cannot in any case whatever be separated; for if you separate the cause from the effect, the effect perishes; or if you separate the internal from the external, the latter perishes, just as when the soul is separated from the body.
[4] That there is such a conjunction in the individual things of nature, even in the most minute of them, has been hitherto unknown; and this arises from the ignorance which prevails regarding the spiritual world, the Sun there, and heat and light there, and also from the insanity of sensual men, in ascribing all things to nature, and rarely any thing but creation in general to God, although there neither is nor can he, in nature, any thing in which the Spiritual does not exist. The existence of this in every thing contained in the three kingdoms of nature, will be proved in the following pages, and also how this is.
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