188. I do not know whether anything has been well known heretofore regarding discrete degrees or degrees of height, or only regarding continuous degrees or degrees of breadth. And yet nothing of any cause in its true nature can be learned without a concept of both kinds of degrees. Therefore we mean to deal with them throughout this part of the work. For the purpose of this volume is to uncover causes and from their standpoint view effects, and thus dispel the darkness which envelops the person of the church in regard to God, to the Lord, and to those Divine matters in general which are called spiritual. I can report the following, that angels sorrow on account of the darkness in this world. They say that scarcely anywhere do they see light; that people seize on fallacious appearances and defend them, and in so doing multiply falsities, one after another; and that in order to support these, they employ reasonings based on false assumptions and falsified truths to find arguments which, owing to the darkness they are in in regard to causes and their ignorance in regard to truths, can never be dispelled. Especially do angels lament over people's arguments in support of faith separated from charity and of justification by it, including as well their ideas of God, their ideas of angels and spirits, and their ignorance of what love and wisdom are.