248. If the higher or spiritual degree is not opened in a person, he becomes natural and sensual. We showed above that there are three degrees of the human mind, which we call natural, spiritual and celestial, and that these degrees can be progressively opened. We also showed that the natural degree is opened first, and afterward, if the person refrains from evils as being sins and looks to the Lord, the spiritual degree, and finally the celestial degree. Since these degrees are progressively opened in accordance with a person's life, it follows that the two higher degrees may also not be opened, and that the person in that case remains in the natural degree, which is the lowest or outmost one. People know, moreover, in the world that some people are natural and some spiritual, or some external and some internal. But they have not known that the natural person becomes spiritual by the opening of some higher degree in him; that the opening is occasioned by his living a spiritual life, which is a life in accordance with Divine precepts; and that apart from a life in accordance with these, the person remains natural.