Behold, waters went forth from under the threshold from which was a river, upon whose bank on this side and on that were very many trees for food, whose leaf falleth not, nor is consumed; it is renewed every month, whence its fruit is for food, and its leaf for medicine (Ezek. 47:1, 7, 12). There also the New Church is treated of. That rational truths are signified by "leaves," is because by "a tree" is signified man (n. 83, 400); and then by all the parts of a tree are signified corresponding things in man; as by the branches, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. By "the branches" man's sensual and natural truths are signified; by "the leaves" his rational truths; by "the flowers" the first spiritual truths in the rational; by "the fruits" the goods of love and charity; and by "the seeds" are signified the last and the first things of man. [2] That rational truths are signified by "the leaves," is clearly manifest from the things seen in the spiritual world; for trees appear there also, with leaves and fruits; there are gardens and paradises from them. With those who are in the goods of love and at the same time in the truths of wisdom there appear fruit-bearing trees, luxuriant with beautiful leaves, but with those who are in the truths of some wisdom, and speak from reason, and are not in the goods of love, there appear trees full of leaves, but without fruits; but with those with whom there are neither goods nor the truths of wisdom, there do not appear trees, unless stripped of their leaves, as in the time of winter in the world. A man not rational is nothing else but such a tree. [3] Rational truths are those which proximately receive spiritual truths, for the rational of man is the first receptacle of spiritual truths; for the perception of truth in some form is in man's rational, which the man himself does not see in thought, as he does the things which are beneath the rational in the lower thought, which conjoins itself with the external sight. Rational truths are also signified by "leaves" (Gen. 3:7; 8:11; Isa. 34:4; Jer. 8:13; 17:8; Ezek. 47:12; Dan. 4:12, 14; Ps. 1:3; Lev. 26:36; Matt. 21:19; 24:32; Mark 13:28). But their signification is according to the species of the trees. The leaves of the olive and the vine signify rational truths from celestial and spiritual light; the leaves of the fig rational truths from natural light; and the leaves of the fir, the poplar, the oak, the pine, rational truths from sensual light. The leaves of these strike terror in the spiritual world, when they are shaken by a strong wind; these are meant in Lev. 26:36; Job 13:55. But it is not so with the leaves of the former.