294. [271] It was also shown to them that they speak, write and think spiritually, and that they themselves do not know otherwise than that they do all things naturally; from which they were instructed by me that there is no ratio between the spiritual and the natural, thus there is no conjunction through what is continuous, but through what is discrete, that is, by correspondences; which conjunction makes a likeness as if they are one. They were a little envious that they had not discovered this. Moreover in each degree there is an internal and an external, and the external corresponds to the internal, and the externals are appearances like material things, although they are not material. It was shown to them also by ascent to the third heaven, that there is a similar difference between the celestial and the spiritual, as there is between the spiritual and the natural so that there is no ratio between them, that is, the natural cannot become spiritual by any continuous purification, nor can the spiritual become celestial, thus not by any approximation, but it is like the difference between cause and effect or between the soul and the body.