166. That all things have been created by the Lord by means of the living Sun, and nothing by the dead sun, may be established from this, that a living thing disposes a dead thing to compliance with it, and forms it for uses which are its ends, but not the other way round. Only a man devoid of reason can think that all things are from nature, and that life even is from nature; he does not know what life is. Nature cannot dispose life to anything, for nature in itself is quite inert. For a dead thing to act upon a living thing, or a dead force upon a living force, or what is the same, for the natural to act on the spiritual, is entirely contrary to order, and therefore to think so is contrary to the light of sound reason. What is dead, that is, natural, may indeed, in many ways, be perverted and changed by external happenings, but yet it cannot act into life. But life acts into it, according to the change of form induced. It is the same with physical influx into the spiritual operations of the soul, which, it is known, does not occur for it is not possible.