188. I am not aware that anything has been known so far about discrete degrees or degrees of height, but only about continuous degrees or degrees of breadth. And yet nothing can become known of the real nature of cause without a knowledge of degrees of both kinds. Therefore the whole of this Part shall deal with these; for it is the purpose of this little work to uncover causes so that effects from them may be seen, and thus the darkness in which the man of the Church is about God and the Lord, and about Divine things in general which are called spiritual may be dispelled. I may mention this, that the angels are in sorrow about the darkness on earth. They say that hardly anywhere do they see light, and that men seize upon fallacies, confirm them, and by this means multiply falsities upon falsities; and to confirm these, men explore, by means of reasonings from untruths and from truths falsified, such things as cannot be dispelled owing to the darkness regarding causes and the ignorance regarding truths. The angels specially lament over confirmations about faith separate from charity and justification thereby. They also lament men's ideas about God, angels and spirits, and about their ignorance of what love and wisdom are.