It has been shown in the preceding section that the natural mind which is in the lowest degree, envelops and encloses the spiritual mind and the celestial mind, which as to degrees, are higher. It is now to be shown here that the natural mind reacts against the higher or interior minds. It reacts because it covers, includes and contains them, and this cannot he done without reaction. For unless it reacted, the interior or enclosed parts would loosen, thrust themselves out and fall to pieces, just as the viscera which are the interiors of the body would push forth and so fall apart if the coverings around the human body did not react. So, too, unless the membrane enveloping the motor fibres of a muscle, reacted against the forces of these fibres in their activities, not only would action cease, but all the inner tissues would be loosened. It is the same with every ultimate degree of the degrees of height, consequently, with the natural mind relatively to the higher degrees, for as was said above, there are three degrees of the human mind, the natural, the spiritual and the celestial, and the natural mind is in the outmost degree. Another reason that the natural mind reacts against the spiritual mind is that the natural mind consists not only of substances of the spiritual world but also of substances of the natural world, as was said above (n. 257), and substances of the natural world from their very nature react against the substances of the spiritual world. For substances of the natural world are in themselves dead, and are acted upon from without by substances of the spiritual world. And substances which are dead, and are acted upon from without, resist from their own nature, and thus from their nature react. From these considerations it can be established that the natural man reacts against the spiritual man, and that there is a conflict. It is the same thing whether it is said the natural and spiritual man, or the natural and spiritual mind.