354. Any one can confirm himself in favour of the Divine from things seen in nature, when he sees larvae, from delight of a certain desire, longing and hoping for the change from their earthly condition to one something like the heavenly, and creep into places and stow themselves away, as if into a womb in order to be reborn, and there become chrysalises, aurelias, caterpillars, nymphs, and at last butterflies; then having undergone this change of form and been decked with the beautiful wings of their kind, they fly upwards into the air as into their heaven, and there frolic joyfully, effect their marriages, lay eggs, and provide for themselves a posterity; and in the meantime are nourished with delightful and sweet food from the flowers. What man, confirmed in favour of the Divine by the visible things of nature, does not see a certain likeness to man's earthly state in these creatures as larvae, and a likeness to the heavenly state in them as butterflies? On the other hand, those confirmed in favour of nature see indeed the same things, but because they have cast out of mind the heavenly state of man, they call them mere instincts of nature.