355. Anyone can confirm himself in favour of the Divine, from things to be seen in nature, by consideration of what is known about the bees. They know how to gather wax and suck honey from herbs and flowers, and to build cells like tiny houses, and arrange them in the form of a city with streets through which they pass in and out. They scent at long distances the flowers and herbs from which they gather wax for their home and honey for food, and laden with these fly back in a direct line to their hive. Thus do they provide themselves with food and dwelling for the coming winter, as if they foresaw its approach and knew of it. They also appoint for themselves a mistress as queen, by whom a further generation will be propagated; and for her they make a royal court above themselves with guards in attendance round about; when the time of bringing forth approaches, she goes with her retinue of attendants from cell to cell and lays her eggs, which the throng of followers smear all over lest they receive injury from the air; from these a new progeny is to come forth for them. Later, when this progeny has advanced to its maturity, so that it can do the same, it is driven from the hive. The expelled swarm first gathers itself together, and then in a body, lest the association be dispersed, flies away in quest of a home for itself. Moreover, in the autumn the useless drones are led out and deprived of their wings, lest they return and consume the food for which they have not worked: not to mention other particulars. From these facts it can be established that, on account of the use performed to the human race by influx from the spiritual world, bees have a form of government like that which exists with men on earth, or rather with the angels in heaven. Can any man of unimpaired reason fail to see that their methods do not come from the natural world? What is there in common between the sun from which nature exists and a government that rivals and compares with the government of heaven? From these and other very similar things in the brute creation, the man who avows and worships nature confirms himself in favour of nature, while he who avows and worships God by those same things, confirms himself in favour of the Divine. For the spiritual man sees in them spiritual things, and the natural man natural things, thus each according to his character. So far as I am concerned, I have regarded these things as proofs of the influx of the spiritual into the natural, or of the spiritual world into the natural world, and therefore from the Divine Wisdom of the Lord. Moreover, consider whether you can think analytically about any form of government, any civil law, and moral virtue, or any spiritual truth, unless the Divine flows in out of His Wisdom through the spiritual world. As for myself, I could not and cannot do so, for I have observed that influx, perceptibly and sensibly, for nearly nineteen years continuously, and therefore speak from actual experience.