1199. Verse 2. For true and just are His judgments, signifies that the laws of the Divine providence, and all the works of the Lord, are of the Divine wisdom and the Divine love. This is evident from the signification of "true and just" as being in reference to the Lord the things that belong to His Divine wisdom, and at the same time the things that belong to His Divine love (of which presently); also from the signification of "judgments," as being in reference to the Lord the laws of His Divine providence (see n. 946); so, too, "judgments" signify works, since all the Lord's works are from His Divine providence, and according to its laws; and for the reason that the Lord, in everything He does, regards what is eternal, and the things that regard what is eternal belong to His Divine providence. "True" means what pertains to His Divine wisdom, and "just" what pertains to His Divine love, because from the Lord as a sun heat and light proceed, and the light is His Divine wisdom and the heat is His Divine love; therefore "light" signifies the Divine truth, from which angels and men have all their intelligence and wisdom, and "heat" signifies the Divine good, from which angels and men have all their love and charity; this light and heat are such also in their essence.
(Continuation)
[2] No one can know what is the quality of the life of the beasts of the earth, the birds of heaven, and the fishes of the sea, unless it is known what their soul is and its quality. It is known that every animal has a soul, for they are alive, and life is soul, and this is why they are called in the Word "living souls." That an animal is a soul in its ultimate form, which is corporeal, such as appears before the sight, can be best known from the spiritual world; for in that world, the same as in the natural world, beasts of every kind and birds of every kind, and fishes of every kind, are to be seen and so like in form that they cannot be distinguished from those in our world; but there is this difference, that in the spiritual world they spring evidently from the affections of angels and spirits, so that they are affections made apparent, and consequently they disappear as soon as the angel or spirit departs or his affection ceases. From this it is clear that their soul is nothing else; and that there are given as many genera and species of animals as there are genera and species of affections. It will be seen in what follows that the affections that are represented in the spiritual world by animals are not interior spiritual affections, but are exterior spiritual affections that are called natural; also that there is not a hair or fiber of wool on any beast, or a filament of a quill or feather upon any bird, or a point of a fin or scale on any fish, that is not from the life of their soul, thus that is not from the spiritual clothed by the natural. But something shall first be said about the animals that appear in heaven, in hell, and in the world of spirits which is intermediate between heaven and hell.
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