1531. From this it can be evident that the inhabitants and spirits of our earth are the external sense, and that they are corporeal and thus approach the nature of brutes rather than the human nature. The spirits of Saturn also said this concerning the spirits of our earth. But although those on this earth are such, yet they possess the cognitions of the truths of faith which are serviceable for a ground, as it were, in which spiritual and celestial truths of faith can be sown. Without such a ground the truths of faith are not easily inseminated so that they may grow. For this reason also the spirits of our earth more easily enter the interior and more interior heaven after the exteriors have been devastated; and because they take with them something from the life of the body, they also may serve as ministering means for instructing others who do not possess such cognitions from Revelation. Wherefore the Lord loved our earth above others, since for perfect order to exist, celestial and spiritual truths must be inrooted in natural truths. It is also to be observed that while the cognitions and ideas of the angels are indefinitely more profound than the ideas of man, still they are rooted in natural truths. Thus do truths mutually succeed and correspond to each other. 1748, Mar. 18.