899. For there are two ways to the human understanding, namely, the way through the senses which is the lower way through which the human understanding is born, and the way through heaven from the Lord which is the higher way. Whatever is born through the lower way is corporeal and material, but that which is born through the higher way is spiritual and celestial. Unless the higher gate is opened by the Lord it can never be believed that there is such a communication that one may perceive and be persuaded. In many men, however, there is from this a conscience, but for the most part that conscience extends [only] to actions, and is formed from the cognition of those things in which it places worship and duty; thus it is not a true conscience except that in certain good men and spirits it is an obscure one. But in angels it is a manifest conscience, so that they know, perceive, and understand that it is so, and that no life is possible without such a conscience and a manifest, or variously manifested, persuasion of things.