679. Everyone who traces effects back to their causes may know that the consistence of all things depends on order; and that there are many kinds of order, general and particular; and that there is one order which is the most universal of all, and on which depends the general and particular kinds in connected series; also that this most universal order enters into all the others as the essence itself into its forms, and that thus and not otherwise do they make one. It is this unity that effects the preservation of the whole, which would otherwise fall asunder, and relapse not only into primal chaos, but into nothing. How would it be with man if each thing and all things in his body were not most distinctly arranged and this community of parts made dependent on one heart and one pair of lungs? Otherwise, what would follow but confusion? Could the stomach then perform its functions, the liver and pancreas theirs, the mesentery and mesocolon theirs, the kidneys and intestines theirs? It is because of the order in them and among them, that they each and all appear to man as one. And in the mind or spirit of man if there were no distinct order, and if this community of parts did not depend on the will and understanding, what would there be but a confused and undigested something? Without such an order could a man exercise thought and will any more than his picture on a tablet, or his statue in his house? What would man be without a most perfectly arranged influx from heaven and the reception of it? And what would this influx be without a most universal one on which the government of the whole and of all its parts depends, that is to say, unless it depended on God, and unless all things had their being, and lived and moved in Him and from Him? For the natural man this may be illustrated by innumerable things, such as the following: Without order what would an empire or kingdom be but a gang of robbers, a large body of whom would slay thousands, a few at least slaying these many? What is a city without order, or even a household without order? And what is a kingdom, a city, or a household without someone in each acting the part of head?