Swedenborg's Cosmology. Lillian G. Beekman

recircling lines ; supremely so in the primitives and firsts of finiting, which embody, and are, the creative love of God in immediate outgo, activity, and gift. And all things framed and concreted thereof show feature of a like reflexing potency and activity.

      It is from this ground, and no other, that all the atmospheres, which are four, successively formed, move by circling and recircling lines. At every touch they flow into such lines; nor can they move, act, or react, in any other way or path. The celes- tial atmosphere, or first aura, has this character es- sentially; and the others, though grosser in consti- tution, are not much behind it in their aptitude to run into vortices and circuits at every touch, stimulus, or strain acting upon them. It is their

      form of reaction.

      FIRST SUBSTANCE.

      In the organic world it is the same. It is from the same deep cause in the perpetually reflexing or cir- cling motion in these seeds of creation, (supremely involving as they do the living ends of the created universe), that bloods arise and are established, and circulations run their rounds. The vegetative world also partakes in this gyre and power. And the min- eral world has its emulation thereof. Even the dust of the ground is framed and compacted of the prim- itives of the Spiritual Sun. For there is no other substance given of which creation is formed. And the striving and tendency of these primitives of the Spiritual Sun, from which they are made, is in them, even in their far off concreteness.

      We have also seen that the points or primitives of the Spiritual Sun are not inert, nor quiescent. And what they are in conatus, the like they are in act. They gyre about among themselves perpetually, in reflexing, recircling orbits, patterned after their inner endeavor. This circling and reflexing mo- tion, pattern of their own interior conatus and flow, is the very thing, the very power and action, which carries the endeavor of creative love to farther ulti- mation, governs the form of that ultimation, acts in it as the spring of new and emulous endeavor, and serves as the efficient instrument of the orderly con- fluence and composition of the primitives into a

      SWEDENBORG'S COSMOLOGY.

      series of derivative finites or substantiate of five grades or degrees.⁵⁹ But as they are produced in a series, they ever increase in size, with lessening velocity and penetrative force of impact; although the larger they arc. the larger is the diameter of the vortical orbit they circle. By this series of derivative substantiate the universe is successively finited more and more.

      THE FIRST ATMOSPHERE AND ITS USES IN THE MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM. The third thing brought forth from the Spiritual Sun, is an atmo- sphere. This is the first atmosphere or aura, the third successive, received into the celestial heaven, and extended throughout the universe to the ulti- mates thereof.⁶⁰ For that which proceeds from the inmost extends everywhere.⁶¹ This is the Divine proceeding from the Lord, which is called the sphere or atmosphere,⁶² which fills both worlds, the spiritual and the natural, which operates the effects of those ends which the Lord predestined at crea- tion, and for which He provides ever since the crea- tion,—the very conjugial itself. For from this aura

      ⁵⁹ B Principia, part T. Chap. IV. 18. par. 2. 3. 4.

      ⁶⁰ A. C. 7270.

      ⁶¹ A. C. 10188.

      ⁶² C. L. 386.

      FIRST SUBSTANCE.

      and in it is generated the human soul, by which the Lord weaves the organic man.⁶³

      This first atmosphere, proximate to the Spiritual Sun, is of the very essence of that Sun.⁶⁴ It is the first aura of the Principia and the Economy, with- out which no effects could flow from their first causes according to order.⁶⁵ Generated from this first or universal aura, the human soul receives the life of God immediately; and in this is the ground of hu- man immortality.⁶⁶ For the Lord enters with it, frames, sustains, and dwells within the human or- ganism or individual forever.

      This aura, then, is the plane and determinant of the soul, or human spirituous fluid, or human forma- tive substance, which therefore derives from this aura, or first atmosphere of the universe, its own power of forming, by descent and derivation, all the degrees of the human form in mind and body. ⁶⁷

      Moreover, as is the rank, use, and office of the formative substance in the microcosm, so is the rank, use, and office of the first aura in the macro- cosm.⁶⁸

      ⁶³ Compare C. L. 204 and 183.

      ⁶⁴ D. L. W. 300.

      ⁶⁵ E. A. K. Part II. 272.

      ⁶⁶ E. A. K. part II. 245. 352. 168. 300. 350.

      ⁶⁷ E. A. K. part I. 635. 636.

      ⁶⁸ S E. A. K. part II. 228. 221. 274. 276

      SWEDENBORG'S COSMOLOGY.

      This first aura, third from the primitives of fini- tion, from the Spiritual Sun, in one sole unique volume fills the extense of the universe.⁶⁹ It is the universal atmosphere by which the Lord is imme- diately present and immanent alike in the universe as He is in heaven; and acts alike upon and in the lasts of order, as upon and in the firsts; without which indeed there would be no sustentative ground in the universe for the Lord's immediate presence and operation in all things from first to last.⁷⁰

      As belonging to the human conjugial sphere, or being that sphere,⁷¹ it is the very sphere of religion itself, and of the Church; and it is that universal sphere or atmosphere of the Divine as to use or operation, which fills all the natural world and all the spiritual world, and elevates all to heaven.⁷² Being the most universal and most elevated of all, it is that by which all things are created, sustained, and held together, and which effects all arrange- ments into order. It is both creation and provi- dence.⁷³ It is that primal plane of the Divine pro-

      ⁶⁹ E. A. K. part II. 312. 339; Principia, part I. Chap. VI. 39. 50.

      ⁷⁰ A C. 7270.

      ⁷¹ C. L. 222-225, 386-397, 434 ct seq.

      ⁷² T. C. R. 652.

      ⁷³ A. C. 6483. 6482. 6338.