every side to humanity, whose nature is spirit, and whose light is life; also by studying the evolutions of humanity, as it goes out to meet the uses of the creation, and to marry them by correspondence. But it is in the Word of God especially that the study of correspondence may begin, and has begun. For the material elements of the Word are the central symbols of nature; the object of the Word is the universal being, even mankind; and the life of the Word is God. Here, then, is the concentration of things, the divinely selected field of the principles of science. For this reason, perhaps, the objects mentioned in the Word may have a cardinal and representative peculiarity in themselves, so as to constitute them a just abridgment of nature; and the science of correspondences, without ignoring other objects, may at least begin with them; especially as the Father of our spirits uses them as the immediate vehicles of His instructions, which nature in itself is not, save by reflection, and through long sciences. But, however this may be, probably the first attempt should consist in the verification of those correspondences which are already alleged in worthy writers; also a gathering up of those which are implied in human discourse, and in the very texture of many languages. This verification may be attempted by the construction of new tables, representing in series the uses of each object, and dividing these series into degrees; by which means the connections of nature with nature will be wonderfully opened to the mind, and things will be brought together which never shook hands in human sight before. Also the upper term must be similarly tabled with reference to the mind. And then the correspondence may be tried, as the spiritual die and the natural cast are perfected. By such tables, not one of which, to my knowledge, has ever been framed,—for the corn of nature has had no granary, though the straw has been carefully stacked,—the mind will be led from sphere to sphere, through regions more wide even on this earth than all our present conceptions of universal existence, and will prove the truth of the adage, that any road duly followed up will lead to the end of the world, and that there is a love in all things which enlarges the least spaces to infinity, and that uses are the vessels or
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