gentle to good affections, and the furious and hurtful to evil affections. Birds correspond to thoughts; the good and beautiful to true thoughts, and birds of night and of prey to false thoughts. Trees and shrubs and grasses correspond to different kinds and degrees of intelligence and knowledge. The metals, as gold and silver correspond the one to heavenly good and the other to spiritual truth; brass, to natural good, and iron to natural truth; and common stones to sensual truths, while the precious stones correspond to varieties of spiritual truth.
Now, since the earth and everything on it corresponds to the Lord and the infinite things of His love and wisdom, and thus to heaven and all things there which are correspondences of the affections and perceptions of love and wisdom, it follows that there is an influx from the Lord through heaven, sustaining and ordering all things for use according to the degree and respect in which they are related to man and through man to the Lord. And, since on the other hand, they correspond to the affections and thoughts of man's life, and thus to the spiritual world which is the outbirth and correspondent of his natural mind, it follows that all evil
