three are related to one another according to degrees of height. And
secondly things civil, moral, and spiritual are not something abstract
from substance, but are substances. For as love and wisdom are not
abstract things, but substance (as was shown above, n. 40-43), so in
like manner are all things that are called civil, moral, and spiritual.
These may be thought of abstractly from substances, yet in themselves
they are not abstract; as for example, affection and thought, charity
and faith, will and understanding; for it is the same with these as
with love and wisdom, in that they are not possible outside of subjects
which are substances, but are states of subjects, that is, substances.
That they are changes of these, presenting variations, will be seen in
what follows. By substance is also meant form, for substance is not
possible apart from form.

210. From its being possible to think of will and understanding, of
affection and thought, and of charity and faith, abstractly from the
substances which are their subjects, and from their having been so
thought of, it has come to pass, that a correct idea of these things,
as being states of substances or forms, has perished. It is altogether
as with sensations and actions, which are not things abstract from the
organs of sensation and motion. Abstracted, that is, separate, from these
they are mere figments of reason; for they are like sight apart from an
eye, hearing apart from an ear, taste apart from a tongue, and so forth.

211. Since all things civil, moral, and spiritual advance through
degrees, just as natural things do, not only through continuous but
also through discrete degrees; and since the progressions of discrete
degrees are like progressions of ends to causes, and of causes to
effects, I have chosen to illustrate and confirm the present point,
that the outmost degree is the complex, containant, and base of prior