the natural mind, perceives evil as good, and sees falsity as truth; and
conversely. This is why he believes perfidy to be wisdom, insanity to be
intelligence, cunning to be prudence, and evil devices to be ingenuity;
moreover, he makes nothing of Divine and heavenly things pertaining to
the church and worship, while he regards bodily and worldly things as of
the greatest worth. He thus inverts the state of his life, making what
is of the head to be of the sole of the foot, and trampling upon it; and
making what is of the sole of the foot to be of the head. Thus from being
alive he becomes dead. One is said to be alive whose mind is a heaven,
and one is said to be dead whose mind is a hell.

277. ALL THINGS OF THE THREE DEGREES OF THE NATURAL MIND ARE INCLUDED
IN THE DEEDS THAT ARE DONE BY THE ACTS OF THE BODY.

By the knowledge of degrees, which is set forth in this Part, the
following arcanum is disclosed: all things of the mind, that is, of the
will and understanding of man, are in his acts or deeds, included
therein very much as things visible and invisible are in a seed or
fruit or egg. Acts or deeds by themselves appear outwardly as these do,
but in their internals there are things innumerable, such as the
concurring forces of the motor fibers of the whole body and all things
of the mind that excite and determine these forces, all of which, as
shown above, are of three degrees. And since all things of the mind are
in these, so also are things of the will, that is, all the affections
of man's love, which make the first degree; all things of the
understanding, that is, all thoughts from his perception, which makes
the second degree; and all things of the memory, that is, all ideas of
the thought nearest to speech, taken from the memory, which compose the
third degree. Out of these things determined into act, deeds come forth,
in which, seen in external form, prior things are not visible although