{Footnote 1} Influx from the Lord is direct from Himself and
also mediate through on heaven into another, and in like manner
into man's interiors (n. 6063, 6307, 6472, 9682, 9683). Direct
influx of the Divine from the Lord (n. 6058, 6474-6478, 8717,
8728). Mediate influx through the spiritual world into the
natural world (n. 4067, 6982, 6985, 6996).

{Footnote 2} All things spring from things prior to themselves,
thus from a First, and in like inner subsist, because
subsistence is unceasing springing forth; therefore nothing
unconnected is possible (n. 3626-3628, 3648, 4523, 4524, 6040,
6056).


38. Only he who knows how degrees are related to Divine order can
comprehend how the heavens are distinct, or even what is meant by the
internal and the external man. Most men in the world have no other
idea of what is interior and what is exterior, or of what is higher
and what is lower, than as something continuous, or coherent by
continuity, from purer to grosser. But the relation of what is
interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous. Degrees are
of two kinds, those that are continuous and those that are not.
Continuous degrees are related like the degrees of the waning of a
light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the
decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the shade,
or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top. These
degrees are determined by distance. [2] On the other hand, degrees
that are not continuous, but discrete, are distinguished like prior
and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what produces and what
is produced. Whoever looks into the matter will see that in each