in heaven and afterwards in the world, thus by degrees and
successively, down to the outmost things of nature. Evidently, then,
the correspondence of natural things with spiritual things, or of the
world with heaven, is through uses, and uses are what conjoin; and
the form in which uses are clothed are correspondences and are
conjunctions just to the extent that they are forms of uses. In the
nature of the world in its threefold kingdom, all things that exist
in accordance with order are forms of uses, or effects formed from
use for use, and this is why the things in nature are
correspondences. But in the case of man, so far as he is in
accordance with Divine order, that is, so far as he is in love to the
Lord and in charity towards the neighbor, are his acts uses in form,
and correspondences, and through these he is conjoined to heaven. To
love the Lord and the neighbor means in general to perform uses.{1}
Furthermore, it must be understood that man is the means by which the
natural world and the spiritual world are conjoined, that is, man is
the medium of conjunction, because in him there is a natural world
and there is a spiritual world (see above, n. 57); consequently to
the extent that man is spiritual he is the medium of conjunction; but
to the extent that a man is natural, and not spiritual, he is not a
medium of conjunction. Nevertheless, apart from this mediumship of
man, a Divine influx into the world and into the things pertaining to
man that are of the world goes on, but not into man's rational
faculty.

{Footnote 1} Every good has its delight as well as its quality
from use and in accordance with use; therefore such as the use
is, such is the good (n. 3049, 4984, 7038). Angelic life
consists in the goods of love and charity, that is, in
performing uses (n. 454). The Lord, and consequently the