161.  Since times in like manner are settled and constant, they also are a property of nature; for the length of a day is constantly twenty-four hours, and the length of a year is constantly three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter.  The very states of light and shade, and of heat and cold, which cause these periods to vary, are also regular in their return.  The states which recur daily are morning, noon, evening, and night; those recurring yearly are spring, summer, autumn, and winter.  Moreover, the annual states modify regularly the daily states.  All these states are likewise dead because they are not states of life, as in the spiritual world; for in the spiritual world there is continuous light and there is continuous heat, the light corresponding to the state of wisdom, and the heat to the state of love with the angels; consequently the states of these are living.

162.  From all this the folly of those who ascribe all things to nature can be seen.  Those who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature have brought such a state on themselves that they are no longer willing to raise the mind above nature; consequently their minds are shut above and opened below.  Man thus becomes sensual-natural, that is, spiritually dead; and because he then thinks only from such things as he has imbibed from his bodily senses, or through the senses from the world, he at heart even denies God.  Then because conjunction with heaven is broken, conjunction with hell takes place, the capacity to think and will alone remaining; the capacity to think, from rationality, and the capacity to will, from freedom; these two capacities every man has from the Lord, nor are they taken away.  These two capacities devils have equally with angels; but devils devote them to insane thinking and evil doing, and angels to becoming wise and doing good.

163.  Without A double sun, one living and the other dead, no creation is possible.

The universe in general is divided into two worlds, the spiritual and the natural.  In the spiritual world are angels and spirits, in the natural world men.  In external appearance these two worlds are entirely alike, so alike that they cannot be distinguished; but as to internal appearance they are entirely unlike.  The men themselves in the spiritual world, who (as was said above) are called angels and spirits, are spiritual, and, being spiritual, they think spiritually and speak spiritually.  But the men of the natural world are natural, and therefore think naturally and speak naturally; and spiritual thought and speech have nothing in common with natural thought and speech.  From this it is plain that these two worlds, the spiritual and the natural, are entirely distinct from each other, so that they can in no respect be together.

164.  Now as these two worlds are so distinct, it is necessary that there should be two suns, one from which all spiritual things are, and another from which all natural things are.  And as all spiritual things in their origin are living, and all natural things from their origin are dead, and these origins are suns, it follows that the one sun is living and the other dead; also, that the dead sun itself was created by the Lord through the living sun.