through the thought; and because both of these act, it must needs be that each and all things of the will and thought are present in the action.  They cannot be separated; consequently from a man’s deeds or works others judge of the thought of his will, which is called his intention.  It has been made known to me that angels, from a man’s deed or work alone, perceive and see every thing of the will and thought of the doer; angels of the third heaven perceiving and seeing from his will the end for which he acts, and angels of the second heaven the cause through which the end operates.  It is from this that works and deeds are so often commanded in the Word, and that it is said that a man is known by his works.

216.  It is according to angelic wisdom that unless the will and understanding, that is, affection and thought, as well as charity and faith, clothe and wrap themselves in works or deeds, whenever possible, they are only like something airy which passes away, or like phantoms in air which perish; and that they first become permanent in man and a part of his life, when he practices and does them.  The reason is that the outmost is the complex, containant, and base of things prior.  Such an airy nothing and such a phantom is faith separated from good works; such also are faith and charity without their exercise, with this difference only, that those who hold to faith and charity know what is good and can will to do it, but not so those who are in faith separated from charity.

217.  The degrees of height are in fullness and in power in their outmost degree.

In the preceding chapter it is shown that the outmost degree is the complex and containant of prior degrees.  From this it follows that prior degrees are in their fullness in their outmost degree, for they are in their effect, and every effect is the fullness of causes.

218.  That these ascending and descending degrees, also called prior and subsequent, likewise degrees of height or discrete degrees, are in their power in their outmost degree, may be confirmed by all those things that have been adduced in the preceding chapters as confirmations from objects of sense and perception.  Here, however, I choose to confirm them only by the conatus, forces and motions in dead and in living subjects.  It is known that conatus does nothing of itself, but acts through forces corresponding to it, thereby producing motion; consequently that conatus is the all in forces, and through forces is the all in motion; and since motion is the outmost degree of conatus, through motion conatus exerts its power.  Conatus, force, and motion are no otherwise conjoined than according to degrees of height, conjunction of which is not by continuity, for they are discrete, but by correspondences.  For conatus is not force, nor is force motion, but force is produced by conatus, because force is conatus made active, and through force motion is produced; consequently there is no power in conatus alone, nor in force alone, but in motion, which is their product.  That this is so may still seem doubtful, because not illustrated by applications to sensible and perceptible things in nature; nevertheless, such is the progression of conatus, force, and motion into power.