274. (ii) The natural mind which is a form or image of hell descends through three degrees. It may be seen above (n. 222-229), that both in the greatest and least of all things, there are degrees of two kinds, namely degrees of height and of breadth. This is true also of the natural mind in greatest and least things. Degrees of height are here understood. The natural mind, by its two capacities called rationality and freedom, is in this state that it is capable of ascending through three degrees, or of descending through three degrees. It ascends by reason of goods and truths, and descends by reason of evils and falsities. And when it ascends, the lower degrees which tend towards hell are closed, but when it descends, the higher degrees which tend towards heaven are closed. The cause for this is that they are in reaction. These three degrees, higher and lower, have neither been opened nor closed in man in earliest infancy, for he is then ignorant of good and truth, and of evil and falsity. But as he commits himself to one or the other, so the degrees are opened and closed on one side or the other. When they are opened towards hell, then the reigning love which is of the will is allotted the highest or inmost place; the thought of the false, which is of the understanding from that love, is allotted the second or middle place; and the outcome of the love, through the thought, or of the will through the understanding, is allotted the lowest place. The same is the case here as with degrees of height, treated of previously, which in order are as end, cause and effect, or as first end, middle end and last end. The descent of these degrees is towards the body. Hence in descent they become grosser, becoming material and corporeal. If truths are drawn out of the Word into the second degree to form that degree, then those truths are falsified from the first degree, which is the love of evil, and become servants and slaves. From this it can be established what the truths of the Church from the Word become with those who are in the love of evil, or whose natural mind is, in form, a hell, namely, that they are profaned because they serve the devil as means, for as was said above, the love of evil reigning in the natural mind which is a hell is the devil.