145. Now since the Lord is Divine truth itself coming from the Divine good, and this is His essence, and since everyone acts as he does by reason of his essential nature, this proves that it is constantly the Lord's will to implant truth and good, that is, faith and charity, in every person, and His will could not be any different. Many things in the world can be used to illustrate this. For instance, everyone's will and thought, and, as far as can be, his speech and actions, are the product of his essential nature. For example, a loyal person has loyal thoughts and intentions, an honest, upright, pious or religious person has honest, upright, pious or religious thoughts and intentions; on the other hand a proud, cunning, deceitful or greedy person has thoughts and intentions which match his essential nature. The clown has no wish but to raise laughs, the fool none but to gabble the opposite of wise sayings. In brief, an angel's plans and efforts are all heavenly, a devil's all hellish.
[2] It is much the same with all the creatures of lower rank in the animal kingdom, for instance, birds, beasts, fish, flying and earth-bound insects. Each of these can be recognised by its essential nature, and each has instincts which are derived from and in accordance with its nature. Likewise in the vegetable kingdom, every tree, every shrub and every vegetable can be recognised by its fruit and seed, in which its essential nature is innate. Nor can they produce anything but what is their own and like them. Indeed it is its essential nature which allows us to judge every kind of soil or clay, every stone, precious as well as ordinary, every mineral and metal.
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