(Also, What the Natural Meaning Would Be Like Without the Spiritual and Celestial Meanings, and Vice Versa)

The reason truths and goods are multiplied in the internal meanings of the Word is that natural things are effects from spiritual causes, and spiritual things are effects from celestial causes, and an effect consists of many things as causes which do not appear to the eye-so many, that the effect may be said to consist of an infinite number of them. An effect is relatively gross, and a cause enters into every aspect of the effect, organizing it as a general form of itself, in which there are particular and individual components altogether too deeply hidden to fall within the scope of visual sight.

[2] An effect is, by way of comparison, like a tree in full growth, whose branches, leaves and fruits are visible to the eye. These are all effects. But if you could examine the fibers inside one of its branches, or the filaments in one of its leaves, or all the individual components of its fruit that are otherwise invisible, and likewise the invisible constituents in one of its seeds-all of which go to make up a tree with its various characteristics-if you could examine these things, you would see how beyond number and also how indescribable the things are which lie hidden from ordinary view. A flower was once opened before angels in respect to its interior elements which are called spiritual, and when they saw it, they said there was virtually a whole paradise there, consisting of things indescribable.

[3] An effect is also by way of comparison like the human body with all of its organs and parts that are visible to the eye, in contrast to its interior constituents, where there are so many organic forms, held together by the purest secrets of all the sciences and constituting a single whole, that you would say that into its composition have been brought together the secrets of all the sciences, as of physics, chemistry, mechanics, geometry, acoustics, optics-secrets which can never be explored because they cannot be comprehended.

That is what internal things are like in comparison to external things, or spiritual things in comparison to natural things, and celestial things in comparison to spiritual things. Something natural regarded in itself is simply the external form, called an effect, of spiritual things; and something spiritual is the external form, called an effect, of celestial things. Spiritual things all take their origin from celestial things, therefore, and natural things all take their origin from spiritual things.

It is apparent from this how it is to be understood that truth is the form of good, and that good has its character in truths, because good receives its form from truths, and without form there is no character. It also makes apparent how it is to be understood that truth arises from good as from its vital cause, so that if you remove good from truths, it is like taking the nut out of an almond, making truth comparable to its empty shell, or like taking the flesh from a fruit and leaving only the skin. Truth without good is consequently turned into a kind of illusion, which outwardly appears the same, but inwardly is empty. So it is with natural things if spiritual things are removed, and so, too, with spiritual things if celestial things are removed.

[4] Since spiritual things contain indescribable things which do not appear in the natural realm, and celestial things a countless number of things [which do not appear in the spiritual realm], it is apparent what the meanings of the natural, spiritual and celestial Words are like, namely, that these Words are indescribable in relation to one another. They therefore follow in order, like knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Angels on this account also call people on earth knowledgeable, because they are in natural light, whereas angels of the Lord's spiritual kingdom are called intelligent, and angels of the Lord's celestial kingdom wise.

[5] The Word in its literal meaning may be likened to a tree possessing a healthy and thriving bark or cortex enveloping it. And the spiritual meaning may be likened to the tree's nourishment by various juices and essences, partly arising from the soil, partly taken in from the air and atmosphere by means of the heat and light of the sun. If the literal meaning alone were to exist, and not at the same time the spiritual and celestial meanings, it would be like a tree without sap, in fact, like bark by itself without the wood. But with those other meanings it is like a tree in its perfect state. In such a tree, too, all the sap rises from the root through the bark or cortex. Therefore if the bark is taken away, the tree withers. So would it be with the spiritual meaning of the Word apart from its natural meaning.