86. Good and truth in created objects take the form of each, because its form determines how every object receives incoming influence. What keeps the whole in existence is nothing other than Divine good and Divine truth perpetually flowing into the forms they have created. Thus remaining in existence or being preserved is a perpetual process of coming into existence or being created.
There are various possible examples of how the form of an object determines how it receives influences; for instance, the way vegetation of all kinds receives heat and light radiated by the sun. Any plant receives radiation in the way its form prescribes; every tree in its own way, every shrub in its, every plant and grass in its. The radiation reaching them all is the same, but the way it is received, being dictated by the form, ensures that each species remains true to itself. The same idea can be exemplified by radiation reaching every animal in a way dependent on its form. Even a peasant can see that form determines the force acting on it, if he listens to the various musical instruments, pipes, flutes, trumpets, horns and organs, which all make sounds appropriate to their forms as a result of a similar input of breath or air.