THE VERY END OF CREATION: IT IS AN ANGELIC HEAVEN FROM THE HUMAN RACE

1. In the created world there are continuous progressions of ends, that is, progressions from first ends, through intermediate ends, to last ends. 2. First ends are of love or are things relating to love; intermediate ends are of wisdom or are things relating to wisdom; last ends are of use or are things relating to use. This is so because the infinitely all things in God and from God are of love, wisdom, and use. 3. These progressions of ends advance from first things to last things, and then return from the last things to the first things; they advance and return in periods, called the cycles of things. 4. These progressions of ends are more universal and less universal and are aggregates of individual ends. 5. The most universal end, which is the end of ends, is in God, and it goes forth from God from the first things of the spiritual world to the last things of the natural world; and then from these last it returns to those first things, thus to God. 6. That most universal end, or end of ends from God, is an angelic heaven from the human race. 7. That most universal end is the aggregate of all ends and of their progressions in both the spiritual and natural worlds.* * In the original MS., according to N., the three paragraphs following, numbered 8, 9 and 10, have a line deleting them. In Sk. this line is not noted, and 8 and 9 make one paragraph numbered 8, and what is here numbered 10 is numbered 9 "8. That most universal end is the inmost and as it were the life and soul, the force and effort, in every single created thing. 9. On account of this there is a binding connection between all things in the created universe from the first to the last and from the last to the first. 10. The preservation of the universe results from this end being implanted in created things, in the whole and in the part." Cf. no. 11 of the alternative version of this chapter.