Chapter XX. Growth During Childhood.

Compare this diagram with XVIII, XIX, and XXI.

The plane b is the middle degree of the spiritual mind and is the middle heaven. This degree ultimates in the natural mind; its first ultimate is c which is the middle degree of the natural mind; and its lowest ultimate is e the middle degree of the limbus.

This degree b and its ultimates are characterized by spiritual good and truth which are those of love to the neighbor; spiritual good is the good of that love, and spiritual truth is the truth that teaches, contains and defends it. These in their beginnings are stored imperceptibly in the middle degree of the spiritual mind during childhood, the child during this time being under the ministration of spiritual angels. While the LORD imperceptibly stores spiritual principles immediately from Himself and mediately through the angels of the spiritual heaven in the degree b, He by various perceptible and imperceptible means stores the corresponding degrees below with the affection of knowledge and with knowledge itself The perceptible means are external instruction and training.

In the Writings, two distinctions are drawn between the celestial and the spiritual. The view presented in this diagram coincides with only one of these distinctions. The other puts things celestial and things spiritual in each of the three degrees of the internal and of the external mind. These distinctions may be illustrated by the body. In one view the head is celestial, the trunk spiritual, the extremities natural; this is like the celestial, the spiritual and the natural in this diagram. In the other view the right part of the head is celestial, the left spiritual; so of the trunk and extremities.

To exemplify these distinctions take the whole mind consisting of will and understanding. The mind is organized with three distinct degrees from above down, celestial, spiritual and natural. Each degree has a voluntary which is the internal, essential, affectional, and an intellectual which is the external, formal, thinking. In the highest degree this voluntary and intellectual are celestial, in the middle spiritual, in the lowest natural. The voluntary in the highest receives love to the LORD, and the intellectual in the highest, the truth of that love. In the highest degree then exist celestial good and truth, in the middle spiritual good and truth, in the lowest natural good and truth. Thus there is the celestial and the spiritual or what is the same the voluntary and the intellectual in each degree as mentioned in Chapter XIX, page 81. This is one distinction. The other is the distinction between the highest degree which is celestial and the middle which is spiritual. The first distinction is between good and truth in one degree; the second is between good and truth in one degree in relation to good and truth in another.

These distinctions may be illustrated by the examples of a married pair in the celestial heaven, a pair in the spiritual, and a pair in the natural. In the highest, the husband and wife are related to each other as love and its wisdom or as the celestial and its spiritual; yet both are celestial in relation to the pair in the heaven below. The lower pair are related to each other as truth, and good from truth, or as the spiritual and its celestial; yet both are spiritual in relation to the pair above. So the pair in the lowest heaven are natural in relation to the pairs above; but in relation to each other one is celestial and the other spiritual.

To return to the diagram. We have said in substance that the germ of the degree b undergoes development during childhood and receives interior spirituals, while that in c also becomes developed and receives exterior spirituals. The exterior as well as interior spirituals are voluntary and intellectual - the affection of knowledge being voluntary, the knowledge itself intellectual. We call the plane c in the external mind spiritual because it answers to the middle or spiritual degree b in the internal mind. But c is properly the natural spiritual. Observe that the plane c which is paternal in its origin, acts in and by the plane e and the gross body which are from the mother. Hence the affections and acquisitions of the paternal are clothed with qualities which are maternal. Thus, as shown in Chapter XVIII page 71, maternal character and quality adhere for a time to the external of the higher faculties which as to their germinal forms and states were from the father; for which reason this external is called maternal.

During the period of childhood represented in this diagram there is a lingering continuance of the state of infancy that preceded-the celestial love of parents and the celestial-spiritual love of brothers and companions with somewhat of the innocence and peace inherent in those loves together with a continual addition of sensual and corporeal ideas and impressions.

So childhood with the affection of knowing continues into youth, though the predominant desire of the youth is to know causes and reasons. He asks not so much, What? as Why? This state we present in the next diagram.