302. The atmospheres--three in number in each world, spiritual and physical--in their final forms terminate in the kinds of material substance characteristic of our earth. In 173-176 [173-178] of part 3, I explained that there are three atmospheres in each world, the spiritual and the physical, distinguished from each other by vertical levels and diminishing as they move downward by horizontal levels. Since the atmospheres do diminish as they move lower, it follows that they are constantly becoming denser and less active, ultimately so dense and inactive that they are no longer atmospheres but inert substances, and in a physical world they become stable, like the substances on earth that we call "matter."

There are three consequences of this origin of material substances. First, material substances also have three levels. Second, they are kept in interconnection by the enveloping atmospheres. Third, they are suited in their forms to the production of all kinds of useful activity.

43. This brings us to the point where we can see that divine love and wisdom in and of themselves are substance and form. They are essential reality and manifestation, and unless they were as much reality and manifestation as they are substance and form, they would be only theoretical constructs that in and of themselves are nothing.