582. And with them do they hurt, signifies that thus they pervert the truths and goods of the church. This is evident from the signification of "to hurt," as being to pervert the truths and goods of the church by means of crafty reasonings from sensual knowledges [scientifica] or fallacies; for the "horses" in the vision, about whose tails this is said, signify the falsifications of the Word by reasonings from fallacies (See above, n. 575). From the way these horses appeared to John, what the representative appearances in heaven are can be seen, namely, that affections there, when represented by animals, are presented in the forms of such animals as appear in our world, and yet everywhere with variety in respect to their parts, especially the face, the particulars of which from correspondence signify various things of the affection so represented; as here there were seen "horses, whose heads were as the heads of lions, and their tails like serpents, and had heads," and those who sat upon the horses had "breastplates, fiery, hyacinthine and brimstone-like."

[2] Animals of various forms appear daily in the spiritual world, and also I have often seen them; and by a knowledge of correspondences, it is there known what the particulars signify. For all the affections that flow from the minds of angels are imaged before their eyes by animals of all kinds that exist on the earth, in the air, or in the sea; likewise by the subjects of all things that are in the vegetable kingdom of the earth, and by the subjects of all things that are in the mineral kingdom of the earth. This is why such things in our world have been made representative of celestial and spiritual things. Such representatives exist in the spiritual world, because in that world there are spiritual things interior and exterior; interior spiritual things are all such as belong to affection, and to thought therefrom, or to the understanding of truth and the wisdom of good; and exterior spiritual things are so created by the Lord as to clothe or invest interior spiritual things; and when these are clothed and invested, there come into existence such forms as are in the natural world, and thus into these forms interior spiritual things finally close, and in them have their ultimate existence.