197. This is why places and spaces in the Word (and everything that involves space) mean matters that involve state - distances, for instance, and nearness and remoteness, paths, journeys, emigrations, miles, stadia, plains, fields, gardens, cities, streets, motion, various kinds of measurement, length, breadth, height, and depth, and countless other things - for so many things that enter our thought from our world derive something from space and time.

[2] I should like only to highlight what length, breadth, and height mean in the Word. In this world we call something long and broad if it is long and broad spatially, and the same holds true for "high." In heaven, though, where thinking does not involve space, people understand length as a state of good and breadth as a state of truth, while height is their difference in regard to level (discussed above in 38). The reason these three dimensions are understood in this way is that length in heaven is from east to west, which is where people live who are in the good of love. Breadth in heaven is from south to north, where people live who are in truth because of what is good (see above, 148); and height in heaven applies to both in regard to their level. This is why qualities of this sort are meant in the Word by length and breadth and height as in Ezekiel 40-48, where the measurements are given of the new temple and the new earth, with its courts, rooms, doors, gates, windows, and surroundings, referring to the new church and the good and true things that are in it. So too all the measurements elsewhere.

[3] The New Jerusalem is similarly described in Revelation, as follows:

The city was laid out foursquare, its length the same as its breadth; and [the angel] measured the city with the reed at twelve thousand stadia; the length and breadth and height were equal. (Revelation 21:16)

Here the New Jerusalem means a new church, so its measurements mean attributes of that church, length referring to the good of its love, breadth to the truth that derives from that good, and height to both the good and the true in respect to their level. Twelve thousand stadia means everything good and true taken together. Otherwise, what would be the point of having its height be twelve thousand stadia like its length and its breadth?

We can see in David that breadth in the Word means truth:

Jehovah, you have not left me in the grasp of my enemy's hand; you have made my feet stand in a broad place. (Psalms 31:8)

I called on Jah from my constraint; he answered me in a broad place. (Psalms 118:5)

There are other passages as well; for example, Isaiah 8:8 and Habakkuk 1:6. It also holds true elsewhere.

5114. 'And on the vine three shoots' means derivatives from this even to the final one. This is clear from the meaning of 'the vine' as the understanding part, dealt with immediately above in 5113; from the meaning of 'three' as complete and continuous even to the end, dealt with in 2788, 4495; and from the meaning of 'shoots' as derivatives; for since 'the vine' means the understanding part, 'shoots' means nothing else than derivatives from this. Because 'three' means that which is continuous even to the end, that is, which goes from first to last, 'three shoots' means derivative degrees extending from the understanding part to the final level, which is that of the senses. The first in the sequence is the actual understanding part, and the last is the senses. In general the understanding part is the sight which the internal man possesses and which sees by the light of heaven radiating from the Lord; and everything it sees is spiritual or celestial. But the senses, in general, belong to the external man; and here the sensory power of sight is meant because this corresponds to and is subordinate to the understanding part. The sensory power of sight sees by the light of the world radiating from the sun; and everything it sees is worldly, bodily, or earthly.

[2] In the human being there exist derivatives from the understanding part that dwells in the light of heaven; and they extend to the senses which dwell in the light of the world. Unless these derivatives existed the senses could not possess any life of a human quality. A person does not owe the life which his senses possess to what he sees by the light of the world, for the light of the world holds no life within it; he owes it to what he sees by the light of heaven, for this light does hold life within it. When the light of heaven falls on the perceptions a person has gained by the light of the world, it brings life to them and enables him to see objects in an intelligent manner, and thus as a human being. In this way a person possessing factual knowledge born from things which he has seen and heard in the world, and therefore from those which have entered in through the senses, comes to possess intelligence and wisdom, on which in turn he bases his public, private, and spiritual life.

[3] As regards derivatives specifically, the nature of their existence in a person is such that no brief explanation of them is possible. They exist as degrees, like steps, from the understanding part down to the senses. But no one can have any conception of those degrees unless he knows how they are related to one another, that is to say, that they are quite distinct and separate from one another, so distinct that interior degrees can come into being and remain in being without exterior ones, but not exterior degrees without interior ones. For example, a person's spirit can remain in being without a material body, as it also actually does when death separates it from the body. For a person's spirit exists in an interior degree, his body in an exterior one. Similarly with a person's spirit after death. If he is one of the blessed his spirit exists in a final and outermost degree when in the first heaven; in a more interior degree when in the second; and in the inmost one when in the third. When it exists in the inmost it exists at the same time in the other degrees, though these are inactive with him, almost as the human body is inactive during sleep, but with this difference that interiorly angels are at such times fully awake. Therefore as many distinct and separate degrees exist in the human being as there are heavens, apart from the final one, which is the body and the bodily senses.

[4] From all this regarding a person's spirit one may gain some idea of the way derivatives are related to one another from the first to the final one, that is, from the understanding part to the senses. A person's life, which he receives from the Lord's Divine, passes through these degrees from the inmost to the final one. At every degree there exists a derivative of that life which becomes increasingly general, until in the final degree it is the most general. Derivatives in the lower degrees are merely combinations - or to put it more appropriately, structured forms - of the individual and particular constituents of the higher degrees ranged consecutively, with the addition of the kinds of things drawn from purer nature, and after that from grosser nature, that can serve as containing vessels. Once these vessels are done away with, the individual and particular constituents of the higher degrees, which had received form in those vessels, move back to the degree immediately above. And because in the case of the human being there is a link with the Divine, and his inmost being is such that it can accept the Divine - and not only accept but also make Him its own, by acknowledging and having an affection for the Divine, thus by a reciprocal response to Him - and because he thereby has the Divine implanted within him, he can never die. Indeed what is eternal and infinite exists with him, not only through their flowing into him but also through his reception of them.

[5] From this one may see how uninformed and senseless in their thinking regarding the human being those people are who compare him to animals and imagine that he will not be alive after death any more than they are. Such people do not take into consideration the fact that with animals there is no acceptance of the Divine or any acknowledgement or affection leading to a reciprocal response to the Divine by making Him their own, or any consequent joining to Him. Nor do those people take into consideration the fact that, as the animal state is like this, the recipient forms of life which these possess are inevitably dissipated; for with animals that which flows into them passes through their organic forms into the world, where it comes to an end and melts away, never to make any return there.