143. Nowadays it may seem strange that 'beasts' and 'animals' in ancient times meant affections and similar things residing with man. But because people had heavenly ideas then, and because such things are also represented in the world of spirits by animals - by such animals in fact as resemble those affections - this alone is what they therefore understood when they spoke in this fashion. And this alone is what is meant in the Word whenever beasts are mentioned in general or in particular. The whole prophetical section of the Word is full of things such as these, and therefore anyone who does not know the particular meaning of any beast cannot possibly understand what the Word contains in the internal sense. But as slated already, there are two kinds of beasts - evil ones, because they are harmful, and good ones, because they are harmless. Good beasts, such as sheep, lambs, and doves, mean good affections. Here, because the subject is the celestial man, or the celestial-spiritual man, the same applies. The fact that 'beasts' in general means affections has been confirmed from several places in the Word quoted already in 45, 46. So there is no need of further confirmation.

3001. There is but one and no more life - the Lord's. This life flows in and brings life to man, to both good and evil alike. This becomes clear from what has been stated and shown in the explanation of the Word, in 1954, 2021, 2536, 2658, 2706, 2886-2889. To that life recipient objects correspond which are given life by means of that Divine influx, and indeed in such a way that these recipients seem to themselves to live of themselves. This correspondence is a correspondence of life with the recipients of life. Recipient objects have life insofar as they are recipients. Such correspondence exists with those who have love and charity within them, for they are fitted to receive and do receive that life as is adequate for them. But that correspondence does not exist with those who have the reverse of love and charity within them, for life itself is not received adequately by them. These therefore have but an appearance of life, the nature of which is the same as they are in themselves. This may be exemplified in a number of ways, for example, from the motor and the sensory organs of the body into which life flows by way of the soul. The nature of those organs determines that of the actions and sensations in them. The same may also be exemplified by objects on to which light from the sun falls - the nature of the forms receiving it determines the colours seen in them. But in the spiritual world all the variations which result from the influx of life are spiritual, and this is the origin of such differences in intelligence and wisdom.