215. People have not yet recognized that the last member of each sequence--service, act, deed, and practice--is the composite and vessel of all the earlier members. It seems as though there were nothing more within service, act, deed, or practice than there is within motion. However, all these prior stages are actively present within, so completely present that nothing is missing. They are enclosed within it the way wine is enclosed in a bottle or furnishings in a house.

The reason this is not noticed is that we look at acts of service from the outside only, and things seen from the outside are simply events and motions. It is like seeing our arms and hands move and not knowing that a thousand motor fibers are cooperating in each movement, with a thousand elements of thought and desire answering to those thousand motor fibers and stimulating them. Since these things are happening far inside, they are not visible to any of our physical senses. This much is known, that nothing is done in or through the body except from volition and through thought; and since these two are acting, every element of volition and thought must necessarily be present within the act. They cannot be separated. This is why we draw conclusions on the basis of deeds or works about each other's purposeful thought, which we refer to as "intent."

I have learned that angels can sense and see from someone's single deed or work everything about the intention and thought of the one who is doing it. From the person's volition, angels of the third heaven see the purpose for which it is being done, and angels of the second heaven see the means through which the purpose is working. This is why deeds and works are so often mandated in the Word, and why it says that we are known by our works.

212. That the last degree embraces, contains, and is the foundation of the prior degrees is clearly apparent from the progression of ends and causes to effects. Enlightened reason can comprehend that the effect embraces, contains, and is the foundation of its causes and ends, but it does not so clearly see that the end with all of its constituents, and the cause with all of its constituents, are actually present in the effect, so that the effect embraces them in their entirety.

That such is the case can be seen from what we have said previously in this part of the work, especially from the following, that one element follows after another in a threefold progression, and that effect is nothing but the end in its final form. Moreover, because the final form embraces the rest, it follows that the final form contains them and is also their foundation.