65. The useful functions of everything created tend upward, step by step, from the lowest to us, and through us to God the Creator, their source. As already stated [52], these "lowest things" are all the elements of the mineral kingdom--various forms of matter, some stony substances, some saline, some oily, some mineral, some metallic, with the constant addition of a humus composed of plant and animal matter reduced to minute particles. Here lie hidden the goal and the beginning of all the functions that arise from life. The goal of all useful functions is the effort to produce [more] functions; the beginning of all functions is an active force that comes out of that effort. These are characteristics of the mineral kingdom.

The intermediate things are all the elements of the plant kingdom--grasses and herbs of all kinds, plants and shrubs of all kinds, and trees of all kinds. Their functions are in support of everything in the animal kingdom, whether flawed or flawless. They provide food, pleasure, and life. They nourish [animal] bodies with their substance, they delight them with their taste and fragrance and beauty, and they enliven their desires. This effort is inherent in them from their life.

The primary things are all the members of the animal kingdom. The lowest of these are called worms and insects, the intermediate ones birds and animals, and the highest humans; for there are lowest, intermediate, and highest things in each kingdom. The lowest are for the service of the intermediate and the intermediate for the service of the highest. So the useful functions of all created things tend upwards in a sequence from the lowest to the human, which is primary in the divine design.

273, 1. An earthly mind engaged in things evil and false is a form and an image of hell. I cannot describe at this point what an earthly mind is like in its substantive form within us, what it is like in the form derived from the substances of the two worlds woven together in our brains, where that mind primarily dwells. A general picture of this form will be offered later, where I will be dealing with the correspondence of the mind and the body. At this point, I need only say something about the states of that form and the changes of state that give rise to perceptions, thoughts, aims, intentions, and what is associated with them, since it is in regard to these that an earthly mind engaged in evil and false pursuits is a form and an image of hell. This form establishes a substantive form as a ground--changes of state cannot occur apart from a substantive form as their ground, just as there can be no sight without an eye and no hearing without an ear.

As for the form or image by which the earthly mind reflects hell, that form and image is like this. The dominant love, together with its urges, being the general state of this mind, acts the part of a devil in hell; and the distorted thoughts that arise from that dominant love are like that devil's gang. Nothing more nor less than this is meant in the Word by "the Devil and its cohorts."

The situation is much the same, since the dominant love in hell is a love of power for selfish reasons. That is what is referred to as "the Devil" there; and attractions to what is false, with the thoughts that arise from that love, are referred to as "the Devil's gang." It is the same in each of hell's communities, with differences like individual variations on a single theme.

An earthly mind that is engaged in evil and therefore false pursuits has a similar form; so after death, earthly-minded people of this kind come into a community of hell that resembles themselves. They then behave in unison with that hell in every respect. They are actually coming into their own form, that is, into the state of their own minds.

There is also another love, called satan, secondary to the earlier love called the devil. This is the love of owning the assets of other people, using fair means or foul. Malice, deviousness, and deceit are its gang.

People who are in this hell are called satans collectively, while people in the former hell are called devils collectively. In fact, the ones who do not act in secret do not reject the title. This is why the hells as a whole are called "the Devil" and "Satan."

The reason the two hells are broadly distinguished by these two loves is that all the heavens are distinguished by two loves into two realms, a heavenly one and a spiritual one. The demonic hell is an inverse parallel to the heavenly realm and the satanic hell an inverse parallel to the spiritual one. (On heaven's division into two realms, a heavenly one and a spiritual one, see Heaven and Hell 26-28 [20-28].)

The reason this kind of earthly mind is a hell in form is that every spiritual form is the same in its largest and smallest manifestations. This is why every angel is a heaven in smaller form, as has also been explained in Heaven and Hell 51-58. It also follows from this that every individual or spirit who is a devil or satan is a hell in smaller form.