52. Everything in the universe has been created by the Divine love and wisdom of the human God. The universe in its greatest and least elements and in its first and last elements is so full of Divine love and wisdom that it can be said to be Divine love and wisdom in an image. The reality of this clearly appears from the correspondence that all the constituents of the universe have with all the constituents of a human being. Each and every phenomenon that occurs in the created universe has such a correspondence with each and every constituent of the human being that one may declare the human being to be also a kind of universe. His affections and resulting thoughts have a correspondence with all the constituents of the animal kingdom, his will and consequent understanding with all the constituents of the plant kingdom, and the outmost constituents of his life with all the constituents of the mineral kingdom.

[2] The existence of such a correspondence is not apparent to anyone in the natural world, but it is to everyone who takes note of it in the spiritual world. That world contains all the phenomena that occur in the three kingdoms of the natural world, and they are correspondent manifestations of the affections and thoughts of the inhabitants there - of the affections emanating from the will and of the thoughts emanating from the intellect - and of the outmost constituents of their life. Moreover, these correspondent manifestations and phenomena appear round about them in a visible form like that of the created universe, with the difference that they do so in a lesser image of it.

[3] It is clearly apparent to angels from this that the created universe is a representative image of the human God, and that it is His love and wisdom which are displayed in an image in the universe. Not that the created universe is the human God, but that it exists from Him. For nothing whatever in the created universe is substance and form in itself, or life in itself, or love and wisdom in itself, indeed neither is the human being human in himself, but all is from God, who is human in Himself, wisdom and love in itself, and form and substance in itself. Whatever exists in itself is uncreated and infinite. Whatever exists from that, however - this, because it retains nothing in it that exists in itself, is created and finite, and it reflects an image of Him from whom it exists and takes form.

3843. 'To give the younger before the firstborn' means, that the affection for interior truth should precede the affection for external truth. This is clear from the representation of Rachel, to whom 'the younger' refers here, as the affection for interior truth, dealt with in 3758, 3782, 3793, 3819, and from the representation of Leah, to whom 'the firstborn' refers here, as the affection for external truth, dealt with in 3793, 3819. From this it is evident that 'giving the younger before the firstborn' means [that the state is not such] that the affection for interior truth should precede the affection for external truth. A brief explanation of these matters has been given above in 3834, and is further evident from the following: Anyone who does not know the state of man may believe that the joining together is effected not only with external truths but also with internal once he is acquainted with both kinds of truths, that is, once he has them in his memory. But no joining together is effected until he lives according to them; for the life reveals whether the joining together has been effected.

[2] The same applies to everything implanted in someone since childhood. It does not become his own until he acts according to it, and does so from affection. For when he acts from affection that which has been implanted in him passes into his will. Then it is no longer put into practice by him simply because he knows that he should or because he has been taught to do it, but because some delight unknown to himself and so to speak his own disposition or nature lead him to do so. For everyone acquires such a disposition or nature from frequent practice or habit, and that practice or habit from the things he has learned. This does not come about until the things he has absorbed through his being taught them have been passed through from the external man to the interior; for when they exist in the interior man he no longer acts from the sensory memory but from his acquired disposition, till at length they flow into action spontaneously. For in this case they have been inscribed on the person's interior memory, and the things that proceed from this give the appearance of being innate. This may be recognized from the languages a person has learned in childhood, also from the ability to reason, and from conscience too. From these considerations it is evident that the truths of doctrine, even those that are interior, are not joined to a person until they are matters of life. But further information on these points will in the Lord's Divine mercy appear elsewhere.