either
man nor any kind of animal could have come into existence from seed, and
afterwards continue to exist; nor could the seeds of trees and shrubs
vegetate and bear fruit. For the more prior anything prior is, or the
more simple anything simple is, the more exempt is it from injury,
because it is more perfect.

205. IN SUCCESSIVE ORDER THE FIRST DEGREE MAKES THE HIGHEST, AND THE
THIRD THE LOWEST; BUT IN SIMULTANEOUS ORDER THE FIRST DEGREE MAKES THE
INNERMOST, AND THE THIRD THE OUTERMOST.

There is successive order and simultaneous order. The successive order
of these degrees is from highest to lowest, or from top to bottom. The
angelic heavens are in this order; the third heaven there is the highest,
the second is the middle, and the first is the lowest; such is their
relative situation. In like successive order are the states of love and
wisdom with the angels there, also states of heat and light, and of the
spiritual atmospheres. In like order are all the perfections of the
forms and forces there. When degrees of height, that is, discrete degrees,
are in successive order, they may be compared to a column divided into
three stories, through which ascent and descent are made. In the upper
rooms are things most perfect and most beautiful; in the middle rooms,
things less perfect and beautiful; in the lowest, things still less
perfect and beautiful. But simultaneous order, which consists of like
degrees, has another appearance. In it, the highest things of successive
order, which are (as was said above) the most perfect and most beautiful,
are in the inmost, the lower things are in the middle, and the lowest in
the circumference. They are as if in a solid body composed of these three
degrees: in the middle or center are the finest parts, round about this
are parts less fine, and in the extremes which constitute the
circumference are the parts composed of these and which are therefore
grosser. It is like the column mentioned just above subsiding into a
plane, the highest part of which forms the innermost of the plane, the
middle forms the middle, and the lowest the outermost.

206. As the highest of successive order becomes the innermost of
simultaneous order, and the lowest becomes the outermost, so in the Word,
"higher" signifies inner, and "lower" signifies outer. "Upwards" and
"downwards," and "high" and "deep" have a like meaning.

207. In every outmost there are discrete degrees in simultaneous order.
The moto