from the sun where the Lord is, and proceeding to the outmosts
of nature, that produces the forms of plants and animals, exhibiting the
marvels that exist in both, and filling the forms with matters from the
earth, that they may become fixed and enduring. But because it is now
known that there is a spiritual world, and that the spiritual is from
the spiritual sun, in which the Lord is and which is from the Lord, and
that the spiritual is what impels nature to act, as what is living impels
what is dead, also that like things exist in the spiritual world as in the
natural world, it can now be seen that plants and animals have had their
existence only from the Lord though that world, and through that world
they have perpetual existence. Thus there is unceasing influx from the
spiritual world into the natural. That this is so will be abundantly
corroborated in the next chapter. Noxious things are produced on earth
through influx from hell, by the same law of permission whereby evils
themselves from hell flow into men. This law will be set forth in the
Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Providence.

341. (4) Those things that are evil uses are effected by the operation of
influx from hell, wherever there are such things as correspond thereto.
The things that correspond to evil uses, that is, to hurtful plants and
noxious animals, are cadaverous, putrid, excrementitious, stercoraceous,
rancid, and urinous matters; consequently, in places where these are, such
herbs and such animalcules spring forth as are mentioned above; and in the
torrid zone, like things of larger size, as serpents, basilisks,
crocodiles, scorpions, rats, and so forth. Every one knows that swamps,
stagnant ponds, dung, fetid bogs, are full of such things; also that
noxious insects fill the atmosphere in clouds, and noxious vermin walk
the earth in armies, and consume its herbs to the very roots. I once
observed in my garden, that in the space of a half yard, nearly all the
dust was turned into minute insects, for when it was stirred with a stick,
they rose in clouds. That cadaverous and putrid matters are in accord with
these noxious and useless little things, and that the two are homogeneous,
is evident from mere observation; and it is still more clearly seen from
the cause, which is, that like stenches and fumes exist in the hells,
where such little things are likewise to be seen. Those hells are therefore
named accordingly; some are called cadaverous, s