coming winter, as if they had foresight and knowledge of it. They also
set over them a mistress as queen, out of whom a posterity may be
propagated; and for her they build a sort of a palace over themselves
with guards around it; and when her time of bringing forth is at hand,
she goes attended by her guards from cell to cell, and lays her eggs,
which the crowd of followers smear over to protect them from the air,
from which a new progeny springs forth for them. When this progeny becomes
mature enough to do the same, it is driven from the hive. The expelled
swarm first collects, and then in a close body, to preserve its integrity,
flies away in quest of a home for itself. Moreover, in the autumn the
useless drones are led out and are deprived of their wings to prevent
their returning and consuming the food for which they have not labored;
not to mention other particulars. From all this it can be seen that bees,
because of their use to the human race, have from influx from the
spiritual world, a form of government similar to that among men on earth,
and even like that of angels in heaven. Can any man of unimpaired reason
fail to see that these doings of the bees are not from the natural world?
What has that sun, from which nature springs, in common with a government
that vies with and resembles the government of heaven? From these things
and others very similar to them in the brute creation, the confessor and
worshiper of nature confirms himself in favor of nature, while the
confessor and worshiper of God confirms himself from the same things in
favor of the Divine; for the spiritual man sees in them spiritual things
and the natural man natural things, thus each according to his character.
As for myself, such things have been proofs to me of an influx of the
spiritual into the natural, that is, of the spiritual world into the
natural world, thus of an influx from the Lord's Divine Wisdom. Consider,
moreover, whether you can think analytically concerning any form of
government, or any civil law, or moral virtue, or spiritual truth, unless
the Divine out of His wisdom flows in through the spiritual world ? For
myself, I could not and cannot. For having now observed that influx
perceptibly and sensibly for about nineteen years continually, I speak
as an eye-witness.

356. Can anything natural regard use as an end and dispose uses into
series and forms? No one can do this unless he be wise; and no one but
God, whose wisdom i