seeing that in the minutest as in the largest living creatures, even in the invisible, as in the visible, there are the organs of sense, namely, sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; and organs of motion which are muscles, for they fly and walk; also viscera surrounding the heart and lungs, which are set in action by brains.  That even the commonest insects enjoy such organisms is shown in their anatomy as described by some writers, and especially by Swammerdam, in his Biblia Naturae.  Those who ascribe everything to nature, see all these things, but they merely perceive that they exist, and say that nature produces them.  They say this because they have turned their minds away from thinking about the Divine; and those who have done this are unable, when they see the wonderful things in nature, to think rationally, still less spiritually; but they think sensually and materially; and then they think in nature from nature, and not above nature, just as those do who are in hell.  They differ from beasts only in having the power to think rationally, that is, in being able to understand, and therefore to think otherwise, if they choose.

352.  Those who have averted themselves from thinking about the Divine when observing the wonderful things in nature, and who thereby become sensual, do not reflect that the sight of the eye is so gross as to see many little insects as an obscure speck, when yet each one of these is organized to feel and to move, and is accordingly furnished with fibers and vessels, also with a minute heart, pulmonary tubes, viscera, and brains; also that these organs are woven out of the purest substances in nature, their tissues corresponding to that somewhat of life by which their minutest parts are separately moved.  When the sight of the eye is so gross that many such creatures, with innumerable particulars in each, appear to it as an obscure speck, and yet those who are sensual think and judge by that sight, it is clear how dulled their minds are, and therefore what thick darkness they are in concerning spiritual things.

353.  Any one who chooses may confirm himself in favor of the Divine from things seen in nature, and whoever thinks about God in reference to life does so confirm himself; as when he observes the birds of the air, how each species knows its food and where to find it, recognizes its kind by sound and sight, and which among other kinds are its friends and which its enemies; how also they mate, have knowledge of the sexual relation, skillfully build nests, lay eggs therein, sit upon these, know the period of incubation, and this having elapsed, bring forth their young, love them most tenderly, cherish them under their wings, bring them food and feed them, until they can do for themselves, perform the same offices, and bring forth a family to perpetuate their kind.  Any one who is willing to reflect on the Divine influx through the spiritual world into the natural can see such influx in these things, and if he will, can say from his heart, Such knowledges cannot flow into these creatures out of the sun through its rays of light, for the sun, from which nature derives its origin and essence, is mere fire, consequently its rays of light are wholly dead; and thus he may conclude that such things are from the influx of Divine Wisdom into the outmosts of nature.