[3] A comparison may throw light on this. If a javelin thrower or a marksman should aim at a target, from which a line was drawn straight back for a mile and should err in aim by only a finger's breadth, the missile or the bullet at the end of the mile would have deviated very far from the line. So would it be if the Lord did not, at every moment and even the least fraction of a moment, look to what is eternal in foreseeing and making provision for one's place after death. But this the Lord does: the entire future is present to Him, and the entire present is to Him eternal. That divine providence looks in all it does to what is infinite and eternal, may be seen above, nn. 46-49, 214 ff. 334. As was said also, the activity of divine providence continues to eternity, for every angel is being perfected in wisdom to eternity, each, however, according to the degree of affection of good and truth in which he was when he left this world. It is this degree that is perfected to eternity; what is beyond that is outside the angel and not in him, and what is external to him cannot be perfected in him. This perfecting is meant by the "Good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over" which will be given into the bosom of those who forgive and give to others (Lu 6:37, 38), that is, those who are in the good of charity. 335. (ii) _The activity of divine providence is maintained steadily out of pure mercy through means._ Divine providence has means and methods. Its means are the things by which man becomes man and is perfected in will and understanding; its methods are the ways this is accomplished. The means by which man becomes man and is perfected in understanding are collectively called truths. In the thought they become ideas, are called objects of the memory, and in themselves are forms of knowledge from which information comes. All these means, viewed in themselves, are spiritual, but as they exist in what is natural, they seem by reason of their covering or clothing to be natural and some of them seem to be material. They are infinite in number and variety, and more or less simple or composite, and also more or less imperfect or perfect. There are means for forming and perfecting natural civil life; likewise for forming and perfecting rational moral life; as there are for forming and perfecting heavenly spiritual life.