It has been said in the preceding pages, and shown in the work Heaven and Hell, that the spiritual world is like the natural world, with the difference only that each and every thing of the spiritual world is spiritual, and each and every thing of the natural world is natural. As these two worlds are alike, there are in both, atmospheres, waters, and lands, which are the generals through and from which each and all things take their form [existunt] with infinite variety. 174. As regards the atmospheres, which are called ethers and airs, they are alike in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural, with the difference only that they are spiritual in the spiritual world, and natural in the natural world. The former are spiritual, because they have their form from the sun which is the first proceeding of the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom of the Lord, and from Him receive within them the Divine fire which is love, and the Divine light which is wisdom, and carry these down to the heavens where the angels dwell, and cause the presence of that sun there in things greatest and least. The spiritual atmospheres are divided substances, that is, least forms, originating from the sun. As these each singly receive the sun, its fire, distributed among so many substances, that is, so many forms, and as it were enveloped by them, and tempered by these envelopments, becomes heat, adapted finally to the love of angels in heaven and of spirits under heaven. The same is true of the light of that sun. In this the natural atmospheres are like spiritual atmospheres, that they also are divided substances or least forms originating from the sun of the natural world; these also each singly receive the sun and store up its fire in themselves, and temper it, and carry it down as heat to the earth, where men dwell. The same is true of natural light. 175. The difference between spiritual and natural atmospheres is that spiritual atmospheres are receptacles of Divine fire and Divine light, thus of love and wisdom, for they contain these interiorly within them; while natural atmospheres are receptacles, not of Divine fire and Divine light, but of the fire and light of their own sun, which in itself is dead, as was shown above; consequently there is nothing interiorly in them from the sun of the spiritual world, although they are environed by spiritual atmospheres from that sun. That this is the difference between spiritual and natural atmospheres has been learned from the wisdom of angels.