183. Since atmospheres are the receptacles and containants of heat and light, it follows that there are as many degrees of atmospheres as there are degrees of heat and light; also that there are as many as there are degrees of love and wisdom. That there are several atmospheres, and that these are distinct from each other by means of degrees, has been manifested to me by much experience in the spiritual world; especially from this, that angels of the lower heavens are not able to breathe in the region of higher angels, and appear to themselves to gasp for breath, as living creatures do when they are raised out of air into ether, or out of water into air. Moreover, spirits below the heavens appear in a kind of cloud. That there are several atmospheres, and that they are distinct from each other by means of degrees, may be seen above (n. 176). 184. DEGREES ARE OF A TWOFOLD KIND, DEGREES OF HEIGHT AND DEGREES OF BREADTH. A knowledge of degrees is like a key to lay open the causes of things, and to give entrance into them. Without this knowledge, scarcely anything of cause can be known; for without it, the objects and subjects of both worlds seem to have but a single meaning, as if there were nothing in them beyond that which meets the eye; when yet compared to the things which lie hidden within, what is thus seen is as one to thousands, yea, to tens of thousands. The interiors which are not open to view can in no way be discovered except through a knowledge of degrees. For things exterior advance to things interior and through these to things inmost, by means of degrees; not by continuous degrees but by discrete degrees. "Continuous degrees" is a term applied to the gradual lessenings or decreasings from grosser to finer, or from denser to rarer; or rather, to growths and increasings from finer to grosser, or from rarer to denser; precisely like the gradations of light to shade, or of heat to cold. But discrete degrees are entirely different: they are like things prior, subsequent and final; or like end, cause, and effect. These degrees are called discrete, because the prior is by itself; the subsequent by itself; and the final by itself; and yet taken together they make one. There are atmospheres, from highest to lowest, that is, from the sun to the earth, called ethers and airs that are separated into such degrees; they are like simples, collections of simples, and again collections of these, which taken together are called a composite. Such degrees are discrete [or separate], because each has a distinct existence, and these degrees are what are meant by "degrees of height;" but the former degrees are continuous, because they increase continuously and these degrees are what are meant by "degrees of breadth."