421. Moreover, it must be evident that in the spheres, wisdom, knowledge, rectitude, and conscientiousness are the real vicegerents of God, the higher spirits acting as his media. 422. We acknowledge no aristocracy but that of mind and merit. In our diplomatic intercourse with our brothers of earth, when affairs of the greatest importance are to be transacted, (the present dispensation, for example,) we intrust them to a delegation of the most advanced spirits—those who are best acquainted with the affairs of the celestial country and of that to which they are accredited. 423. Our laws are meted out in the scale of exact justice, from whose awards there is _no_ appeal. Punishments are but the natural consequences of violated laws; being invariably commensurate with offences, and have reference as well to the reformation of the offender, as to the prevention of future crime. 424. The political economy of the spheres has reference only to wealth, which being unbounded and free as air and light, can of course be appropriated by each and every member of society, according to his or her capacity of reception, the supply being always equal to the demand. 425. Wealth consists, upon earth, of those objects of human luxury or taste, which can only be acquired by means of labour and capital. Other things being equal, the value is generally in proportion to the cost incurred in the production. But in the spheres, such objects existing in profusion, the supply is of course always equal to the demand, though no less necessary than the air which you breathe; like it, they have no marketable value; there is no one who has occasion to buy, all being abundantly supplied from a common inexhaustible stock. 426. Hence it will appear that we have no occasion for gold or silver, which perisheth with the using, but the currency of _moral_ and _intellectual_ worth, coined in the mint of divine love, and assayed by the standards of purity and truth. Our bank, whose charter is eternal, and whose notes are never subject to fluctuations, and always payable on _demand_, is none other than the great bank of heaven, whose capital stock consists of an infinitude of love, mercy, and benevolence, of which our Heavenly Father is president and director, and in which his beloved children, the whole human family, are shareholders. 427. With regard to the social constitutions of the “spheres,” each is divided into six circles, or societies, in which kindred and congenial spirits are united and subsist together, agreeably with the law of affinity. 428. Although the members of each society unite as near as may be on the same plan, agreeing in the most prominent moral and intellectual features; yet it will be found, on careful analysis, that the varieties of character, in each society, are almost infinite; being as numerous as the persons who compose the circle.