429. Each society has teachers from those above, and not unfrequently from the higher spheres, whose province it is to impart to us the knowledge acquired from their instructions and experience, in the different departments of science, and which we in turn transmit to those below. Thus, by receiving and giving knowledge our moral and intellectual faculties are expanded to higher conceptions and more exalted views of the great Creator, whose almighty power is no less displayed in the constitution of spirit worlds, than in that of the countless resplendent orbs of space. 430. We do not, as many persons in the rudimental state imagine, abandon the studies which we commenced on earth, which would presuppose the loss of our reasoning powers, and our consequent inferiority to yourselves; but on the contrary, we go on progressing in knowledge and wisdom, and shall progress throughout the boundless ages of eternity. You being chained down to earth, by the law of gravitation, are comparatively limited in your resources for information; but we having arrived at a higher sphere of thought and action, and having a more extensive field of vision, can soar higher and farther into the wonderful workings of that mysterious Being, who, owing to the infinity of his perfections, must be forever in advance of us, his finite creatures, and to whom, of course, we can bear no relative proportion. 431. Our scientific researches and investigations are extended to all that pertains to the phenomena of universal nature; to all the wonders of the heavens and the earth, and to whatever the mind of man is capable of conceiving: all of which exercise our faculties, and form a considerable part of our enjoyments. The noble and sublime sciences of astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics, engage a considerable portion of our attention, and afford us an inexhaustible subject for study and reflection. 432. Nevertheless, there are millions of spirits who are not yet sufficiently advanced to take any interest in those pursuits; for you will bear in mind that the spheres are but so many departments of a great normal school, for the mental discipline and development of the race, each of which is reached only by the spiral[11] stages of progression,—the earth being the first in the series, and the seventh sphere the last; being preparatory to an entrance into the supernal heaven. You will perceive, then, that we have an unlimited scope for the prosecution of our studies, and that whatever knowledge you fail to acquire in the rudimental state, legitimate thereto, you will have to obtain, in some of the degrees of the spiritual spheres.