water, and makes the essence mobile and desireful,
so that the essence buds. Thus it is with the new
man in the Light. And as we cannot move the light
of the sun, so neither can we move the eternal
Light or the light-world. It stands still and shines
through everything that is susceptible of it, what-
soever is thin like a nothing, as indeed fire and
water are ; though all is substantial, but in reference
to the external as a nothing.
41. Thus each principle has its growth from itself;
and that must be, else all were a nothing.
42. The principle of fire is the root, and it grows
in its root. It has in its proprium sour, bitter, fierce-
ness and anguish; and these grow in its proprium
in poison and death into the anguishful stern life,
which in itself gives darkness, owing to the drawing-
in of the harshness. Its properties make sulphur,
mercury and salt; though the fire's property
makes not Sul in sulphur, but the will of free-
dom makes Sul in Phur, whilst the principle goes
forward.
43. But what advances into its properties is
only Phur, viz. sternness, with the other forms in
the centre. This is the chief cause of life and of the
being of all things. Though it is bad in itself, yet
it is the most useful of all to life and the manifesta-
tion of life. For there could be no life without this
property, and this principle is grounded in the
internal and external world; in the internal as
imperceptible, in the external perceptible by its
fierceness.
44. The second Principle has also its growth from