either from instinct or habit or fear, and never from the thought that
such a thing is a good or an evil, thus not of itself. Consequently,
one who would have it believed that man shuns evils or does goods not as
if of himself but from an imperceptible influx, or from the imputation
of the Lord's merit, would also have it believed that man lives like a
beast, without thought of, or perception of, or affection for, truth and
good.

That this is so has been made clear to me from manifold experience in
the spiritual world. Every man after death is there prepared either for
heaven or for hell. From the man who is prepared for heaven evils are
removed, and from the man who is prepared for hell goods are removed;
and all such removals are effected as if by them. Likewise those who do
evils are driven by punishments to reject them as if of themselves; but
if they do not reject them as if of themselves the punishments are of no
avail. By this it was made clear that those who hang down their hands,
waiting for influx or for the imputation of the Lord's merit, continue
in the state of their evil and hang down their hands forever.

To shun evils as sins is to shun the infernal societies that are in
them, and man cannot shun these unless he repels them and turns away
from them; and a man cannot turn away from them with repulsion unless he
loves good and from that love does not will evil. For a man must either
will evil or will good; and so far as he wills good he does not will
evil; and it is granted him to will good when he makes the commandments
of the Decalogue to be of his religion, and lives according to them.

Since man must refrain from evils as sins as if of himself, these ten
commandments were inscribed by the Lord on two tables, and these were
called a covenant; and this covenant was entered into in the same way as