es to him as his own. It hence follows that the cause of his own
evil lies with man, and not at all with the Lord. Evil as existing with
man is hell, as existing with him: for whether you say evil or hell,
amounts to the same thing. Now since the cause of his own evil lies with
man himself, it follows that it is he who casts himself into hell, and
not the Lord; and so far is the Lord from leading man into hell, that he
delivers from hell, so far as the man does not will and loves to abide
in his own evil. But the whole of man's will and love remains with him
after death: whoever wills and loves evil in the world, wills and loves
the same evil in the other life; and he then no longer suffers himself
to be withdrawn from it. It hence results, that the man who is immersed
in evil is connected by invisible bonds with hell: he is also actually
there as to his spirit; and, after death, he desires nothing more
earnestly than to be where his evil is.

From an inspection of the monstrous forms belonging to the spirits in
the hells, it was made evident to me that they all, in general, are
forms of self-love and the love of the world, and that the evils, of
which in particular they are the forms, derive their origin from those
two loves. It has also been told me from heaven, and proved to me by
much experimental evidence, that those two loves--self-love and the love
of the world--reign in the hells and also constitute them; whereas love
to the Lord and love towards the neighbour reign in the heavens and also
constitute them: and that the two former loves, which are the loves of
hell, and the two latter, which are the loves of heaven, are
diametrically opposite to each other.

As by the fire of hell is to be understood all the lust of doing evil
flowing from self-love, by the same is also meant torment, such as
exists in the hells. For the lust flowing from that love is, in those
who are inflamed by it, the lust of doing injury to all who do not
honour, respect, and pay court to them; and in proportion to the anger
which they thence conceive against such individuals, and to the hatred
and revenge inspired by such anger, is their lust of committing outrages
against them. Now when such a lust rages in everyone in a society, and
they have no external bond to keep them under restraint, such as the
fear of the law, and of the loss of character, of honour, of gain, and
of the like, everyone under the influence of his own evil attracts
a