of many evils. Thence it is that he cannot
do good of himself, for evil does only such good as has evil in it; the
evil inwardly in it is that one does good for one's own sake and thus
only for the sake of appearances. It is known that hereditary evil comes
from one's parents. It is said to come from Adam and his wife, but this
is an error; for everyone is born into hereditary evil from his parent,
and the parent from his parent, and so on; thus it is transmitted from
one to another, is augmented and becomes an accumulation, and is passed
to one's progeny. There is therefore nothing sound in man but all is
evil. Who feels that it is evil to love himself above others? Who, then,
knows that this is an evil, though it is the head of evils?

[2] Inheritance from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents is
plain from much which is known in the world, from the fact, for instance,
that households, families and even nations are distinguishable by the
face; the face is also a type of the mind which in turn accords with the
affections of one's love. Sometimes, too, the features of a grandfather
recur in a grandson or a great-grandson. From the face alone I know
whether a person is a Jew or not; likewise of what stock certain persons
are; others no doubt know also. If the affections which spring from love
are thus derived from parents and transmitted by them, evils are, for
these spring from affections. But it shall be told how the resemblance
comes about.

[3] Everyone's soul comes from his father and is only clothed with the
body by one's mother. That the soul is from the father follows not only
from what has been said above, but from many other indications, too; also
from this, that the child of a black man or Moor by a white or European
woman is black, and vice versa; and especially in that the soul is in the
seed, for impregnation is by the seed, and the seed is what is clothed
with a body by the mother. The seed is the primal form of the love in
which the father is--the form of his ruling love with its nearest
derivatives or the inmost affections of that love.

[4] These affections are enveloped in everyone with the honesties of
moral life and with the goodnesses partly of civil and partly of
spiritual life, which are the external of life even with the evil. An
infant is born into this external life and is therefore lovable, but
coming to boyhood and adolescence he passes from that external to the
inner life and at len