gth to his father's ruling love. If this has been
evil and not been moderated and bent by various means by his teachers, it
becomes his ruling love as it was his father's. Still the evil is not
eradicated, but put aside; of this in what follows. Plainly, then,
everyone is in evil.

277 r. It is plain without explanation that man must be led away from
evil in order to be reformed. For one who is in evil in the world is in
evil after he has left the world. Not removed in the world, evil cannot
be removed afterwards. Where a tree falls, it lies. So, too, when a man
dies his life remains such as it has been. Everyone is judged according
to his deeds, not that these are recounted, but he returns to them and
acts as before. Death is a continuation of life with the difference that
man cannot then be reformed. For reformation is effected in full, that
is, in what is inmost and outmost, and what is outmost is reformed
suitably to what is inmost only while man is in the world. It cannot be
reformed afterwards because as it is carried along by the man after death
it falls quiescent and conforms to his inner life, that is, they act as
one.

278. (ii) _Evils cannot be removed unless they appear._ This does not
mean that man must do evils in order for them to appear, but that he must
examine himself, his thoughts as well as his deeds, and see what he would
do if he did not fear the laws and disrepute--see especially what evils he
deems allowable in his spirit and does not regard as sins, for these he
still does. To enable him to examine himself, man has been given
understanding, and an understanding separate from his will, in order that
he may know, comprehend and acknowledge what is good and what is evil,
likewise see the character of his will or what it loves and desires. To
see this his understanding has been given higher and lower or interior
and exterior thought, so as to see from the higher or interior what his
will prompts in the lower or exterior thinking: he sees this quite as he
does his face in a mirror. When he does and knows what is sin, he is
able, on imploring the Lord's help, not to will it but to shun it, then
to act contrary to it, if not freely, then by overcoming it through
fighting it, and finally to become averse to it and abominate it. Then
first does he perceive and also sense that evil is evil and good is good.
This, now, is self-examination--to see one's evils, acknowledge them,
confess them and thereupon d