ntiate this to full belief by much experience, but this is not the
place to document the experience.

279. (iii) _So far as evils are removed they are remitted._ It is an
error of the age to believe

1. That evils are separated and in fact cast out from man when they are
remitted; and
2. That the state of man's life can be changed in a moment, even to its
opposite, so that from wicked he becomes good, and consequently can be
led from hell and be transported straightway to heaven, and this by the
Lord's sheer mercy.
3. But those who believe and suppose so, do not know at all what evil and
good are and nothing at all about the state of man's life.
4. Moreover, they are wholly unaware that affections, which are of the
will, are nothing other than changes and variations of the state of the
purely organic substances of the mind; and that thoughts, which are of
the understanding, also are; and that memory is the permanent state of
these changes.

When one knows these things, one can see clearly that an evil can be
removed only by successive stages, and that the remission of an evil is
not complete removal of it. But all this has been said in summary form
and unless the items are demonstrated may be assented to and yet not
comprehended. What is not comprehended is as indistinct as a wheel spun
around by the hand. The points made above are therefore to be
demonstrated one by one in the order in which they were set forth.

[2] First: _It is an error of the age to believe that evils are separated
and in fact cast out when they are remitted._ It has been granted me to
learn from heaven that no evil into which man is born and which he has
made actual in him is separated from him, but is removed so as not to
appear. Earlier I shared the belief of most persons in the world that
when evils are remitted they are cast out and are washed and wiped away
as dirt is from the face by water. It is not like this with evils or
sins. They all remain. When they are remitted on repentance, they are
thrust from the center to the sides. What is in the center, being
directly under view, appears as in the light of day, and what is to one
side is in shadow and at times in the darkness of night. Inasmuch as
evils are not separated but only removed, that is, thrust to one side,
and as man can go from The center to the periphery, he can return, as it
may happen, to his evils, which he supposed had been cast out. For the
human being is such that he ca