id that all the laws of divine providence
have the salvation and reformation of the human being for their object,
in other words, the inversion of his state, which by nativity is
infernal, into the opposite, which is heavenly. This can only be done
progressively as man recedes from evil and its enjoyment and comes into
good and its enjoyment.

[5] Third: _Those who believe in an instantaneous change do not know at
all what evil and good are._ For they do not know that evil is the
enjoyment of the lust of acting and thinking contrary to divine order,
and good is the enjoyment of the affection for acting and thinking in
accord with divine order. They do not know, either, that myriads of lusts
enter into and compose each individual evil and myriads of affections
enter into and compose each individual good, and that these myriads are
in such order and connection in man's interiors that it is impossible to
change one without changing all at the same time. Those who are ignorant
of this may believe or suppose that evil, which seems to them to be a
single entity, can be easily removed, and that good, which also seems to
be a single entity, can be introduced in its place. Not knowing what evil
and good are, they cannot but suppose that there is such a thing as
instantaneous salvation and such a thing as direct mercy. That these are
not possible will be seen in the last chapter of this treatise.

[6] Fourth: _Those who believe in instantaneous salvation and unmediated
mercy do not know that affections, which are of the will, are nothing
other than changes of state in the purely organic substances of the mind;
that thoughts, which are of the understanding, are nothing other than
changes and variations in the form of those substances; and that memory
is the persisting state of the changes and variations._ Everyone
acknowledges, on its being said, that affections and thoughts exist only
in substances and their forms, which are the subjects; existing in the
brain which is full of substances and forms, they are called purely
organic forms. No one who thinks rationally can help laughing at the
fancies of some that affections and thoughts do not have substantive
bases, but are exhalations given shape by heat and light, like images
apparently in the air or ether. For thought can no more exist apart from
a substantial form than sight can apart from its form, the eye, or
hearing apart from its form, the ear, or taste apart from its form,