il._ For if all that a
person thinks flows into him from others, the fault seems to be theirs
from whom it comes. Yet the fault is the recipient's, for he receives
what inflows as his own and neither knows nor wants to know otherwise.
For everyone wants to be his own, to be led by himself, and above all to
think and will from himself; this is freedom itself, which appears as the
proprium in which every person is. If he knew, therefore, that what he
thinks and wills flows in from another, it would seem to him that he was
bound and captive and no longer master of himself. All enjoyment in his
life would thus perish, and finally his very humanness would perish.

[3] I have often seen this evidenced. It was granted some spirits to
perceive and sense that they were being led by others. Thereupon they
were so enraged that they were reduced almost to mental impotence. They
said that they would rather be kept bound in hell than not to be allowed
to think as they willed and to will as they thought. This they called
being bound in their very life, which was harder and more intolerable
than to be bound bodily. Not being allowed to speak and act as they
thought and willed, they did not call being bound. For the enjoyment of
civil and moral life, which consists in speaking and acting, itself
restrains and at the same time mitigates that.

[4] Inasmuch as man does not want to know that he is led to think by
others, but wants to think from himself and believes that he does so, it
follows that he himself is in fault, nor can he throw off the blame so
long as he loves to think what he thinks. If he does not love it, he
breaks his connection with those from whom his thought flows. This occurs
when he knows the thought is evil, therefore determines to avoid it and
desist from it. He is then also taken by the Lord from the society in
that evil and transferred to a society free of it. If, however, he
recognizes the evil and does not shun it, fault is imputed to him, and he
is responsible for the evil. Therefore, whatever a man believes that he
does from himself is said to be done from the man, and not from the Lord.

[5] Second: _It then seems as if evil is from the Lord._ This may be
thought to be the conclusion from what was shown above (n. 288), namely,
that good flowing in from the Lord is turned into evil and truth into
falsity in hell. But who cannot see that evil and falsity do not come of
good and truth, therefore not from the Lord