nless you want to call it his proprium that he is such or such
a subject or organ or form. This is not the proprium that is meant,
however, for it is only descriptive of the nature of man. No man, I said,
has any proprium as the word is commonly understood. At this those who
ascribed everything to their own prudence and who may be called the very
picture of proprietorship, flared up so that flames seemed to come from
their nostrils as they said, "You speak paradox and insanity! Would man
not be an empty nothing then? Or an idea or fancy? Or a graven image or
statue?"

[2] To this I could only reply that it is paradox and insanity to believe
that man has life of himself, and that wisdom and prudence, likewise the
good of charity and the truth of faith, do not flow in from God but are
in man. To attribute them to oneself every wise person calls insane and
also paradoxical. Those who attribute them to themselves are like tenants
of another's house and property who persuade themselves by living there
that it is their own; or like stewards and administrators who consider
all that their master owns to be theirs; or like servants in business to
whom their master gave talents and pounds to trade with, but who rendered
no account to him but kept all as theirs and thus behaved like robbers.

[3] It may be said of such that they are insane, indeed are nothing and
empty, likewise are idealists, since they do not have in them from the
Lord good which is the esse itself of life, thus do not have truth,
either. They are also called "dead" therefore and "nothing and empty"
(Isa 40:17, 23), and elsewhere "makers of images," "graven images" and
"statues." More about them in what follows, to be done in this order:

i. What one's own prudence is, and what prudence not one's own is.
ii. By his own prudence man persuades himself and confirms in himself
that all good and truth are from him and in him; similarly all evil and
falsity.
iii. All that a man is persuaded of and confirms remains with him as his
own.
iv. If man believed, as is the truth, that all good and truth are from
the Lord, and all evil and falsity from hell, he would not appropriate
good to himself and consider it merited, nor appropriate evil to himself
and make himself responsible for it.

310. (i) _What one's own prudence is, and what prudence not one's own
is._ Those are in prudence of their own who confirm appearances in
themselves and make them truths, especially the