Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/131

tions it may be seen whence it is that there are no truths where there is no good, unless as to form and not as to essence. (A. E. 730.)

The man who is acquainted with all goods and all truths, as many as it is possible to know, and does not shun evils, knows nothing; his knowledge being absorbed and ejected by evils so that he becomes infatuated, if not in the world, yet afterwards. Whereas the man who is acquainted with few goods and few truths, and shuns evils, knows those goods and truths and superadds several others and becomes wise, if not in the world, yet afterwards. (A. E. 1180.)

HOW SPIRITUAL GOOD IS ACQUIRED.

The good of truth when it is in any one, is the good of life; for truth becomes good by a life according to it, and before this it is not good in any one. For when truth is only in the memory and thence in the thought, it is not good; but it becomes good when it comes into the will and thence into the actions, the will itself being what transforms truth into good. This may appear from this consideration, that what a man wills he calls good, and what he thinks he calls truth; for man's interior will which is the will of his spirit, is the receptacle of his love, since what he loves from his spirit he wills, and what he thus wills he does. Therefore the truth which is of his will is also of his love, and that which is of his love he calls good.