Page:The Other Life.djvu/271

 feels in the exercise of his loves, is the joy and essence of his life. Thought proceeds from love as surely as light from heat. We have no thoughts which are really our own, and which abide with us, except those which flow from, represent and correspond to our affections. We believe what we love and we love what we believe. To change a man's faith you must change his affections. His faith will follow his affections as surely as the shadow follows the moving object. We may change our wills, we may control our emotions, we may substitute a higher love and a nobler passion for a lower, or vice versâ; but we cannot control our belief. We will involuntarily confirm whatever agrees with and corresponds to our emotional states; we will reject all else as false.

What affections of the human mind cause the spiritual darkness which the heavenly light of the New Church finds it impossible at present to dissipate?

Outside of the Christian sphere, there are two great classes who cannot see the truth of the heavenly doctrines:

First: Those who are immersed in sense or in states of external self-love. Men who are devoted to the acquisition of money, to the pursuit of glory