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 faculty of confirming whatever a man pleases. Such men, therefore, from pre-conceived principles and from fallacies, see falsities as truths, and are not able to discern truth itself; nor can they ever be induced to acknowledge truths, since truths cannot be seen from falsities, but falsities may be seen from truths.

The rational faculty of man is like a garden and flower-bed, and also like ground newly ploughed. The memory is the ground, scientific truths and knowledges are the seeds, and the light and warmth of heaven cause them to spring forth. And as there is no natural germination without the light and heat of the sun, so also there is no spiritual germination without the light and heat of heaven. The light of heaven is divine truth, and the heat of heaven is divine love. From these alone is the rational faculty.

The angels are very much grieved that so many of the learned ascribe all things to nature, and have thereby closed the interiors of their minds, so that they can see nothing of truth from the light of truth, which is the light of heaven. In the other life, therefore, they are deprived of the faculty of arguing, lest by their reasonings they should disseminate falsities among the simple good, and seduce them; and they are sent into desert places.

A certain spirit was indignant because he could not remember many things with which he was acquainted in the life of the body, grieving at the loss