268. (3) Evils and falsities confirmed in man are permanent, and come to be of his love and life.  Confirming evil and falsity is nothing else than putting away good and truth, and if persisted in, it is their rejection; for evil removes and rejects good, and falsity truth.  For this reason confirming evil and falsity is a closing up of heaven, — for every good and truth flows in from the Lord through heaven, — and when heaven is closed, man is in hell, and in a society therein which a like evil prevails and a like falsity; from which hell he cannot afterwards be delivered.  It has been granted me to speak with some who ages ago confirmed themselves in the falsities of their religion, and I saw that they remained in the same falsities, in the same way as they were in them in the world.  The reason is, that all things in which a man confirms himself come to be of his love and life.  They come to be of his love because they come to be of his will and understanding; and will and understanding constitute the life of every one; and when they come to be of man’s life, they come to be not only of his whole mind but also of his whole body.  From this it is evident that a man who has confirmed himself in evils and falsities is such from head to foot, and when he is wholly such, by no turning or twisting back can he be reduced to an opposite state, and thus withdrawn from hell.  From all this, and from what precedes in this chapter, it can be seen what the origin of evil is.

269. (4) Such things as have come to be of the love, and consequently of the life, are engendered in offspring.  It is known that man is born into evil, and that he derives it by inheritance from parents; though by some it is believed that he inherits it not from his parents, but through parents from Adam; this, however, is an error.  He derives it from the father, from whom he has a soul that is clothed with a body in the mother.  For the seed, which is from the father, is the first receptacle of life, but such a receptacle as it was with the father; for the seed is in the form of his love, and each one’s love is, in things greatest and least, similar to itself; and there is in the seed a conatus to the human form, and by successive steps it goes forth into that form.  From this it follows that evils called hereditary are from fathers, thus from grandfathers and great-grandfathers, successively transmitted to offspring.  This may be learned also from observation, for as regards affections, there is a resemblance of races to their first progenitor, and a stronger resemblance in families, and a still stronger resemblance in households; and this resemblance is such that generations are distinguishable not only by the disposition, but even by the face.  But of this ingeneration of the love of evil by parents in offspring more will be said in what follows, where the correspondence of the mind, that is, of the will and understanding, with the body and its members and organs will be fully treated of.  Here these few