like the light of winter, in which light, because it has no heat in it, all things on the earth are bound up in frost, become torpid, and lie buried under the snow.  As soon, therefore, as the light of persuasive faith in them is touched by the rays of the light of heaven it is not only extinguished but is turned into a dense darkness, in which no one can see himself; and at the same time their interiors are so obscured that they can understand nothing at all, and at length become insane from falsities.  Consequently with such, all the truths that they have known from the Word and from the doctrine of the church, and have called the truths of their faith, are taken away; and they imbibe in their place every falsity that is in accord with the evil of their life.  For they are all let down into their loves and into the falsities agreeing with them; and they then hate and abhor and therefore reject truths, because they are repugnant to the falsities of evil in which they are.  From all my experience in what pertains to heaven and hell I can bear witness that all those who from their doctrine have professed faith alone, and whose life has been evil, are in hell.  I have seen many thousands of them cast down to hell. (Respecting these see the treatise on The Last Judgment and the Destruction of Babylon.)

483. (v) Love in act, that is, the life of man, is what endures.  This follows as a conclusion from what has just been shown from experience, and from what has been said about deeds and works.  Love in act is work and deed.

484.  It must be understood that all works and deeds pertain to moral and civil life, and therefore have regard to what is honest and right, and what is just and equitable, what is honest and right pertaining to moral life, and what is just and equitable to civil life.  The love from which deeds are done is either heavenly or infernal.  Works and deeds of moral and civil life, when they are done from heavenly love, are heavenly; for what is done from heavenly love is done from the Lord, and everything done from the Lord is good.  But the deeds and works of moral and civil life when done from infernal love are infernal; for what is done from this love, which is the love of self and of the world, is done from man himself, and everything that is done from man himself is in itself evil; for man regarded in himself, that is, in regard to what is his own, is nothing but evil.{1}

{Footnote 1} Man’s own consists in loving himself more than God, and the world more than heaven, and in making nothing of his neighbor in comparison with himself, thus it consists in the love of self and of the world (n. 694, 731, 4317).  Man is born into this own, and it is dense evil (n. 210, 215, 731, 874-876, 987, 1047, 2307, 2308, 3518, 3701, 3812, 8480, 8550, 10283, 10284, 10286, 10732).  From what is man’s own not only every evil but also every falsity is derived (n. 1047, 10283, 10284, 10286).  The evils that are from what is man’s own are contempt for