When I had thus spoken, the two angels asked me, “How could evil exist, when nothing but good had existed from creation?  The existence of anything implies that it must have an origin.  Good could not be the origin of evil, because evil is nothing of good, being privative and destructive of good; nevertheless, since it exists and is sensibly felt, it is not nothing, but something; tell us therefore whence this something existed after nothing.”  To this I replied, “This arcanum cannot be explained, unless it be known that no one is good but God alone, and that there is not anything good, which in itself is good, but from God; wherefore he that looks to God, and wishes to be led by God, is in good; but he that turns himself from God, and wishes to be led by himself, is not in good; for the good which he does, is for the sake either of himself or of the world; thus it is either meritorious, or pretended, or hypocritical:  from which considerations it is evident, that man himself is the origin of evil; not that that origin was implanted in him by creation; but that he, by turning from God to himself, implanted it in himself.  That origin of evil was not in Adam and his wife; but when the serpent said, ’In the day that ye shall eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall be as God’ (Gen. iii. 5), they then made in themselves the origin of evil, because they turned themselves from God, and turned to themselves, as to God. To eat of that tree, signifies to believe that they knew good and evil, and were wise, from themselves, and not from God.” But the two angels then asked, “How could man turn himself from God, and turn to himself, when yet he cannot will, think, and thence do anything but from God?  Why did God permit this?” I replied, “Man was so created, that whatever he wills, thinks, and does, appears to him as in himself, and thereby from himself:  without this appearance a man would not be a man; for he would be incapable of receiving, retaining, and as it were appropriating to himself anything of good and truth, or of love and wisdom:  whence it follows, that without such appearance, as a living appearance, a man would not have conjunction with God, and consequently neither would he have eternal life.  But if from this appearance he induces in himself a belief that he wills, thinks, and thence does good from himself, and not from the Lord, although in all appearance as from himself, he turns good into evil with himself, and thereby makes in himself the origin of evil.  This was the sin of Adam.  But I will explain this matter somewhat more clearly.  The Lord looks at every man in the forepart of his head, and this inspection passes into the hinder part of his head.  Beneath the forepart is the cerebrum, and beneath the hinder part is the cerebellum; the latter was designed for love and the goods thereof, and the former for wisdom and the truths thereof; wherefore he that looks with the face to the Lord receives from