But by deeds and works are not merely meant deeds and works as they appear in their external form, but as they appear internally.  Everyone knows, that every deed or work proceeds from the will and thought of the doer; for otherwise they would be mere motions, such as are performed by automatons and images.  The deed or work, then, viewed in itself, is nothing but an effect, which derives its soul and life from the will and thought from which it is performed; and so completely is this the case that the deed or work is the will and thought in their effect, and is, consequently, the will and thought in their external form.  It hence follows, that such as are, in quality, the will and thought which produce the deed or work, such, also, is the deed or work itself; and that if the thought and will are good the deeds or works are good; and if the thought and will are evil the deeds and works are evil, notwithstanding in their external form they appear like the former.

To sum up the truths concerning man’s state after death, I will say, first:  that man, after death, is his own love, or his own will; secondly:  that, in quality, man remains to eternity, such as he is with respect to his will or governing love; thirdly:  that the man whose love is celestial and spiritual goes to heaven, but that the man whose love is corporeal and worldly, destitute of such as is celestial and spiritual, goes to hell; fourthly:  that faith does not remain with man, if not grounded in heavenly love; fifthly:  that what remains with man is love in act, consequently his life.

III.—­OF HELL

When treating above respecting heaven, it has everywhere been shown, that the Lord is the God of heaven, and thus that the whole government of the heavens is that of the Lord.  Now as the relation which heaven bears to hell, and that which hell bears to heaven, is such as exists between two opposites, which mutually act against each other, and the result of whose action and reaction is a state of equilibrium, in which all things may subsist, therefore, in order that all and everything should be maintained in equilibrium, it is necessary that he who governs the one should also govern the other.  For unless the same ruler were to restrain the assaults made by the hells, and to keep down the insanities which rage in them, the equilibrium would be destroyed, and with it the whole universe.

It is this spiritual equilibrium that causes man to enjoy freedom in thinking and willing.  For whatever a man thinks and wills has reference either to evil and the falsity proceeding from it, or to good and the truth which comes from that source:  consequently, when he is placed in that equilibrium he enjoys the liberty of either, admitting and receiving evil and its falsity from hell, or good in its truth from heaven.  Every man is maintained in this equilibrium by the Lord, because he governs both—­heaven as well as hell.

Hell, like heaven, is divided into societies; and every society in heaven has a society opposite to it in hell; which is provided for the preservation of the equilibrium.