Upon no single subject is he more explicit in his teachings, than upon the unchangeable state of the wicked in the other world, and the consequent eternity of the hells. The extracts in the preceding chapter furnish sufficient evidence of this. And although this question, like all others concerning the life beyond the grave, is one to be settled mainly by the light of revelation, yet revelation rightly understood will ever be found in agreement with the highest reason. Let us, then, examine Swedenborg's teaching on this subject in the light of reason and of that comprehensive system of spiritual philosophy which his own writings furnish.
Consider, first, what takes place with the evil in this world;—and by the evil I mean all those who act, not from principle, or from any regard to what in itself is just and right, but from purely selfish considerations. We know that the love of self is strengthened by being indulged; and weakened only as its cravings are denied. Like every other faculty and propensity, it acquires strength by exercise. The more it is allowed to have complete sway, and to outwork itself in all the multifarious forms of villany—such as falsehood, fraud, theft, adultery, murder—the more hardened does the soul become, the more benumbed its sensibilities, the dimmer its perceptions and the feebler its desire for whatever is true and just and right in itself. Let a person go on cheating and defrauding from month to month and year to year, and he will find himself steadily growing more
