man as of himself removes evil in his external man._
For what is from the will enters man, is appropriated to him, and becomes
part of his life, and in that life, which is man's from the will, evil
and good cannot exist together, for so he would perish. The two may,
however, be in the understanding, where they are called falsities of evil
and truths of good, and without being mingled; else man could not behold
evil from good or know good from evil; but there they are distinguishable
and separated like the inner and outer sections of a house. When a wicked
man thinks and speaks what is good, he is thinking and speaking
externally to himself, but inwardly when he thinks and speaks what is
evil; his speech, therefore, when he speaks what is good, comes off a
wall, as it were. It can be likened to fruit fair outside but wormy and
decayed inside, or to the shell, especially, of a serpent's egg.

[10] 6. _Should the will welcome truths sooner or in larger measure, it
would adulterate good and the understanding would falsify truth by
mingling them with evils and falsities._ When the will is in evil, it
adulterates good in the understanding, and good adulterated in the
understanding is evil in the will, for it confirms that evil is good and
good is evil. So evil deals with all good, which is its opposite. Evil
also falsifies truth, for truth of good is the opposite of the falsity of
evil; this is done in the understanding by the will, and not by the
understanding alone. Adulterations of good are depicted in the Word by
adulteries and falsifications of truth by whoredoms. These adulterations
and falsifications are effected by reasonings from the natural man which
is in evil, and also by confirmations of appearances in the sense of the
letter of the Word.

[11] The love of self, the head of all evils, surpasses other loves in
the ability to adulterate goods and falsify truths, and it does this by
misuse of the rationality which every man, wicked as well as good, enjoys
from the Lord. By confirmations it can in fact make evil look exactly
like good and falsity like truth. What can it not do when it can prove by
a thousand arguments that nature created itself and then created human
beings, animals and plants of every kind, and also prove that by influx
from within itself nature causes men to live, to think analytically and
to understand wisely? Self-love excels in ability to prove whatever it
desires because a certain glamour of v