45. This was how people who lived in most ancient times envisaged matters of the understanding and those of the will. Among the Prophets therefore, and consistently throughout the Old Testament Word, like matters are represented by various kinds of living creatures. There are two kinds of beasts - evil ones, because they are harmful, and good ones, because they are gentle. Evil [and harmful] things in man were meant by such beasts as bears, wolves, and dogs, while good and gentle things were meant by beasts such as calves, sheep, and lambs. As the subject here is those persons who are to be regenerated, 'the beasts' are good and gentle ones, which mean affections. Things of a baser nature that derive from the body are called 'wild animals of the earth'. These are desires and pleasures.

2307. I have spoken to angels about young children, whether these are free from evils since no evil of their own doing clings to them as it does to adults. But I have been told that they are just as much immersed in evil; indeed that they too are nothing but evil, but that as with all angels they are withheld from evil and maintained by the Lord in good, so much so that it seems to them as though they abode in good from themselves. This also is why, after young children have become adult in heaven, they are sometimes allowed to return to their evils which they acquired by heredity - lest any false notion should exist in them that good with them is derived from themselves and not from the Lord; and they are left immersed in those evils until they come to know, acknowledge, and believe that the truth is as has just been indicated. A certain person also who had died as a young child but who had grown up in heaven possessed a similar notion and was therefore taken back to the life of evils that was innate within him. At this point I was given to perceive from his sphere that he had an inclination to dominate others and that he thought nothing of lustful acts, which were evils that he possessed by heredity from his parents. But after he acknowledged that such was his character he was received back again among the angels with whom he had been previously.