38. Verse 18 And to have dominion over the day and the night, and to make a distinction between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

'The day' is used to mean good, and 'the night' evil. Consequently goods are called 'the works of the day', whereas evils are called 'the works of the night'. 'The light' is used to mean truth, and 'the darkness' falsity, just as the Lord says,

Men preferred darkness rather than light; he who does the truth comes to the light. John 3:19-21.

Verse 19 And there was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

202. 17. The offspring born of couples who are in a state of truly conjugial love derive from their parents a conjugial connection between good and truth, from which they have an inclination and faculty, if a son, to perceive matters having do to with wisdom, if a daughter, to love the things that wisdom teaches. Everyone knows from historical accounts in general and their own observations in particular that children inherit from their parents tendencies to the same kinds of things as had been connected with their parents' love and mode of life. However, they do not inherit or have transmitted to them the parents' actual affections or resulting modes of life, but only tendencies to these and also capacities for them (a point convincingly shown by some of the wise in the spiritual world, as reported in two narrative accounts presented above ¹ ).

[2] Evidence that descendants are drawn by hereditary inclinations into affections, thoughts, ways of speaking, and modes of life similar to those of their parents - if they do not break themselves of those inclinations - is clearly apparent from the Jewish nation today and its close similarity to that nation's ancestors in Egypt, in the desert, in the land of Canaan, and at the time of the Lord. It is apparent, moreover, not only from the close similarity in their minds, but also in their faces. Who does not recognize a Jew by his looks?

It is the same with other lines of descent. One may legitimately conclude from this that people are born with inclinations to similar things as their parents and that these inclinations are hereditary.

However, to keep actual thoughts and deeds from ensuing, it is Divinely provided that corrupt inclinations may be rectified, and that a capacity for this is also implanted. Resulting from this capacity are an ability and power in people to mend their habits, under the direction of parents and teachers, and afterwards by themselves when they come into their own right and judgment.

Footnotes: