1742. Give me the souls, and the property take for yourself, means to give [evil spirits] their lives and they would ignore the rest. This can be seen from the symbolism of a soul as life, as discussed earlier, in §§1000, 1005, 1040; and from the symbolism of property as the rest, which is not strictly speaking alive (or not as much so), discussed just below.

[2] The life that evil spirits have and desperately love is a life consisting in the urges of self-love and materialism. So it is a life of hatred, revenge, and cruelty. No other kind of life offers any joy, they believe. They resemble humans, since they once were human; and from their former life as humans they retain this belief that all life consists in the joy of such wicked urges. They remain wholly convinced that such a life is the only life, and that if they lose it they will be obliterated. The nature of the life these people love can be seen from their existence in the other world, where it turns into something that resembles reeking excrement. Amazingly, they perceive the stench to be an extremely pleasant fragrance, as shown by the personal experiences related in §§820, 954.

[3] They act like the demons that the Lord was casting out of a madman, who in terror for their lives begged him to send them into some pigs (Mark 5:7-13). These demons had been sordid misers during bodily life, as can be seen from the fact that in the other life they seem to themselves to spend their lives among pigs. The life of a pig corresponds to greed, which makes such a life pleasing to them, as indicated by the experience related in §939.

1040. The symbolism of and every living soul that is with you as everything in us that has been reborn can be seen from the symbolism of a living soul, discussed above at verse 10 [§1026].

In the Word, a soul symbolizes all life, both our inner life and our outer life, as I have said [§§1000, 1005]. It symbolizes the life in animals as well, for the reason that animals symbolize human traits. Strictly speaking, however, a living soul means something that receives life from the Lord, or in other words, something that has been regenerated, since only something regenerate is alive. And because a soul symbolizes both our inner and our outer life, a living soul symbolizes the whole range of attributes that have been reborn in us.

We have inside us properties of will and properties of intellect, which are quite distinct from each other. Every single effect of those properties is alive in a person who is alive.

[2] This is the situation: Whatever we ourselves are like, that is what everything in us is like. Life itself as a general force is present in every single element in us, because out of individual elements — specifics, so to speak — rises a general whole. Otherwise no general whole could possibly exist, since a thing is called general because it is made up of specifics. The quality of our life in general, then, determines the quality of our life in particular and even in the most specific details of all. This includes the details both of our efforts and intentions (our will) and of our thinking. As a result, not the least scintilla of an idea can possibly exist that does not contain the same type of vital force.

Those who are arrogant, for example, display arrogance in each and every thrust of their will and in each and every conception of their thought. Those who are greedy display greed in the same way; those who nurse hatred for their neighbor, likewise. Again, those who are stupid display stupidity in all the particulars of their will and in all the particulars of their thought, while those who are insane display insanity.

As this is what people are like, just a single item of our thought allows others in the next life to recognize our character.

[3] When we are regenerate, every single thing in us is regenerate, or in other words, has life. Indeed it has life just to the extent that our self-will, which is unclean and dead, has been able to be separated from the new will and intellect that the Lord gives us. So since the present verse is speaking of people who have been reborn, the living soul symbolizes everything in them that has been reborn — to put it generally, the contents of their intellect and will, on both deeper and shallower planes. Verse 10. above uses the words bird and beast and the words wild animal of the earth to stand for these things, since it says, "I am setting up my pact with every living soul: bird, beast, and wild animal of the earth."