This I say
from having perceived it.
{Footnote 1} In the Word a "lamb" signifies innocence and its
good. (n. 3994, 10132).
283. Everyone who is in the good of innocence is affected by
innocence, and is affected to the extent that he is in that good; but
those who are not in the good of innocence are not affected by
innocence. For this reason all who are in hell are wholly
antagonistic to innocence; they do not know what it is; their
antagonism is such that so far as any one is innocent they burn to do
him mischief; therefore they cannot bear to see little children; and
as soon as they see them they are inflamed with a cruel desire to do
them harm. From this it is clear that what is man's own, and
therefore the love of self, is antagonistic to innocence; for all who
are in hell are in what is their own, and therefore in the love of
self.{1}
{Footnote 1} What is man's own is loving self more than God,
and the world more than heaven, and making one's neighbor of no
account as compared with oneself; thus it is the love of self
and of the world (n. 694, 731, 4317, 5660). The evil are wholly
antagonistic to innocence, even to the extent that they cannot
endure its presence (n.
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