659. The reason no evil a person thinks is imputed to him is that man is so created that he can understand and so think about good or evil, the good coming from the Lord, the evil from hell. Man is placed in the middle, with the power to choose one or the other by reason of his free will in spiritual matters, a matter already discussed in the chapter on that subject. Since he has freedom to choose, he can will a thing or not will it. What he wills is received by the will and made its own; what he does not will is not received and so is not made its own. All the evils to which a person tends from birth are written upon the will of his natural man. To the extent that he draws upon these evils, they flow into his thoughts. Likewise good things together with truths flow down into his thoughts from the Lord, and there they are balanced, like weights on the pans of a pair of scales, If a person then takes to himself evils, they are received by his old will and added to the former ones. But if he takes to himself good things together with truths, the Lord forms a new will and a new understanding above the old one, and there the Lord plants new forms of good one after another by means of truths. By means of this good He overcomes the evils which are below and removes them, setting all in order. This also makes it plain that thought is the process which purifies and excretes the evils inherited from one's parents. If therefore the evils one thinks were to be imputed, reformation and regeneration would be impossible.