316. * One's own prudence persuades and confirms the idea that all good and truth originate from and are in man, because man's own prudence is his intellectual proprium flowing in from the love of self, which is his voluntary proprium; and the proprium cannot do otherwise than make all things its own, for it cannot be elevated above that idea. All who are led by the Divine Providence of the Lord are elevated above their proprium and then they see that all good and truth are from the Lord; indeed, they even see that what is in man originating from the Lord is always the Lord's and never man's. He who believes otherwise is like one who, having his master's goods deposited with him, claims them for himself or appropriates them as his own. Such a man is not a steward but a thief; and as man's proprium is only evil he immerses those goods in his evil, whereby they are destroyed like pearls cast upon a dung heap or into an acid solution. * This numbering follows the Original Edition.