422. 'Some people are indeed to be forgiven for ascribing some of what they see to nature, because they have known nothing about the sun of the spiritual world, in which the Lord is, and the influence which comes from it; nor anything about that world and conditions there, or even its presence with human beings. As a result they have been unable to think otherwise than that the spiritual is a purer kind of the natural, and so that angels must live in the ether or in the stars. Again they know nothing about the devil, thinking either that he is a person's evil, or if he really came into existence, he would live in the air or in the depths. They believed that after death men's souls were either in the bowels of the earth, or in somewhere called Pu,* awaiting the day of judgment, and other similar beliefs which their imagination supplied as the result of their ignorance of the spiritual world and its sun. This is why those are to be forgiven who have believed that nature produces what is to be seen by an ability implanted in it from creation. But still those are not to be forgiven who have become atheists by seeking proofs in favour of nature, because they could have convinced themselves in favour of the Divine. Ignorance may certainly excuse, but it does not remove a false idea which has been confirmed, for this falsity is inseparable from evil, and evil is inseparable from hell." * Literally, 'in some Pu or where.' Pu is the Greek word for 'where'. See 29 above.