11. I have talked with the angels on the subject that man ought to compel himself to do good against his own lusts, and that he ought to compel himself to believe truths contrary to his own opinions; but that he should not be compelled to do so. They told me that self-compulsion is a mark of freedom, because it springs from an interior affection, and that to be compelled is not from freedom, but is from an exterior force. Miracles, they said, are not means of self-compulsion, for by them a man is compelled from without.