2305. When any soul or any spirit comes amongst others, there are forthwith many who are carried away by a desire of examining [him] and of knowing what his quality is, therefore they examine him in various manners; then, also, there are many who scarcely think of anything else than to find something of evil, to rush out, chastise, and punish; such is the ardor by which many are carried away, so that they are, as it were, torturers, although in the life of the body no such thing is heard of by them. Then when they examine, the Lord permits only that which [is made up] of their ideas, and in their ideas, to come forth that pleases Him for if all the evil and filthy things which belong to ideas, and are in ideas, should come forth, they could never subsist, but would be, as it were, mangled by swift dogs. Thus the Lord, of these things that are made up of ideas, and are in ideas, permits only those to come forth which are to be reformed, and which are not reformable without the punishment of vastation. Wherefore all permissions, punishments, and species of vastation are for the sake of good. - 1748, June 12.