2438. THAT EVIL PUNISHES ITSELF. This was often said to spirits, that it is they who bring evil upon themselves, when they are punished and harshly treated by other spirits, and that evil has punishment in or with itself; and because the evil of punishment as punishment came from others, [and] not from themselves, they therefore wondered how the matter stood. I now perceive in some degree from a spiritual idea that evil diffuses itself through many who are around, thus into the whole heaven of the wicked, who are then excited to inflict punishment; for their greatest cupidity and greatest delight is to punish: wherefore then flows from the general [communi] assemblage of the wicked such delight from cupidity into a fewer [number] and thus into those who maltreat him in whom is evil: thus evil returns to him by a wonderful circuit of flux of determination: to him because he possesses the evil, and it is turned into the evil of punishment. Because this cannot be apparent, unless the Lord reveals [it], and therefore [must be apparent] through spiritual ideas, therefore it cannot easily be apparent to man how the matter stands.