4569. CONCERNING FREEDOM. In order that I might know that man's life consists in freedom, because freedom is of affection, I was once on a time brought into coercion, to wit, into such a state that I could not act from freedom, but [only] from coercion. This was insinuated in the thought. Then the angels said that I have no life; for they are able to see the quantity and quality of the life that is with man. Hence it was plain to me, that life consists in freedom, and, that, in proportion to the deficiency of life is the amount of coercion, consequently, that man cannot receive the new life, that is, be regenerated, except in freedom - in order, that is, that it [the new life] may be of his own affection, and of an affection akin to that, which is not possible unless the evils which constitute an opposite freedom are removed.