The Doctrine of the Proprium

We have pointed out that proprium first arises when an infant becomes aware of himself. Before that happens he can have no appearance of self-life and no love of self. Without self-love he cannot be tempted, and the hells can exert no power over him. Only when he discovers that there is a will other than his own, a will that ought to be obeyed, does he become aware of his own will. Insistence upon his own will in opposition to the will of the mother initiates the claim that his life is his own, and the denial that it is a gift from one to whom he owes allegiance. Into this conscious love of self the hells inflow, producing the evil proprium, which contains within itself the denial of God and the source of all that is evil.

Of course, the infant has no idea of God; but the one to whom he owes allegiance is the mother, whose will is to him the will of the Lord. At the same time, the infant discovers the delights that arise from obeying the will of the mother. These delights inflow from heaven, and because the infant feels them as his own they constitute a heavenly proprium. They are the source of all love and charity, gratitude and loyalty, all sense of duty and all delight of use to others. They are the origin of all trust and confidence, security and peace, under the protection of the Divine Providence, which at this time is personified by the parents, and especially by the mother. When the child realizes these delights, in contrast to those which produce disapproval and punishment, he fears to lose them, and this fear is the beginning of conscience.

But the proprium that arises in early infancy, and that is characteristic of childhood and youth, is not at all the same as the proprium that belongs to adult age. It is very important for us to know the difference between them, a difference that frequently does not appear in the literal statements of the Writings, from which we may derive a mistaken idea of what the proprium really is. Before adult age is reached it is impossible for anyone to perceive otherwise than that both the evil proprium and the heavenly proprium are his very own. To every child, therefore, and to every youth, the unavoidable appearance is that he has two opposite selves. He cannot help taking credit for being good, feeling proud of whatever he accomplishes; nor can he avoid feeling that every impulse to evil is his own will, his very self : this because the affections that inflow from spirits and angels are perceived as if they originated in himself.

Every child comes alternately under the influence of angels and of evil spirits. Both cannot affect him at the same time. When one is dominant the other withdraws, and the child is swept along on the current of whichever emotion is strongest at any given moment. Whichever dominates appears to be his very life, in which is all joy and all delight. To lose this is to be deprived of everything that makes life worth living. That is why the crises in a child's life are so tragic, and why the moments of happiness are so ecstatic. He has no perspective of time, no basis for comparison with anything else. He cannot see beyond the present moment, and he can think only in the light of the love that is active at the time, and thus only in favor of whatever he wants.

Because of this, there is in the proprium of childhood and youth, a certain innocence. He cannot be blamed for being self-centered because he cannot help it. He can be told that the impulse to evil comes from evil spirits, and that the delights of love and charity are a gift of the angels, but he cannot really comprehend this; yet the inner truth is that both the impulse to evil and the impulse to good are imposed upon him, insinuated into him, the one from hell and the other from heaven. He is not really responsible for either of them.

Furthermore, because a child has as yet no sense of values and no basis of comparison he is incapable of rational judgment. He is dependent upon adults to judge for him, to protect him from dangers which he cannot foresee, and to withdraw him from the pressures of loves which he himself cannot possibly resist. When a child wants to do something that is wrong, something that a parent knows is dangerous or harmful to him, he must be deterred, and thus protected. Sometimes this can be done by distracting his attention, by introducing him to some other delight that is harmless, or by gentle leading through an appeal to his affection for the parent. But when the urge of self-will is too strong to be turned aside in this way, some form of punishment is necessary to break the hold of evil spirits and change the child's state before instruction and leading can become effective.

The fact that children are dependent upon adults for this kind of protection explains why it is that the pull of hereditary evil always appears to be stronger and more persistent than the tendency to do what is right. Proprial loves are roused by the child's personal experience, and seem to have no relation to other people. They are his own idea. But these loves are challenged by parents, and the child is recalled to the delights of remains by what the parents say and do. For this reason, at the moment these heavenly delights do not appear to the child as his very own. Indeed, as the child advances in age and achieves a greater sense of independence, the doubt increases in his mind as to whether these heavenly things are really his own, whether they are what he himself really loves, or are merely what other people want him to love. It follows that as he becomes less dependent upon parents and teachers, self-will becomes stronger, bolder, more assertive, while the influence of heavenly remains grows less. This is the appearance; but the fact remains that in states of innocence, when the child is not conscious of any pressure from others, he feels the delight of remains as his own, just as fully as he feels the delights of self-love.

This accounts for the high idealism that is characteristic of childhood and youth. The sense of fair play, of justice, of honor, of loyalty, friendship and gratitude is seemingly spontaneous with young people. It is utterly sincere and wholehearted. This is proof positive that the Lord provides remains that are just as strong as are proprial delights. If this were not so, the child could never be induced to forsake the proprial delights in order to return to the delights of remains. In fact, the function of the parent or the teacher is to restore this balance when it has been temporarily destroyed by some selfish passion. This is done by recalling to the child's memory the delights he had enjoyed when he had felt the approval of the parent, and by instilling the fear lest these delights be lost. This stirring of conscience stimulates a longing to recapture these delights, which would not be felt unless those delights had a powerful hold upon the mind.

The nature of proprium in childhood and youth is determined by the conditions under which he lives. The heavenly proprium consists of affections insinuated by the angels and good spirits present with him. They inflow into states of innocence, or states of willingness to be taught and led. Their influence is perceived as love for parents and teachers, charity toward companions, feelings of gratitude, friendship, loyalty, etc. But these affections can be felt only in terms of the mores in which the child is brought up, and in accord with the teaching he receives concerning what is true and right. If the moral and religious standards of the family and the community in which he is nurtured are high, and if the religious principles with which he is imbued are in harmony with the truth, he will acquire a genuine consciences by which the power of heavenly remains will be greatly increased. But if the opposite is the case, the child cannot avoid mistaking false principles of belief and false standards of conduct for what is true. He cannot help developing habits, both of thought and action, that are contrary to the order of heaven, and into which the 'angels cannot inflow. They can affect him only through the innocence with which he accepts these things. The fact that his external mind is molded into a form of disorder and of error limits the power and the influence of remains. That is why, as we are taught, one can acquire an evil proprium through no fault of his own, and this in addition to the tendency to evil into which he was born. Concerning this we read :

"Evils with man have many origins; the first is from inheritance by continual derivations from grandparents, and great-grandparents, into the father, and from the father in whom the evils are thus accumulated, to one's self. The second origin is from what is acquired, that is what a man acquires to himself by a life of evil. This evil he receives in part by inheritance ... and carries into act; and in part he adds thereto many things of himself. From that comes the proprium which man acquires for himself. But this actual evil which man makes his proprium, has also various origins—in general two: one, that he receives evil from others through no fault of his own; and the other, that he receives it of his own accord, thus through his own fault."  (AC 4171)

However, the reverse of this is equally true; namely, that children can be imbued with habits of  thought and action which are in accord with the order of heaven, and thereby acquire a heavenly proprium, again through no merit or determination of their own. The distinguishing characteristic of the proprium that belongs to childhood and youth is, then, that it is borrowed, imposed from without, and qualified by the instruction and training he receives from adults. It is impossible for a child or youth to acquire a proprium for which he himself is really responsible : this because he cannot reflect upon what comes to him from his environment, but merely reacts to it spontaneously. He cannot distinguish truth from falsity, or good from evil, except on the basis of what he is taught. He cannot be blamed for the errors into which he is led by parents and teachers; and for that reason, even his evil proprium is excusable and is protected from condemnation by the innocence of ignorance. On the other hand, because he cannot help thinking of the heavenly affections that inflow as his very own, they are contaminated by a sense of merit, and interiorly look to self. Thus, in the sight of the Lord, they are not really good. They are merely a means of preparing him to receive what is truly good when adult age is reached. What is truly good must be received immediately from the Word, and thus from the Lord; and the fact that it comes from the Lord, and is not one's own, must be acknowledged from the heart. Concerning this we read:

"It is known that man cannot be regenerated until adult age, because he then for the first time has the full exercise of reason and judgment, and thus can receive good and truth from the Lord. Before he comes into this state he is being prepared by the Lord, by such things being insinuated into him as may serve him as ground for receiving the seeds of good and truth, which are the many states of innocence and charity, and also the knowledges of good and truth, and the thoughts derived from them. This preparation is going on for some years before regeneration commences. When man has been imbued with these things, and is thus prepared, his state is then said to be full, for his interiors are then disposed for receiving. All those things with which a man is endowed by the Lord before regeneration, and by means of which he is regenerated, are called 'remains'.” (AC 2536 See also AC 10225)

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