4563. THAT EVIL SPIRITS POSSESS RATIONALITY. I wondered that evil spirits, also, are able to perceive what is good and true and to be clearly convinced, even so as to confess it, that it is good and true, both moral and spiritual, and this according to the gift which they had possessed in the life of the body. Hence I supposed that they [who could do so] were good, or that they could become good. But, when they fell away from that state and returned into the life of evil, or into their nature, they were devils, and some of them amongst the worst: so that the faculty of knowing is something separate, by which they are able to perceive good and truth; and, because this is not conjoined with their evil life, it is, therefore, separated from them when they return into the life of evil. Hence it is, that the worst infernals are sometimes as well able to reason, yea, to produce truths, when in that state, as the good; but, still, they are infernal: as, for instance, Adam Lejel, who is amongst the worst infernals. Sometimes, he so inferred truths by deductions from natural things, that he was fully convinced; but, yet, he is amongst the worst of the infernals.