489. IX. THAT ADULTERIES COMMITTED BY THESE ARE IMPUTABLE ACCORDING AS THE UNDERSTANDING AFTERWARDS DOES OR DOES NOT FAVOR THEM. So far as his understanding favors evils, man appropriates them to himself and makes them his own. Favor is consent, and consent induces on the mind a state of love of them. It is the same with those adulteries which in the beginning were committed without the consent of the understanding, and are afterwards favored. The contrary is the case if they are not afterwards favored. The reason is, because evils or adulteries committed during blindness of the understanding are committed from the concupiscence of the body, and in likeness these approach to instincts such as beasts have. With man, the understanding is indeed present when they are committed, but present in passive or dead force and not in active or living force. From this it follows of itself that such adulteries are [imputed or] not imputed in the degree that they are afterwards favored or not favored. By imputation is here meant accusation after death and thence adjudication; this is made according to the state of the man's spirit. Accusation by a man before a judge is not meant; this is not made according to the state of his spirit but according to that of his body in the deed. If the two states were not different, then after death those would be absolved who are absolved in the world, and those would be condemned who are condemned in the world, and thus, for the latter there would be no hope of salvation.