FOR IF OUR VIRTUES
NOT GO FOITOTH OF US,
"TWERE ALL ALIKE
AS IF WE HAB THIM NOT.

EX LIBRL

WILLIAM D-M TOKAY

.fur-Vie ftmnding cf 'a Cdltgt in. this Colony"

•YAiuE-wani^iasffinr-

DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

SWEDENBORG:
HARBINGER OF THE NEW AGE
OF
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
BY
BENJAMIN WORCESTER

PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1910

COPYRIGHT, I9IO, BY HORACE PARKER CHANDLER AND
JAMES EVERETT YOUNG
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him ;
neither can he know them, because they are spirit
ually discerned.
i Corinthians ii, 14.
Behold, I make all things new.
Revelation xxi, 5.

NOTE
This small work, while it may sevve as a brief
but compendious biography of the man Sweden-
borg, has the higher purpose to show how at the
culmination of the desolation of the Church of
our Lord, foretold by Him, He Himself by the
orderly enlightening of the mind of one of His
servants has provided for the enlightening of the
many as to His Divine purpose and presence in
His Holy Word — whereby His face may now
again be seen in the clouds of the misinterpreted
letter. Those who desire more particulars about Swe-
denborg himself may find them in the author's
"Life and Mission of Emanuel Swedenborg"
(J. B. Lippincott Company), and in the three
large volumes of Documents by R. L. Tafel
(Swedenborg Society, London).

CONTENTS,
I. The Consummation of the Age . . i
II. Emanuel Swedenborg : Parentage and
Early Life  23
III. Scientific Pursuits at Home ... 46
IV. Further Studies and Publications
Abroad  75
V. Continued Study of the Body in
Search of the Soul  106
VI. Continued Study of the Animal
Kingdom : Spiritual Experience . 137
VII. Opening of Spiritual Sight : Unfold
ing of the Word  165
VIII. " The Apocalypse Explained " and
Other Works  189
IX. Manner of Life in Later Period . 209
X. Later Period of Life: Conclusion . 249
Index  287

SWEDENBORG
HARBINGER OF THE NEW AGE
I
the consummation of the age
The Christian Church recognizes that it is
entering upon a new stage of life, with promise
of a freer, more spiritual, and more beneficent
existence than it has yet known. Of the imme
diate cause of this new development, and of its
place in fulfilment of the predictions of our Lord,
the Church at large has little or nothing to say.
Only in the inner content of these predictions,
as unfolded by Swedenborg, is the light now break
ing from the east even unto the west plainly seen
to be that of the Lord's Second Coming, with
His Holy Spirit, calling all things to our remem
brance whatsoever He has said unto us and guid
ing us into all truth. For clearer apprehension of
this epoch in men's spiritual development let us
take a rapid glance, approximately from Sweden-

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
borg's own point of view, over the course of this
development from its inception.
Our highest conception of the Creator is of
Infinite Love, Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Power.
Man's creation into the Divine image and like
ness means therefore the form and capacity with
which he is endowed to receive and live his meas
ure of this Love, Wisdom, and Power. For the
basis of his existence he has a material, animal
nature, with its instincts and inflow of life from
the Only Life. For development into the image
and likeness of the Creator he has an inner or
ganism, consisting of heart to receive and give
forth love and of understanding to receive and
utter wisdom, with liberty and power to act there
from. The handmaid of the understanding is ob
servation, the master of the house is reason —
the power of collating ideas and drawing con
clusions. To the handmaid the universe unfolds
itself in which as in a mirror may be seen the
Divine purpose, creating an infinity of organisms
for mutual ever-ascending service, with man him
self at the head, anointed with the high mission
to aspire to the Divine image, and to accept the
Divine will for his own. But the fulfilling of this

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
mission depends on his accepting with heart and
reason the Divine guidance, which at all times and
under all conditions is provided in such form as
can be in freedom accepted — in the " still small
voice," in inspired words, or in portentous signs.
It is the accumulation of these revealings of
the Divine will that has come down to us in our
Holy Scriptures, in which we recognize the Pur
pose or Word of God in adaptation to the various
states and conditions of men. This Word, or
revelation of the Divine will, is given in man's
own language and form of thought, even as our
Lord Himself gave it to the people in parable.
But in coming forth through heaven into man's
thought and speech, the Word does not lose its
Divine content. It simply embodies this in corre
sponding forms of lower degree. Thus this written
Word is the foot of a ladder on which man and
angel may ascend in thought into the presence of
its Giver. Under this recognition of the spiritual
and Divine content of the Scriptures incongruities
in the letter are easily referable to human crudi
ties of thought. Within, all is compatible with
the infinite wisdom and love of Him whose will it
reveals, full of instruction for angels and men.
3

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
The first chapter of the Book of Genesis sets
forth in terms a child may in his manner appre
hend the order of the Divine process of creation.
Of this order the first element is the outgoing of
the Divine life through successive degrees of spir
itual and material substance that it creates, of
less and less, even to least life. In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth. In the out
most, least living substance created there is yet
a certain power of reaction, born of its very inert
ness. And the second element of the Divine order
of creation is that out of this first, simple, least-
living recipient through its reaction are evolved
by regular — we say natural — process higher,
more complex, and more living recipients, to re
ceive higher or inner degrees of life from the
One Source. The third element of this order is
that this advance is made stage by stage, day
after day, evening being the womb of the new
morning. Evening was and morning was one day.
This involves the decline of each successive stage
after serving its purpose and maturing the germ
for a new stage. Thus one generation of life gives
way to its successor. The corn of wheat falls to
the ground and dies in bringing forth a new
4

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
plant, in which in new form its life is continued.
The leaf falls after having formed in its axil the
bud for a new shoot, and in decaying furnishes
food for the new growth. Last in order, we learn
that man in the image and likeness of his Crea
tor is the first and final purpose in all creation.
How beautifully this order was followed in the
creation of the earth and its inhabitants is known
to the geologist, even as summarized in the rec
ord of Genesis up to the first presentation of
man in the Divine image and likeness. And a
deeper, higher fulfilment of the same order is
found by Swedenborg in the evolution of the spir
itual man into this image and likeness, out of the
mind formless and void of the mere animal man
— represented by the formless and empty earth
enshrouded in darkness. And again in the same
record is found the order of evolution of the spir
itual man out of the natural to all time.
Of the primeval man we can know little. He
left no records, no tradition. Of the regenerated
heavenly but infantile race represented by Adam
and Eve, first reproducing in infantile manner the
Divine image and implanting in the inmost con
sciousness of mankind a foregleam of the condi-
5

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
tion to which it should in the end attain, Sweden
borg learned much in the other world, quite in
accordance with our traditions of the Golden Age.
With this called by him the Most Ancient Church
the history of man begins, though in scarce other
than mythical form. Of the immediate revelation
to it of the Divine will we have intimation in the
voice of the Lord God heard by Adam. Of its
duration we know nothing, but may conjecture it
to have equalled all recorded time. Of its decline,
due to the growing child desire to taste and
choose for himself what to call good, we have
symbolized record in the following of the ser
pent's counsel and in the decadent generations of
Adam. The moral and spiritual desolation at the
end of this first church swamped by accumulating
falsities is represented by the flood, out of which
was Divinely rescued the germ for a new devel
opment under the name of Noah [Rest].
The men of this succeeding age, called by
Swedenborg the Ancient Church, though no
longer to be led by the angels of infancy who do
always behold the face of the Father in heaven,
were yet willing to be instructed of heaven
through their wise men learned in ancient tradi-
6

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
tions. With growing power of thought and im
agination their successive generations developed
language, song, and art — notably that of build
ing — during thousands or myriads of years, over
all central and southwestern Asia and northeast
ern Africa. Of their religion, at first heaven-
derived and spiritual, we have remains in the
early Hebrew Scriptures and in the sacred books
of India, Persia, Egypt, and Turkestan. On the
remains of their language all our modern lan
guages are based. Of their prowess in building,
the rock-temples of India and the pyramids of
Egypt bear enduring witness, though of the period
of religious decadence. Of their art the remains
left in Greece by a late offshoot of the same
stock, are still unequalled by modern genius.
Grecian art and philosophy with Roman states
manship have furnished the basis of modern civ
ilization, as the Gospel of our Lord has furnished
the inspiration — even as we see exemplified in
the evolution of the heaven-aspiring Christian
cathedral. In the discriminating thought of this Ancient
Church at its best estate it distinguished and rev
erenced divers attributes of the Deity. In its de-
7

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
cadence these attributes were personified and
imaged, till in its downfall the images them
selves were worshipped and idolatry was becoming
universal. Then lest the knowledge of the One
God and of His laws of life should be lost from
the face of the earth, midway in both time and
space between the erection of the pyramids and
that of the Grecian temples, in the very centre of
civilization, a new race was planted, in the land
of Canaan — the old home perhaps of Adam and
Eve — a race of Shemitic, still Noachian stock,
a simple, nomadic race of unequalled persistence,
fitting them to receive and preserve in integrity
a new revelation of the Creator and His laws in
concrete form — even graven in stone. These
laws accompanied by many ritual statutes, with
remains of the earlier Scriptural records, with the
true yet symbolic history of this people, with
their songs of prayer and praise, with prophecy
from beginning to end of the coming of the Mes
siah who should bring dire judgment on their
nation for their sins while bringing eternal salva
tion to those who would accept His redemption —
all this was the spiritual legacy of this Noachian
age to the ages to come. Says Schlegel —
8

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
"The significant brevity of the first pages of
the Mosaic history involves much profound truth
for us in these later ages . . . did we but know
how to extract the simple sense with like sim
plicity. ... In general the whole tenor of the
Mosaic writings, like the existence of the Hebrew
nation, was formed for futurity. ... So the whole
Hebrew people may in a lofty sense be called
prophetic, and have been really so in their his
torical existence and destiny."1 "The Hebrew
tongue was eminently adapted to the high spirit
ual destination of the Hebrew people, and was a
fit organ of the prophetic revelation and promises
imparted to that nation." 2
The ever deplorable conduct of the Jewish lead
ers in crucifying Him who came to save them
ended the leadership of that church in the spiritual
development of mankind. But their traditions,
their Scriptures remained to become the frame
work of the new church of the Lord, itself the
prototype of the New Jerusalem, His final taber
nacle with men. And we are never to forget the
maternal service of the Hebrew Church for the
birth of its Lord into the world, first in the written
1 Philosophy of History, p. 120. 2 Ib. p. 250.
9

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Word and then in its fulfilment in the flesh, our
ever present Lord. The maternal office was not
more real materially than it was spiritually. It was
foretold to Eve with reference to her seed. It
was repeated to Abraham who rejoiced to see the
day coming. Its fulfilment was the theme of the
prophets and was voiced in the Psalms of David.
Abraham's obedience, repeated in Mary's Behold
the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me as thou
hast said, furnished the fit germ for the human life
of our Lord. And Mary said, My soul doth mag
nify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God,
my Saviour.
Our Lord's coming in the flesh bringing the
light of the Divine presence down among men
caused a judgment on those to whom the light
came, both in this world and in the world of spirits
where the evil were assaulting the gates of heaven
itself. His resistance to their assault upon His
human nature at the same time cast them down
in the spirit world to their home beneath, even as
He declared — I beheld Satan as lightning fallen
from heaven. But the Lord came not merely for
judgment. He came also for a light to enlighten
the Gentiles. The Gentiles were all people out-
IO

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
side of the Jewish race. And indeed it was among
these outside nations that His light was chiefly
accepted and His Church established, on the faith
that He was the Christ, the Son of the living
God. In Him at last was seen Man in the image
and likeness of God. He first did the will of the
Father on earth as it is done in heaven, therein
giving man the example for all time, abiding in
him and by His Holy Spirit giving him the will
to follow, as he will receive it. The world was
ripe for the beginning of this realization of what
living in the image and likeness of God might
mean, as is evident from its marvellous spread
during the early centuries; but only for the be
ginning. The young man thought he desired
eternal life, the life of the kingdom of heaven.
But when told to renounce all that he had of this
world, he was very sorrowful, for he had great
possessions. It was not difficult for the first dis
ciples to give up worldly possessions, of which
they had no great store — to forsake their nets
and follow their Lord. But for this they at once
asked what reward they should have in heaven,
and disputed among themselves which should
there be the greatest. Doubtless in this claim for

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
reward in His kingdom the Lord saw the tares
sown with the wheat and foresaw the sad end of
this first age of His Church. None knew so well
as He the slow and painful steps by which man
must be led out of the natural self-seeking life
of this world into the spiritual self -devoting life of
the Father's kingdom.
Man was yet but in early youth. A great step
was gained in teaching him to set his heart, not
on the riches and honors of earth where moth
and rust doth corrupt, but on the treasures in
heaven where neither moth nor rust doth cor
rupt and thieves do not break through nor steal.
The tares must be let alone until a riper age,
when their fruit should be manifest and the de
veloped reason should be ready to bind them in
bundles and burn them. But this acceptance of
the Gospel mainly through fear of torment or
hope of reward in heaven gave every opportunity
to self-seeking leaders for gaining control of their
converts to their own personal advantage. Re
taining the Gospel in their own hands, in a lan
guage which none but themselves could read,
they devised creeds and canons to maintain their
own supremacy. They took away the key of

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
knowledge. Entering not into the kingdom them
selves, them that would enter they hindered, all
to their own worldly gain.
Luther and his associates revolted from this
prostitution of the religion of our Lord, so graph
ically represented to John in vision as Babylon
the great adulteress. And in two centuries they
and their followers did much to restore a true
conception of the life of the kingdom and of the
duty of the Church. But in controverting the
error that heaven could be merited by undergoing
the penances and paying the tribute imposed by
the Church of Rome, substituting therefor be
lief only in the saving grace of Jesus Christ, Lu
ther went too far. To emphasize the distinction
between his Reformed Church and the Roman
Catholic, he declared charity and good works to
be of no avail for salvation.
In the Protestant wing of the Church belief
in the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ was the
only means of attaining heaven, and the con
demnation of all who had not this grace was
proclaimed with a severity equal to that of the
anathemas of the Church of Rome. Either wing
of the Lord's Church was ready to burn the
*3

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
other. The errors of both were sustained by a
fundamental misunderstanding of the Trinity,
which was unfortunately conceived as of distinct
persons with different attributes. The Father
was regarded as avenging justice and the Son
as loving mercy, by which He atoned for the
never-forgiven sin of Adam in taking upon Him
self the punishment of the cross, the Father ac
cepting the sacrifice so far as to pardon those
whom the Son should elect.
Thus darkened was the Sun of heaven. This
unreasonableness of doctrine and lack of Chris
tian charity, wars and massacres under the flag
of Christian faith, with the profligate luxury of
church officials in contrast with the desperate
poverty of the people, easily bred contempt for
religion at a time when by the art of printing
great strides had been made in popular education.
What wonder that atheism and deism were hav
ing their own way ! Religion and morality in the
eighteenth century were fast disappearing. The
judgment of the Christian Church in the view of
its sanest adherents was near at hand.
John Albert Bengel [d. 1752] said, "The doc
trine of the Holy Spirit is already gone ; that of
14

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
Christ is on the wane ; and that of the creation
hangs but by a slender thread. ... It is made
a part of politics so to act and speak as to leave
no trace of religion, God, and Christ." '
Dr. Dorner says, "The edifice of Lutheran
Christology had been for the most part already
forsaken by its inhabitants before 1750. . . . A
deistical atmosphere seemed to have settled upon
this generation, and to have cut it off from vital
communion with God." 2
Leibnitz in the earlier part of the century had
said, " The state to which we are approaching is
one of the signs by which will be recognized that
final war announced by Jesus Christ : Neverthe
less, when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find
faith on the earth ? " 3
Abbey and Overton say, " It was about the
middle of the century when irreligion and immo
rality reached their climax."4
In 1753 Sir John Barnard said, "At present
it really seems to be the fashion for a man to de-
1 Dr. J. S. DOrner: Hist. Prot. Theology, ii, 213.
2 Ib. ii, 274, 296.
s Palmer : The Church of Christ, i, 348.
1 English Church in Eighteenth Century, ii, 44.
IS

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
clare himself of no religion." And Archbishop
Lecker declared that immorality and irreligion
were grown almost beyond ecclesiastical power.1
In France it was if possible worse, and Carlyle
well says, " A century so opulent in accumulated
falsities . . . opulent in that bad way as never
century before was ! Which had no longer the con
sciousness of being false, so false had it grown ;
and was so steeped in falsity, and impregnated
with it to the very bone, that — in fact the meas
ure of the thing was full, and a French Revolution
had to end it." 2
"In Germany," says Schlegel, "during the
atheistic and revolutionary period of the French
philosophy, immediately prior to the French Rev
olution, as well as at its commencement, Chris
tianity and in fact all religion was regarded as a
mere prejudice of the infancy of the human mind,
totally destitute of foundation in truth, and no
longer adapted to the spirit of the age ; monarchy
and the whole civilization of modern Europe as
abuses no longer to be tolerated. It was only
when men had reached this extreme term of their
1 Abbey and Overton : op. cit. ii, 44.
2 Life of Frederick the Great, i, 11.
16

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
boasted enlightenment, that a reaction took place.
But prior to this, toward the middle of the eigh
teenth century, and in the ten years immediately
subsequent, the spirit of the age bore all before
it in its irresistible progress." '
This condition of the Christian Church in the
eighteenth century was plainly the abomination
of desolation foretold by the Lord as to come at
the consummation of the age [commonly but
erroneously rendered "the end of the world"],
when the Sun — the face of the Lord of heaven —
should be darkened, and the Moon — faith in
Him — should not give her light, and the stars
of heaven — all knowledge of Him and His will
— should fall from their places. Such it was rec
ognized to be by devout, distressed students of
the time, and the judgment foretold by our Lord
and foreseen in vision by John was perceived to
be at hand. By concurrent testimony it would
seem that the time was ripe for this judgment in
the middle of the eighteenth century. The judg
ment was not seen to come. But notably from
about that time a change came over the Christian
Church, and students of history ever since are
1 Op. cit. ii, 268.
17

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
marvelling, searching for the cause of the revivi
fication of the churches. A downward course
does not of itself turn into an upward course.
Satan does not let go his hold of man or race of
his own will. As in the first century, so in the
eighteenth, he could be cast down from his en
croachment on heaven by no less power than
that of the Son of God, the Word made flesh and
dwelling among us.
It was the sign of the Son of Man to be seen
again in the clouds of heaven that was to effect
the judgment. It was the Lion of the tribe of
Judah who alone could prevail to loose the seals
of the Book, at once the Book of the Word and
the Book of the judgment. The two prophecies
are one. In the written Word after the resurrec
tion, as in the flesh transfigured on the mount, the
Lord showed Himself to His disciples in glory,
Son of God in Son of Man. But in the succeeding
centuries, as we have seen, clouds of misinterpre
tation, the clouds of tri-personalism, of vicarious
atonement, and of salvation by faith alone, had
hidden His face from men's minds. The disper
sion of these clouds, the re-appearance of the face
— the grace and truth — of the Son of Man, even
18

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
in the letter of His written Word, was to effect
the judgment on the declining age of the Church
and reveal the dawning light of the new age.
Under this simple interpretation of the judg
ment we are to look for its effects in the clearing
of the spiritual atmosphere, in release of men's
minds from the bondage of perverted faith —
Peter girded by another and carried whither he
would not — and in increasing return to the
simple, heart-felt instruction of the Gospel. It
was the beloved disciple John who was to remain
till his Lord should come again, and to whom in
vision the spiritual judgment was portrayed —
John, who stands for the love of the Church in
good works, as Peter for its faith. And as among
the Jews at our Lord's first coming, so in the
midst of the desolation of the eighteenth century
there were not a few memorable examples of
God-fearing, self-denying, Samaritan lives. Into
this good heart coupled with trained intellect,
preserved as the germ for the new age, was re
ceived the first dawn of light, and in the marvel
lous spread of this light thus far we recognize
the certainty of the Lord's renewed presence in
His Church. Most strikingly is this shown in the
l9

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
new charity now prevailing between one sect of
the Church and another and between Christian
and pagan. Never before since the angels' song
was heard on the hills of Judea — Peace on earth
and good-will toward men — has its accomplish
ment seemed so near. Year by year, day by day
is the evidence accumulating that the crisis is
past and the new coming of our Lord begun, and
this dating from about the middle of the eigh
teenth century. But where and how was the vis
ion to John fulfilled ?
No one answers but Swedenborg, who in his
Apocalypsis Revelata describes the fulfilment,
clause by clause, of the whole of this vision —
not in this world, but in the vast spirit world,
where were gathered an innumerable multitude,
good and bad together, awaiting the judgment
that the new coming of the Lord in His Word
would effect. Were this conception of the judg
ment mere imagination, instead of the stern re
ality which Swedenborg affirms, how sublime !
Judgment of scores of generations in place of the
one or two possible on earth, without limit of
space or time ; judgment of the inner souls and
tenets of men there revealed ; overthrow of spirit
20

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE
heavens and earth, leaving this earth of ours to
bide its time ; angels without number bearing the
Divine light down to the overthrow of the prince
of darkness and all his satellites ! In truth the
spirit world alone could be fit theatre for the
fulfilment of the vision vouchsafed to John. But
on earth the seals of the Book were to be loosed
at the same time, for spirits in the flesh live always
in real though unseen communion with spirits
in the spirit world, and their thoughts are held in
common. In fact, with spirits as with men, spir
itual thought must have its ultimate basis in ma
terial thought. The letter of the Word of God is
human, even material, in form. The opening of its
inner, spiritual, heavenly, and Divine content can
be only by the Lord Himself by means of His
Holy Spirit in the suitably prepared mind of man.
Before He left their sight the Lord told His
disciples that He had many things to say to them,
but they could not bear them then. Howbeit when
He should come to them with His Holy Spirit He
would call all things to their remembrance what
soever He had said unto them and would guide
them into all truth. A special fulfilment of this
promise was given to these immediate disciples,
21

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
for their special vocation, but its larger, all-em
bracing fulfilment could not come till the new
revelation of His face in His Word, which was in
deed the same thing, and before which the Gospel
must first be preached unto all the nations. It
was by the opening of the heart to the Holy Spirit
that the revelation of the grace and truth in His
Word could be given.
The Word from Alpha to Omega is one. Only
the interpretation varies as gradually given with
man's developing capacity to receive. The ages
for infantile reception, for childhood instruction
and obedience, for blind reliance on priests and
their dogmas, had passed. The new light now
needed must explain the will of God and His provi
dence for man in a rational, intelligible way, not
as a substitute for faith, but as her handmaid,
for her ultimate support. It must be addressed to
the understanding and must therefore come, not
with authority to compel, but with light leading
into all truth, in accordance with our Lord's pro
mise. The mind to receive this new light in ful
ness must be trained in the learning and reason
of the world, and the heart must be open to the
Spirit. Where was it to be found ?

II

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG : PARENTAGE AND
EARLY LIFE
In the middle of the seventeenth century was
living an honest, God-fearing, and prosperous
miner named Daniel Isaksson, with his wife Anna,
daughter of a Swedish pastor, on his homestead
called Sweden, a hundred and twenty miles north
west from Stockholm. Grateful for the large
family Heaven sent them, Daniel would often say
at dinner, " Thank you, my children, for this meal,
for I have dined with you and not you with me :
God has given me food for your sakes." His sec
ond son Jesper, born in 1653, t0°k the name Swed-
berg from the homestead. Later, when for his
services to church and state his family was en
nobled, Jesper' s children received the name Swe
denborg, though the father himself retained the
name Swedberg. Inheriting his father's piety, on
being rescued in boyhood from imminent death
— caught under a mill-wheel — he resolved never
to forget either morning or evening to commit
23

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
himself to God's keeping and to the protection of
His holy angels.
Having received an excellent education at Upsal
and abroad, in 1685 Jesper Swedberg was or
dained and appointed first chaplain to the King's
regiment of Life Guards, later royal chaplain at
Stockholm. To the soldiers he taught the cate
chism and to King Charles XI he preached boldly
without fear or favor, yet so pleasing the King
that their Majesties stood as godfather and god
mother to one of his daughters. " Ask of me,"
said the King, " what you will and you shall have
it." But Swedberg, as he says, never asked the
least thing for himself or his family, using his in
fluence only for the appointment of faithful men
to office. For a time he was the beloved pastor of
a small parish, then on the King's insistence be
came Professor, and afterward Rector of the Uni
versity at Upsal. By the King's orders he prepared
and published, largely at his own expense, a re
vision of the Swedish Bible, which was however
suppressed by the jealousy of the clergy. At
Upsal where Emanuel passed his childhood Swed
berg during several professorships and as Dean
of the cathedral devoted himself to the well-being
24

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
of the students, and so successfully that he was
constantly cheered by their affection, and he could
say after his ten years' life with them that in all
that time the King had never received a single
bad report of them.
In 1703 this pleasant life at Upsal was inter
rupted, to Swedberg's entire surprise, by his re
ceiving from the young King Charles XII an
appointment as Bishop of Skara, whither he then
removed and settled at Brunsbo. He was now
fifty years old, and here he remained till his death
at eighty-two, never until the last few years
neglecting to officiate in public worship. He
preached indefatigably from the Gospels and the
Epistles, his sermons always flowing without any
straining from the text ; for, said he, " then God
recognizes His own Word." But though always
making the duties of his sacred office his chief
care, the good bishop was a devoted husband and
father. He had married in 1683 Sara Behm, of
good family, her father long holding the same
office later held by her son Emanuel, that of As
sessor in the College of Mines. By a previous
marriage to the then Dean of Upsal she had in
herited a considerable fortune, which later proved
25

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
of great assistance in the support of Bishop
Swedberg's family and in his numerous pub
lications. Jesper and Sara's first child was a son who died
in his twelfth year. Asked by his father what he
should do in heaven, he answered, "I shall pray
for my father and brothers and sisters." The sec
ond child was Anna, to whom and to her husband
Ericus Benzelius — in 1742 made Archbishop
of Sweden — Emanuel was always tenderly at
tached. He was the next child, born January 29,
1688, while his father was serving as royal chap
lain at Stockholm. Of the name given him his
father wrote in his autobiography, "I am fully
convinced that children ought to be given such
names as will awaken in them and call to their
minds the fear of God and everything that is
orderly and righteous. . . . The name of my son
Emanuel signifies God-with-us — that he may
always remember God's presence, and that inti
mate, holy, and mysterious conjunction with our
good and gracious God into which we are brought
by faith, by which we are conjoined with Him
and are in Him. And blessed be the Lord's
name! God has to this hour been with him.
26

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
And may He be further with him until he be
eternally united with Him in His kingdom ! . . .
I am a Sunday child; and the mother of my
children, my late wife, was also a Sunday child,
and all my children were Sunday children except
Catharine, who was born at Upsal on the third
day of Easter." After Emanuel came six sons
and daughters, the last being Margaretha, born
in 1695, their good mother dying the following
year, when Emanuel was nine years old.
It was in 17 19 that the family was ennobled
by Queen Ulrica Eleonora with the name of
Swedenborg, and Benzelius with the name of
Benzelstierna, after which they were entitled to
seats in the Diet. The Bishop, however, worked
quietly on under his old name till his death in
1735, preaching, writing, and publishing without
ceasing, though with small encouragement and
few sales. Of his numerous publications he said,
" If I had all the money which I have invested
in the printing of books, I would be worth now
from sixty to seventy thousand dalers in cop
per." These were largely sermons and other
religious works, but also books on the Swedish
language, grammar and lexicons, school-books,
27

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
his new Swedish Bible, and a commentary. His
autobiography is preserved which he wrote for his
children, and he had much correspondence with
the colonial missions, especially that of Pennsyl
vania and Delaware. This mission had been
established by his influence with the King and
had elected Swedberg their first bishop, as had
also the Swedish churches at London and Lis
bon, with the King's sanction.
With these functions and labors of the father
we are concerned only as they throw light on
the character and ability transmitted to the son.
We learn his piety, his faith manifested in charity
and good works, his loving zeal in the cares in
trusted to him, his learning, his integrity and
boldness for the right, and his indefatigable in
dustry. All these traits were indispensable for
the discharge of the mission to be intrusted to
the son. And another characteristic, less common
with other races, he held from his Scandinavian
ancestry, of utmost importance to the son — his
constant sense of Divine and angelic supervision
of the affairs of men. In his first year at Upsal
Jesper had such a wonderful dream that he did
not know whether he ought not to call it a reve-
28

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
lation. He said, " No human tongue can pro
nounce and no angel can describe what I then
saw and heard." He firmly believed that " God's
angels are especially present in this sacred office
[of Divine worship]." He felt sure that he was
specially protected by angels from malign influ
ences and directed in his studies at the Univer
sity. How essential was this trust and confidence
in Divine and heavenly influences to the service
in store for his son Emanuel we shall see as we
go on.
Of Emanuel's childhood he himself wrote late
in life in answer to the inquiries of his friend
Dr. Beyer, " From my fourth to my tenth year
I was constantly engaged in thought upon God,
salvation, and the spiritual experiences of men ;
and several times I revealed things at which my
father and mother marvelled, saying that angels
must be speaking through me. From my sixth to
my twelfth year I used to delight in conversing
with clergymen about faith, saying that the life
of faith is love, and that the love which imparts
life is love to the neighbor ; also that God gives
faith to every one, but that those only receive it
who practise that love." Thus early was he im-
29

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
bued, doubtless by his father, with what remained
the contention of his life. Born in Stockholm,
removed with his father to Upsal when four
years old, he received there his education as a
schoolboy and later as a student in the University.
His thesis at the conclusion of his course was a
series of selections from Greek and Latin authors,
together with some from Scripture, presenting
certain moral and religious sentiments accom
panied with apposite reflections, indicating his
trend of thought at that time of life. Little more
is known of his life at the University, but he was
doubtless living with his sister Anna and Benze
lius, his father having removed to his bishopric.
From his letters to these much loved friends we
learn what we know of his next ten years of study
pursued mostly abroad. Within a few months
after leaving the University he wrote from his
father's home at Brunsbo begging of Benzelius
letters to some English college, that he might
there improve himself in mathematics, or in phys
ics and natural history. He adds to his request —
"As I have always desired to turn to some
practical use and also to perfect myself in the
studies which I selected with your advice and ap-
30

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
proval, I thought it advisable to choose a subject
early which I might elaborate in course of time,
and into which I might introduce much of what
I should notice and read in foreign countries. This
course I have always pursued hitherto in my read
ing; and now at my departure I propose to my
self, as far as concerns mathematics, gradually to
gather and work up a certain collection, namely,
of things discovered and to be discovered in mathe
matics — or, what is nearly the same thing, the pro
gress made in mathematics during the last one or
two centuries." "Much kind love" he sends to
his sister Anna.
While awaiting letters, the royal permission,
and perhaps money for his expenses, the young
graduate learns the art of bookbinding and prac
tises music, occasionally filling the organist's place
at church. At length in 1710, the permission
having been obtained by his father, he sets out
for London, whence in October he writes to
Benzelius —
"This island has alsomen of the greatest experi
ence in this [mathematical] science ; but these I
have not yet consulted, because I am not yet suffi
ciently acquainted with their language. I study
31

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Newton daily, and I am very anxious to see and
hear him. I have provided myself with a small stock
of books for the study of mathematics, and also
with a certain number of instruments. . . . The
magnificent St. Paul's Cathedral was finished a
few days ago in all its parts. . . . The town is
distracted by internal dissensions between the
Anglican and Presbyterian churches ; they are
incensed against each other with almost deadly
hatred. . Were you, dear brother, to ask me
about myself, I should say I know that I am alive,
but not happy ; for I miss you and my home. . .
I not only love you more than my own brothers,
but I even love and revere you as a father. . . .
May God preserve you alive, that I may meet you
again! "
Again he writes in the following April — "I
visit daily the best mathematicians here in town.
I have been with Flamsteed, who is regarded the
best astronomer in England, and who is constantly
taking observations, which, together with the
Paris observations, will give us some day a correct
theory respecting the motion of the moon and of
its appulse to fixed stars. . . Newton has laid a
good foundation for correcting the irregularities
32

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
of the moon in his Principia. . . . You encourage
me to go on with my studies ; but I think that I
ought rather to be discouraged, as I have such
an ' immoderate desire ' for them, especially for as
tronomy and mechanics. I also turn my lodgings
to some use, and change them often. At first I
was at a watchmaker's, afterward at a cabinet
maker's, and now I am at a mathematical-instru
ment maker's. From them I learn their trades,
which some day will be of use to me. I have re
cently computed for my own pleasure several
useful tables for the latitude of Upsal, and all the
solar and lunar eclipses which will take place be
tween 17 12 and 172 1. . . . In undertaking in
astronomy, to facilitate the calculation of eclipses,
and of the motion of the moon outside that of
the syzygies, and also in undertaking to correct
the tables so as to agree with the new observa
tions, I shall have enough to do."
A letter of January, 17 12, answers various
questions on scientific matters referred to him
by Benzelius and the Literary Society of Upsal.
Among other things our young student wanted
to send home some English globes, but when
mounted they were very dear as well as difficult
33

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
to transport, and he tried in vain to buy paper
sheets to be mounted at home. Characteristically
he learned to engrave on copper and drew and
engraved the plates for a pair of globes. At the
same time he learned from his landlord to make
brass instruments, and could when at home mount
the globes. Of his studies he says —
" With regard to astronomy I have made such
progress in it as to have discovered much which
I think will be useful in its study. Although in
the beginning it made my brain ache, yet long
speculations are now no longer difficult for me. I
searched closely for all propositions for finding
the terrestrial longitude, but could not find a
single one ; I have therefore originated a method
by means of the moon, which is unerring, and
I am certain that it is the best which has yet
been advanced. In a short time I will inform the
Royal Society that I have a proposition to make
on this subject, stating my points. If it is favor
ably received by these gentlemen, I shall publish
it here ; if not, in France. I have also discovered
many new methods for observing the planets, the
moon, and the stars; that which concerns the
moon and its parallaxes, diameter, and inequality,
34

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
I will publish whenever an opportunity arises. I
am now busy working my way through algebra
and the higher geometry, and I intend to make
such progress in it as to be able in time to con
tinue Polheimer's discoveries. . . . When the
plates for the globes arrive in Sweden, Professor
Elfvius will perhaps take care to have them printed
and made up. I shall send a specimen very soon ;
but no impression is to be sold." In this same
letter he mentions valuable English books, and
names all the principal poets as well worth read
ing for the sake of their imagination alone. In
mild terms he complains of his father's not sup
plying him better with money ; and we find the
complaint quite pardonable when we remember
that the father was borrowing his children's
inheritance from their mother for his own enter
prises, and when we learn that Emanuel had re
ceived from him but two hundred rixdalers —
about two hundred and twenty-five dollars — in
sixteen months. He says it is hard to live with
out food or drink.
Writing again to Benzelius, August, 1712, he
repeats his confidence in his new method of find
ing the longitude, which Dr. Halley admitted to
35

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
him orally was the only good method that had
been proposed. "But," he adds, "as I have not
met with great encouragement here in England
among this civil and proud people, I have laid it
aside for some other place. When I tell them that
I have some project about longitude, they treat
it as an impossibility ; and so I do not wish to
discuss it here. . . . As my speculations made me
for a time not so sociable as is serviceable and
useful for me, and as my spirits are somewhat
exhausted, I have taken refuge for a short time
in the study of poetry, that I might be somewhat
recreated by it.1 I intend to gain a little reputa
tion by this study on some occasion or other during
this year, and I hope I may have advanced in it as
much as may be expected from me ; but time and
others will perhaps judge of this. Still after a time
I intend to take up mathematics again, although
at present I am doing nothing in them ; and if I
am encouraged, I intend to make more discover
ies in them than any one else in the present age.
But without encouragement this would be sheer
trouble, and it would be like non profecturis litora
1 An early recreation of his, as shown in some verses written
in his twelfth year. 36

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
bubus arare — ploughing the ground with stub
born steers. . . . Within three or four months, I
hope with God's help to be in France ; for I greatly
desire to understand its fashionable and useful
language. I hope by that time to have, or to find
there, letters from you to some of your learned
correspondents. . . . Your great kindness and
your favor, of which I have had so many proofs,
make me believe that your advice and your letters
will induce my father to be so favorable toward
me as to send me the funds which are necessary
for a young man, and which will infuse into me
new spirit for the prosecution of my studies. Be
lieve me, I desire and strive to be an honor to
my father's house and yours, much more strongly
than you yourself can wish and endeavor. . . .
I would have bought the microscope if the price
had not been so much higher than I could ven
ture to pay before receiving your orders. This
microscope was one which Mr. Marshall showed
to me especially ; it is quite new, of his own in
vention, and shows the motion in fishes very viv
idly. There was a glass with a candle placed under
it, which made the thing itself, and the object,
much brighter; so that any one could see the
37

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
blood in the fishes flowing swiftly, like small
rivulets ; for it flowed in that way, and as rapidly.
At a watchmaker's I saw a curiosity which I can
not forbear mentioning. It was a clock which was
still, without any motion. On the top of it was a
candle, and when this was lighted, the clock began
to go and to keep its true time ; but as soon as
the candle was blown out, the motion ceased, and
so on. . . . He told me that nobody had as yet
found out how it could be set in motion by the
candle. Please remember me kindly to sister
Anna, my dear sister Hedvig, and also to brother
Ericus Benzel, the little one, about whose state
of health I always desire to hear."
The next, letter that has come down to us was
dated Paris, August, 171 3. Meanwhile Sweden
borg had left London and made a considerable
stay in Holland. " I left Holland," he says, " in
tending to make greater progress in mathematics,
and also to finish all I had designed in that sci
ence. Since my arrival here I have been hindered
in my work by an illness which lasted six weeks,
and which interfered with my studies and other
useful employments ; but I have at last recovered,
and am beginning to make the acquaintance ci
38

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
the most learned men in this place. I have called
upon and made the acquaintance of De La Hire,
who is now a great astronomer and who was for
merly a well-known geometrician. I have also been
frequently with Warrignon, who is the greatest
geometrician and algebraist in this city, and per
haps the greatest in Europe. About eight days
ago I called upon Abbe Bignon, and presented
your compliments, on the strength of which I
was very favorably received by him. I submitted
to him for examination, and for introduction into
the Society, three discoveries, two of which were
in algebra. [The third was his new method of
finding longitude.] . . . Here in town I avoid
conversation with Swedes, and shun all those by
whom I might be in the least interrupted in my
studies. What I hear from the learned, I note
down at once in my journal; it would be too long
to copy it out and to communicate it to you. . . .
During my stay in Holland I was most of the
time in Utrecht, where the Diet * met, and where
I was in great favor with Ambassador Palmquist,
who had me every day at his house ; every day
1 The famous Congress of Ambassadors, by which the Span
ish Succession was ended and peace secured for a generation.
39

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
also I had discussions on algebra with him. He
is a good mathematician and a great algebraist.
... In Leyden I learned glass-grinding [for tele
scopes], and I have now all the instruments and
utensils belonging to it. . . . You may rest as
sured that I entertain the greatest friendship and
veneration for you; I hope therefore that you
will not be displeased with me on account of
my silence and my delay in writing letters, if you
hear that I am always intent on my studies, so
that sometimes I omit more important matters."
Swedenborg's stay in Paris seems to have been
less than a year, and here seems to end his aspi
ration for eminence in pure mathematics. For
whatever reason, from this time he began to de
vote his attention to mechanical and practical
investigations. Going from Paris by way of
Hamburg to Rostock, in the north of Mecklen
burg, he writes from there to Benzelius, Sept. 8,
1714 —
"lam very glad that I have come to a place
where I have time and leisure to gather up all
my works and thoughts, which have hitherto
been without any order and are scattered here
and there upon scraps of paper. I have always
40

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
been in want of a place and time to collect them.
I have now commenced this labor and shall soon
get it done. I promised my dear father to publish
an academical thesis, for which I shall select
some inventions in mechanics which I have at
hand. Further, I have the following mechanical
inventions either in hand or fully written out,
namely —
" i . The plan of a certain ship which with its
men can go under the surface of the sea wher
ever it chooses, and do great damage to the fleet
of the enemy.
"2. A new plan for a siphon, by which a large
quantity of water may be raised from any river
to a higher locality in a short time.
"3. For lifting weights by the aid of water
and this portable siphon, with greater facility
than by mechanical powers.
" 4. For constructing sluices in places where
there is no fall of water, by means of which en
tire ships with their cargoes may be raised to
any required height within an hour or two.
" 5. A machine driven by fire, for throwing out
water ; and a method of constructing it near forges
where the water has no fall, but is tranquil.
41

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
" 6. A draw-bridge which may be closed and
opened within the gates and walls.
" 7. New machines for condensing and ex
hausting air by means of water. Also a new
pump acting by water and mercury, without any
siphon; which presents more advantages and
works more easily than the common pumps. I
have also, besides these, other new plans for
pumps. " 8. A new construction of air-guns, thousands
of which may be discharged in a moment by
means of one siphon.
" 9. A universal musical instrument, by means
of which one who is quite unacquainted with
music may execute all kinds of airs that are
marked on paper by notes.
" 10. Sciagraphia universalis. The universal
art of delineating shades, or a mechanical method
of delineating engravings of any kind upon any
surface by means of fire.
"11. A water-clock in which water serves the
purpose of an index, and in which by the flow of
water all the moveable bodies in the heavens are
demonstrated, with other curious effects.
"12. A mechanical carriage containing all
42

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
sorts of works which are set in motion by the
movement of the horses. Also a flying carriage,
or the possibility of remaining suspended in the
air, and of being conveyed through it.
"13. A method of ascertaining the desires
and the affections of the minds of men by ana
lysis. " 14. New methods of constructing cords and
springs, with their properties.
"These are my mechanical inventions which
were heretofore lying scattered on pieces of pa
per, but nearly all of which are now brought into
order so that when opportunity offers they may
be published. To all these there is added an alge
braic and a numeric calculation from which the
proportions, motion, times, and all the properties
which they ought to possess are deduced. More
over, all those things which I have in analysis and
astronomy require each its own place and its own
time. O how I wish, my beloved friend and bro
ther, that I could submit all these to your own
eyes and to those of Professor Elfvius ! But as I
cannot show you the actual machines, I will at least
in a short time forward you the drawings, with
which I am daily occupied. I have now time also
43

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
to bring my poetical efforts into order. They are
only a kind of fables, like those of Ovid, under
cover of which those events are treated which
have happened in Europe within the last fourteen
or fifteen years ; so that in this manner I am al
lowed to sport with serious things, and to play
with the heroes and the great men of our coun
try. But meanwhile I am affected with a certain
sense of shame when I reflect that I have said so
much about my plans and ideas, and have not yet
exhibited anything: my journey and its inconven
iences have been the cause of this. I have now a
great desire to return home to Sweden and to
take in hand all Polheimer's inventions, make
drawings, and furnish descriptions of them ; and
also to test them by physics, mechanics, hydro
statics, and hydraulics, and likewise by algebraic
calculus. I should prefer to publish them in Swe
den rather than in any other place, and in this
manner to make a beginning among us of a So
ciety for Learning and Science, for which we
have such an excellent foundation in Polheimer's
inventions. I wish mine could serve the same
purpose. . . A thousand remembrances to my
sister Anna. I hope she is not alarmed at the
44

PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE
approach of the Russians. I have a great long
ing to see little brother [nephew] Eric again ;
perhaps he will be able to make a triangle, or
to draw one for me, when I give him a little
ruler."

Ill
scientific pursuits at home
Having concluded his studies abroad, Emanuel
returned to the paternal home at Brunsbo in
1 7 1 5 . Then his father, in accordance with the cus
tom of the times, made application to Government
to give him employment. Meanwhile Emanuel
makes preparation for the scientific periodical he
had projected and seeks to bring into service
some of his inventions, of which he writes to
Benzelius —
" I looked very carefully for the machines
which I some time ago sent to my father ; they
were eight in number, but I was unable to dis
cover the place in which he had laid them aside.
He thinks they have been sent to you, which I
hope with all my heart ; for it cost me a great
amount of work to put them on paper, and I
shall not have any time during the next winter to
do this over again. There were, First, three draw
ings and plans for water-pumps, by which a large
quantity of water can be raised in a short time
46

SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
from any sea or lake you choose. Second, two
machines for raising weights by means of water,
as easily and quickly as is done by mechanical
forces. Third, some kinds of sluices, which can be
constructed where there is no fall of water, and
which will raise boats over hills, sand-banks, etc.
Fourth, a machine to discharge by air ten or
eleven thousand shots per hour. All these ma
chines are carefully described and calculated alge
braically. I had further intended to communi
cate plans of some kinds of vessels and boats,
in which persons may go under water whenever
they choose ; also a machine for building at
pleasure a blast furnace near any still water,
where the wheel will nevertheless revolve by
means of the fire, which will put the water in
motion ; likewise some kinds of air-guns that are
loaded in a moment, and discharge sixty or
seventy shots in succession without any fresh
charge. Toward winter perhaps I shall draw and
describe these machines. I should like to have
the opportunity and the means of setting one or
other of them up and getting it to work.
" The day after to-morrow I will travel to the
Kinnekulle, to select a spot for a small observa-
47

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
tory, where I intend toward winter to make some
observations respecting our horizon, and to lay a
foundation for those observations by which my
invention on the longitude of places may be con
firmed. Perhaps I may then travel in all haste
first to Upsal, to get some things I need for it."
At this time, having recently returned from
France, in one letter to Benzelius he says, " Par
don, my dear brother, that I write toNyou in
French. But the language in which you think
usually suits you best. My thoughts at present
move in this language ; but whenever Cicero shall
again engage me, I shall endeavor to address you
like a Ciceronian." He was now much in confer
ence with the eminent Swedish engineer Polhei-
mer — soon to be ennobled by Charles XII and
given the name Polhem — and he urged the
founding of a department of Mechanics in the
university, in which both Polheimer and he him
self would have appointments. But his labors
were bestowed chiefly on his scientific periodical,
called Dcedalus, in which his own and Polhei
mer's inventions and discoveries were set forth
in detail. On the 26th of June, 17 16, he writes
to his brother Benzelius —
48

SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
" I am engaged on the subject which I intend
for the last number of this year, and which I
shall finish this week, namely, Polheimer's ideas
upon the resistance of mediums, which at first
were written down in Latin, and which have cost
me a great deal of labor and mental exertion to
reduce into such a form as will please the As
sessor and the learned ; likewise my method of
finding the longitude of places, which I warrant
to be certain and sure. I must hear what the
learned say about it."
On the 4th of September he writes again to
the same —
"I am very glad that D&dalus, part iii, has
appeared. I thank you for having taken so much
trouble and care with it : when I am present with
you, I will thank you still more. I am already
thinking of the contents of part v of the Dceda-
lus. I think it will be best for me, first, to put
down Assessor Polheimer's ingenious tap, with
a sufficient mechanic and algebraic description ;
second, to make an addition to the description of
his ' Blankstotz ' machine, as this is a work which
requires greater accuracy, reflection, and consid
eration than it has yet received ; third, to leave
49

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
room for some of the eclipses observed by Pro
fessor Elfvius, by which the longitude of Upsal
is also obtained. If you would honor our little
work with a life of Stiernhjelm, or with some
thing else from the history of the learned, I know
that thereby our publication would become more
interesting ; as in this case the heavy matter
would be relieved by more pleasing subjects. I
know also that this would gain us the favor and
approbation of many, as the literary world acknow
ledges you as by far its best member ; I hope
therefore that this honor will not be refused.
May God grant you a long life, although I am
afraid that your many studies will deprive us of
this benefit, by shortening your days : for I know
no one who has more consideration for his vari
ous studies, and less for himself. All the learned
and the Muses entreat you to spare yourself, and
in you the Muses. It is worthy of all praise in
deed to offer up one's self to the Muses, but not
on the very altar ; it is easy enough to become a
premature victim. Pardon this admonition, my
brother ; your letter to my father is the cause of
it. I hope that my little learning and my Dceda-
lus will be long under your auspices. I think of
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
inserting in the fourth number some Daedalian
speculations about a flying machine, and to leave
room for Dr. Bromell's curiosities, if he be pleased
to insert them. Assessor Polheimer writes that
in the following number he wishes to insert such
matter as will be of use to the public — such as
water and wind machines, mill, etc. — of which I
am very glad."
Charles XII had now returned to Sweden, to
the great joy of his people, and found much use
for both Polheimer and Swedenborg, In De
cember, 1 716, Swedenborg writes to Benzelius —
"I wrote you a letter from Lund and should
have written to you more frequently had I not
been prevented by my mechanical and other
occupations ; moreover I had enough to attend
to in order to accomplish my design. Since his
Majesty graciously looked at my Dcedalus and
its plan, he has advanced me to the. post of an
Assessor Extraordinary in the College of Mines,
yet in such a way that I should for some time
attend the Councillor of Commerce, Polheimer.
What pleases me most is that his Majesty pro
nounced so favorable and gracious a judgment
respecting me, and himself defended me against
Si

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
those who thought the worst of me ; and that he
has since promised me his further favor and pro
tection, of which I have been assured both di
rectly and indirectly. But let me tell you all more
in detail. After his Majesty had sufficiently in
quired as to my character, studies, and the like,
and I being so fortunate as to have good refer
ences, he offered me three posts and offices to
choose from, and afterward gave me the warrant
for the rank and post of an Assessor Extraordi
nary. But as my enemies played too many in
trigues with the above-mentioned warrant and
couched it in ambiguous terms, I sent it back to
his Majesty with some comments, well knowing
whom I had to depend upon ; when there was
immediately granted me a new one, and likewise
a gracious letter to the College of Mines. My
opponent had to sit down at the King's own
table and write this out in duplicate in two forms,
of which the King selected the best ; so that
those who had sought to injure me were glad to
escape with honor and reputation, they had so
nearly burned their fingers.
" Dcedalus has enjoyed the favor of lying these
three weeks upon his Majesty's table, and has
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
furnished matter for many discussions and ques
tions ; it has also been shown by his Majesty to
many persons. Within a short time I intend to
send you what is to follow for Daedalus, part v ;
when perhaps Drs. Roberg and Bromell will not
refuse to honor it with their contributions ; they
might possibly derive some profit from it.
"We arrived here at Carlscrona a few days
ago, intending after three weeks to go to Gotten-
burg, and afterward to TroUhatta, Lakes Wener
and Hjelmar, and Gullspangelf, in order to ex
amine sites for sluices and locks, a plan which
meets with his Majesty's entire approbation.
... A thousand kind remembrances to sister
Anna. The kid gloves have been purchased."
From these letters of what we may still call
Swedenborg's youth, we learn better than from
any description its exuberance, its energy, its
assurance of mathematical power, its fertility of
invention, and its strong desire to be employed
in practical works for the good of mankind.
Mingled with these traits it is pleasant to see
the warm, confiding love that overflows to the
brother and sister who had cared for and directed
his budding manhood, and were still to him as
53

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
father and mother. The traits are the natural
ones of the time of life. What we specially ob
serve with Swedenborg is their vigor and power,
eminent by inheritance, and conserved in remark
able degree by a freedom from all ignoble pas
sions and weak indulgence, which we can attri
bute only to the protection that came with a
deep sense of duty to God and to man. His ap
pointment as Assessor in the College of Mines
now gave him at twenty-eight years of age his
eagerly sought opportunity for practical service
to his country, happily in the line of his scien
tific and mechanical studies. This was the form
of the appointment : —
" Charles, by the grace of God, King of
Sweden, Gothia, and Wendia, etc. Our especial
favor and gracious pleasure, under God Almighty,
to the true men and servants, to our Council and
President, as well as Vice-President, and to all
the Members of the College of Mines. Inasmuch
as we have graciously deigned to command that
Emanuel Swedberg shall be Assessor Extraordi
nary in the College of Mines, although he at the
same time is to attend Polheimer, the Councillor
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
of Commerce, and to be of assistance to him in
his engineering works, and in carrying out his
designs, — therefore it is our pleasure hereby to
let you know this, with our gracious command,
and that you allow him a seat and voice in the
College whenever he be present, and especially
whenever any business be brought forward per
taining to mechanics. We hereby commend you,
especially and graciously, to God Almighty.
" Carolus.
"Lund, December 18, 1716."
The College of Mines consisted of a President,
always of the highest order of nobility, two coun
cillors of mines, and some six assessors. Under
its charge the whole mining interest of Sweden
was placed. From its records it appears that on
April 6, 1 7 1 7, Mr. Emanuel Swedberg, appointed
by his Majesty to be Assessor Extraordinary in
the College of Mines, being present, " As a begin
ning of his introduction, the royal decree which
had been received was read. Afterward the above-
named Assessor, after delivering to the Royal
College the formulary of the oath signed by him
self, took the oath of loyalty and of office, with
55

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
his hand upon the Book, and then took the seat
belonging to him."
With this simple, solemn induction into his
office, Swedenborg entered upon his labors to
which he gave strict attention, unremitted save
on leave of his sovereign in the pursuit of his
studies, for thirty years ; with what satisfaction
to the College and to the Government we shall
learn when we find him asking permission to re
tire. The office was a favorable one, demanding
his best talent and energy, yet not so engrossing
as to prevent his pursuing private studies. Ex
cept in the summer months, when the members
of the College usually visited the mines, daily
meetings were held in Stockholm, at which
Swedenborg was punctual in attendance, when not
in service elsewhere. For a while, however, by the
command of Charles he was kept away in assist
ing Polhem — as Polheimer was called on being
ennobled. Nor by the King's wish did he fail to
continue his Dcedalus. On the 23d of February,
17 1 7, he writes to Benzelius —
" Enclosed I send Dcedalus, part v, and I
most humbly solicit you to extend to it the kind
ness that you have shown toward the former
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
numbers. I should have finished it long ago, but
I have been continually on a journey of ever
changing direction, which scarce left me an hour's
time for such work. But as I have now arrived
at Stiernsund, I have found an opportunity for a
few days to get this up as well as I can. I hope
it will win the approval of the Upsal people, and
especially your own.
" I have added the Latin to it on the opposite
page, according to his Majesty's wish, who pointed
out to me where the Swedish should be and where
the Latin. . . .
" As his Majesty seemed to be interested in
the manufacture of salt in Sweden, we gathered
minute information about it in Uddevalla; and
we found that in Sweden there are the best op
portunities for its manufacture, as there is abun
dance of forest and water for promoting the work.
. . . Should such a work be established, it would
profit the country more than the whole of its iron
manufacture, in which a loss is occasionally sus
tained ; but in the case of salt there would be a
real gain and the money would remain in the
country. "We hope that our journey hither will in time
57

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
be of importance. At TroUhatta, Gullspangelf,
and Lake Hjelmar also, we found everything
feasible, and at less expense than had been anti
cipated. If I do nothing more in the matter, I act
at least as a stimulus in it.
" Will you please remember me kindly to little
brother Eric. I hear that his love for mechanics
and drawing continues. If he can give the slip to
his preceptor, I should like to induce him to fol
low me ; when I would try in every way to pro
mote his welfare, to instruct him in mathematics
and other things, should it be desired. Please re
member me also a hundred times to sister Anna."
The project referred to in this and a preceding
letter, for which Swedenborg and Polhem had
visited TroUhatta, was to connect the North and
the Baltic seas by a canal, thus saving the long
detour about the southern peninsula and the ex
posure to the hostile Danes, at Elsinore. It was
a project of Bishop Brask in 1526, discovered by
Benzelius and communicated by Swedenborg to
Charles XII, who embraced it eagerly, but was
prevented by death from completing it. As com
pleted in more recent times the canal follows in
great part the course undertaken by Polhem and
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
Swedenborg, and a disused portion still bears the
name of Swedenborg.
In January, 171 8, Swedenborg writes to Benze
lius declining his offer to seek for him the then
vacated professorship of Astronomy at Upsal, for
the reason that he had now full employment in
more practical matters and in the study of me
chanics. He concludes, "I have five little treatises
which I desire to lay before my friends; one,
which I have finished to-day, is on the round par
ticles, in which Dr. Roberg will probably be in
terested, for he is well skilled in all that concerns
these least things, and is delighted with such
subjects." In these extracts from Swedenborg's letters,
of which we have more at this period of his life
than at any other, we copy without reserve what
ever seems to throw any light on his character and
on the nature of his pursuits. The entire collection
is to be found in Tafel's Documents, in which
it makes one hundred and seventy octavo pages.
During the publication of the Dcedalus, from 1 7 1 6
to 17 1 8, Swedenborg published little else. A small
tract in Swedish on the tinware of Stiernsund,
17 17, is attributed to him ; and it is probable that
59

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
his Algebra, a i6mo of 135 pages, was printed
in 17 18. Of works of this period in manuscript
there are still preserved an essay on the Import
ance of Instituting an Astronomical Observatory
in Sweden ; one on the Causes of Things ; a New
Theory concerning the End of the Earth, in which
he holds that the earth revolves in a resisting
medium and is gradually retarding its motion and
approaching the sun ; a Project for Assisting Com
merce and Manufactures, by controlling the ex
port of Swedish iron and copper ; a Memorial on
the Establishment of Salt-works in Sweden ; an
Essay on the Nature of Fire and Colors ; and some
discussions of higher mathematics, involving the
Differential and Integral Calculus. Of the direc
tion of his studies at this time, the following letter
to Benzelius, written 30th January, 171 8, gives
further information : —
" I send you something new in physics, on the
particles of air and water, proving them to be
round, which may militate against the philosophy
of many ; but as I base my theory upon experi
ence and geometry, I do not expect that any one
can refute it by arguments. Preconceived ideas
received from Descartes and others will be the
60

SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
greatest obstacle to it, and will cause objections.
Dr. Roberg, who in everything that is minute
and subtile is himself subtile, is best able to
judge respecting it : if you would therefore be kind
enough to leave this with him, I should like to
hear his opinion. If Professor Valerius would lay
aside his own and his father's Cartesianism, his
opinion would also be valuable to me. I have ma
terials enough on this subject to fill a large book,
as is done by the learned with their speculations
abroad ; but as we have no appliances here for
such large publications, I must cut my coat ac
cording to the cloth and introduce only the most
general views. The use of this seems to me to
enable us to investigate more thoroughly the na
ture of air and water in all its parts : for if the true
shape of the particles is once discovered, we obtain
with it all the properties which belong to such a
shape. I hope that this rests on a solid founda
tion. In future I should not wish to publish any
thing which has not better ground to rest upon
than the former things in the Dadalus?'
In the summer of the same year by the King's
command he was engaged in the construction
of the above-mentioned Baltic and North Sea
61

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
canal. In September he writes to his brother-in-
law —
" I found his Majesty most gracious toward
me, much more so than I had any reason to
expect, which I regard as a good omen. Count
Morner also showed me all the favor that I could
wish. " Every day I had some mathematical matters
for his Majesty, who deigned to be pleased with
all of them. When the eclipse took place, I took
his Majesty out to see it, and talked much to him
about it. This, however, is a mere beginning. I
hope in time to be able to do something in this
quarter for the advancement of science, but I do
not wish to bring anything forward now except
what is of immediate use. His majesty found con
siderable fault with me for not having continued
my Dadalus ; but I pleaded want of means, of
which he does not like to hear. I expect some
assistance for it very soon.
" With respect to brother Esberg [a nephew
of Benzelius], I will see that he gets some em
ployment at the locks ; but nothing can be done
before next spring. If he meanwhile studies
mathematics well and begins to make models, it
62

SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
will be perhaps of use to him. I wish very much
that little brother Ericus was grown up. I believe
that next spring, if everything remain as it is, I
shall begin the building of a lock myself and shall
have my own command ; in which case I hope to
be of service to one or the other. I receive only
three dalers a day at present at the canal works,
but I hope soon to receive more.
"Polhem's eldest daughter is betrothed to a
chamberlain of the King, of the name of Mander-
strom. I wonder what people will say about this,
inasmuch as she was engaged [by her father] to
me. His second daughter is in my opinion much
prettier. " How is Professor Valerius ? I should be very
glad to hear of his health and good condition.
Remember me to sister Anna."
Polhem's second daughter, Emerentia, was
young at this time, not quite sixteen, and did not,
it would appear, reciprocate Swedenborg's tender
feeling. Her father, it is said, gave him a written
claim upon her in the future, in the hope that
she would become more yielding, and this con
tract she was obliged to sign. But she fretted
about it so much every day that her brother was
63

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
moved with compassion and purloined the con
tract from Swedenborg, whose only comfort con
sisted in daily perusing it, and who therefore
quickly missed his treasure. His sorrow at his
loss was so evident that her father insisted on
knowing the cause ; and on learning it, was will
ing by an exercise of his authority to have the
lost document restored. But when Swedenborg
himself saw her grief, he voluntarily relinquished
his right and left the house with, it is said, a
solemn vow never to fix his affections on any
woman again. However this may have been, it is
certain that he never married and that he never
forgot his first love. What called Swedenborg to
Stromstadt he does not explain. But from other
sources we learn that he was engaged in super
intending the transportation of two galleys, five
large boats, and a sloop seventeen miles overland,
from Stromstadt to Iderfjol, for the aid of Charles
XII in his operations against Frederickshall.
Baron Sandels in his eulogy gives the credit of
the feat to Swedenborg, and in fact we have seen
that several years before he had drawn out plans
for such transportation ; but we do not know
whether the plan adopted was his or Polhem's.
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
In October of the same year, 1 7 1 8, he writes
again from his father's home at Brunsbo —
" Most honored and dear brother, — I am just
starting for Carlsgraf , after having been here about
three weeks. Meanwhile I have seen Dcedalus,
part vi, through the press. It contains the fol
lowing articles: 1. Directions for Pointing Mor
tars, by C. Polhem ; 2. An Easy Way of Counting
Balls which are Stored in the Shape of a Triangle,
by Em. S  ; 3. Useful Directions in Ship-
Building ; 4. A Proof that our Vital Nature con
sists of Small Tremulations, with a great Number
of Experiments ; 5 . Respecting a Curve the Secant
of which forms Right Angles with it. I have sent
this, the figures and letter-press, to his Majesty.
As soon as I have an opportunity I will send it
over to you."
The close of this year, 17 18, was the close of
the life of Charles XII, killed on his expedition to
Norway, and the end of his important projects.
It is a year later when we hear again from Swe
denborg, writing from Stockholm to Benzelius —
"What I have in hand consists, first, of a
minute description of our Swedish blast-furnaces ;
65

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
secondly, of a theory or an investigation into the
nature of fire and stoves, in which I have col
lected everything I could gather from black
smiths, charcoal-burners, roasters of ore, superin
tendents of iron-furnaces, etc. ; and upon this
the theory is based. I hope that the many dis
coveries which I have made therein will in time
prove useful. For instance, a fire may be made
in some new stoves for warming, where the
wood and coal which usually last a day will last
six days, and will give out more heat. Vice-
President Hjarne has approved of this in all its
particulars, and if desired I can show the proof
of it. The former of these treatises I handed in
to-day to the Royal College of Mines.
" I have also written a little anatomy of our
vital forces, which, I maintain, consist of tremula
tions. For this purpose I made myself thoroughly
acquainted with the anatomy of the nerves and
membranes ; and I have proved the harmony
which exists between that and the interesting
geometry of tremulations — together with many
other ideas in which I found that I agreed with
those of Baglivius. The day before yesterday I
handed them in to the Royal Medical College.
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
" Besides this, I have improved the little trea
tise which was published at Upsal about the
high water in primeval times ; and I have added
a number of clear proofs, together with an unde
niable demonstration how stones were moved in
a deep ocean. I have also adduced arguments to
show how the northern horizon was changed,
and that it is reasonable to suppose that Sweden
in the primeval ages was an island. This I have
handed in to the Censor of Books, so as to pub
lish it anew. There is also quite a number of
smaller papers. The deep study by which I have
endeavored to compass these subjects has caused
me to look with contempt upon everything I
have heretofore published ; but I intend to im
prove them very much when they are to be trans
lated [from Swedish into French or Latin]. . .
" With much love, I remain your most faithful
servant, Eman. Swedenborg."
This is the first letter we have in which Swe
denborg assumes the new name which had been
given in June to the wife and children of Bishop
Swedberg, with admission to the equestrian order
of the nobility, and so to a seat in the Diet —
67

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
an honor granted by the new Queen, Ulrica
Eleonora, younger sister of Charles XII, out of
the friendly regard she had always shown for the
independent clergyman, and in return perhaps
for his support of the royal power.
The essays here referred to are still preserved,
but most of their subjects were afterward treated
at much greater length. In the till then little
explored field of geology Swedenborg's study of
the mines of Sweden gave him eagerly grasped
opportunity, and as in everything else, though
not making it a specialty, he carried his observa
tions and conclusions far ahead of his time. Prof.
Alfred G. Nathorst in his " Geology of Sweden,"
1892, credits Swedenborg with being the first to
conclude from various observations that Sweden
was formerly covered with the sea, a large part
of its rocks having been formed of marine de
posits. He says —
"As a whole it may be regarded as distinctive
of Swedenborg's method of demonstration that
where possible he seeks to confirm the correct
ness of his position by means of experiment.
He may therefore be regarded as one of the first
in the field of experimental geology. . . . [Quite
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
in accordance with most modern conclusion] he
denies that the whole interior of the earth is in a
glowing state, and thinks that the volcanoes re
ceive their nourishment from melted masses in
the earth's crust." '
Three weeks later, Swedenborg writes again to
Benzelius, " I am delighted to hear that what I
wrote you in my last was to your liking." He
adds some further argument to show that no
sudden approach to the sun is taking place. Inci
dentally he brings in his theory of the vortical
energy which controls the solar system, and also
each world in itself, but in too brief terms to be
cited as a statement of the theory. At greater
length he gives reasons for thinking that the sun
cannot be, as some had conjectured, the abode
of the damned. He would rather suspect that
there is the abode of the blessed ; since from the
sun is all the heat, light, and life of the world,
indeed the most refined elements of existence,
where we might look for that which is above and
within matter, and might even imagine the seat
of God Himself.
1 Letter of Alfred H. Stroh, May 31, 1903, in The New
Philosophy. 69

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Here we have a ready basis for Swedenborg's
later understanding that God is in the Sun of
heaven, and that through this Sun He sends life
and force into the sun of this world, for the
support of material existence. As to the fires of
the damned, he suggests that the pain of burning
is the effect of destruction of tissue, which can
not be what is meant in the Bible ; but rather
he thinks the remorses of conscience might be
a sufficiently strong fire. In this, too, he is ap
proaching the doctrine he afterward taught, that
the fires of hell are the fires of selfish passion.
But he piously concludes, " I hope that my phi
losophizing may not be misinterpreted ; for, after
all, the foundation is God's Word."
On the ist of December he writes again —
"Most honored and dearest brother, — I send
you herewith the little work which I mentioned in
my last respecting a decimal system in our coin
age and measures. This is the last that I will pub
lish myself, because every-day and home affairs
grow of small account, and because I have already
worked myself poor by them. I have been sing
ing long enough ; let us see whether any one
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
will come forward and hand me some bread in
return. "There are, however, some plans which I have
entertained for some time, and which at last
have assumed a definite shape. I should like to
see how far they meet with your approval : First,
to translate what I have published into Latin or
French, and to send it then to Holland and Eng
land ; to which I should like to add, by way of
improvement, some of my discoveries about fire
and stones, and about some improvements in
mining matters; besides some other papers which
are not yet printed. Would you be kind enough
to give the names of some who write scientific
papers and memoirs ? Second, as I think I now
in some measure understand the mechanics which
are of use in mining districts and in mines, so far
at least as to be able better than any one else to
describe what is new and old there, and further
to understand the theory of fire and stones, as to
which I have made quite a number of discoveries,
I intend to spend all my remaining time upon what
may promote everything that concerns mining,
and on the basis which has already been laid, in
collecting as much information as possible. Third,
7i

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
if fortune so favors me that I shall be provided
with all the means that are required, and if mean
while by the above preparations and communica
tions I shall have gained some credit abroad, I
should prefer by all means to go abroad and seek
my fortune in my calling, which consists in pro
moting everything that concerns the administra
tion and working of mines. For he is nothing
short of a fool who is independent and at liberty
to do as he pleases and sees an opportunity for
himself abroad and yet remains at home in dark
ness and cold, where the Furies, Envy, and Pluto
have taken up their abode and dispose the rewards,
and where labors such as I have performed are
rewarded with misery. The only thing I would
desire until that time comes is bene latere, to find
a sequestered place where I can live secluded from
the world. I think I may find such a corner in
the end either at Starbo or at Skinskatteberg.
But as this would take four or five years' time,
I am quite ready to acknowledge that long-laid
plans are like long roofs, apt to tumble in ; for
man proposes, God disposes. Still I have always
been in favor of a man's knowing what he is doing,
and of his forming for himself some clever plan
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SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS AT HOME
of what it is most practicable for him to carry
out in his life. I remain, most honored and dear
brother, " Your most faithful servant and brother,
" Eman. Swedenborg."
The last letter to Benzelius preserved for us
containing much information about his studies,
is dated May 2, 1720 —
" I am at present engaged in examining all the
chemistry contained in the treasury of the Sude-
man Library, which belongs now to Hesselius ;
for I have proposed to myself to examine thor
oughly everything that concerns fire and metals,
a primis incunabulis usque ad maturitatem, ac
cording to the plan of the memorandum which
has been already communicated to you. I take the
chemical experiments of Boyle, Reucher, Hjarne,
Simons, and others, and trace out nature in its
least things, instituting comparisons with geome
try and mechanics. I am also encouraged every
day by new discoveries as to the nature of these
subtile substances; and as I am beginning to
see that experience in an uninterrupted series
seems to be inclined to agree therewith, I am be-
73

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
coming more and more confirmed in my ideas.
It seems to me that the immense number of ex
periments that have been made affords a good
ground for building upon ; and that the toil and
expenses incurred by others may be turned to use
by working up with head what they have collected
with their hands. Many deductions may thus be
made which will be of use in chemistry and metal
lurgy, and in determining the nature of fire and
other things."

IV
further studies and publications abroad
As Assessor Extraordinary Swedenborg re
ceived no salary except when in actual service, of
which little was required after the death of Charles
XII; and accordingly in June, 1720, he presented
a petition to the Royal College of Mines stating
that he had spent all his time and money in per
fecting himself in what would be of service to his
country, and therefore begging the College gra
ciously to provide him with some salary or other
support by virtue of his appointment. A year
later he wrote to the President and College —
" As I am about to undertake a new journey
abroad, it is my duty to make it known to your
Excellency and to the Honorable College in writ
ing; especially as my only object is to collect
more minute information respecting the condition
of the mines abroad and the processes which are
followed there, and also to make inquiries respect
ing commerce, so far as it relates to metals."
75

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Of this visit abroad we have the following sum
mary from his Itinerary : —
"In the spring of 1721 I again went abroad,
going to Holland by Copenhagen and Hamburg.
There I published my Prodromus Principiorum
Rerum Naturalium, and several other short trea
tises in octavo. From Holland I travelled to Aix-
la-Chapelle, Liege, Cologne, and other adjacent
places, examining the mines there. Thence I
went to Leipsic, where I published my Miscel
lanea Observata. Leaving that town I visited all
the mines in Saxony, and then returned to Ham
burg From Hamburg I returned to Brunswick
and Goslar, and visited all the mines in the Hartz
Mountains belonging to the houses of Hanover
and Liineburg. The father-in-law of a son of the
Emperor and of a son of the Czar, Duke Louis
Rudolph, who resided at Blankenburg, graciously
defrayed all my expenses ; and on taking leave
of him he presented me with a gold medal and
a large silver coffee-pot, besides bestowing upon
me many other marks of his favor. I then re
turned to Hamburg, and thence, by way of Stral
sund and Ystad, to Stockholm, having been ab
sent one year and three months."
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The two Latin treatises, the publication of
which is here briefly mentioned, have been trans
lated and published in London under the respec
tive titles of " Some Specimens of a Work on the
Principles of Chemistry," and "Miscellaneous Ob
servations connected with the Physical Sciences."
In the first-named volume are included also three
other publications of Swedenborg, of the same
year, New Observations and Discoveries respect
ing Iron and Fire ; ANew Method of Finding the
Longitudes of Places ; and A New Method of Con
structing Docks and Dykes. These essays give
a fair specimen of Swedenborg's manner of treat
ing scientific subjects. He first collects the obser
vations and experiments of others, adding a few
of his own, and then, with geometry for a guide,
searches for the hidden causes and operations of
nature. His theory of matter, as well summarized
by one of his ablest translators, Dr. J. J. Garth
Wilkinson, is " that roundness is the form adapted
to motion ; that the particles of fluids, and speci
fically of water, are round, hollow spherules, with
a subtile matter, identical with ether or caloric,
in their interiors and interstices ; that the crust,
or crustal portion, of each particle is itself formed
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
of lesser particles, and these again of lesser, and so
forth — water being in this way the sixth dimen
sion, or the result of the sixth grouping of the
particles ; that the interstices of the fluids fur
nish the original moulds of the solids, and the
rows of crustal particles forced off one by one
by various agencies, furnish the matter of the
same; that after solid particles are thus cast in
their appropriate moulds, their fracture, aggre
gation, the filling-in of their pores and inter
stices by lesser particles, and a number of other
and accidental conditions, provide the units of
the multiform substances of which the mineral
kingdom is composed. According to this theory,
then, there is but one substance in the world,
namely, the first ; the difference of things is
difference of form; there are no positive, but
only relative, atoms; no metaphysical, but only
real elements ; moreover, the heights of chemical
doctrine can be scaled by rational induction alone,
planted on the basis of analysis, synthesis, and
observation." To the above may be added that Swedenborg's
crustal particles bear to the interior and intersti
tial space the ratio in volume of one to two, and
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STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS ABROAD
in weight that of eight to one — a coincidence
with the ratios of the later discovered elements
that is highly suggestive. Dumas, in his Chemi
cal Philosophy, remarks of Swedenborg, " It is
then to him we are indebted for the first idea of
making cubes, tetraedrons, pyramids, and the dif
ferent crystalline forms, by grouping the spheres."
At the same time with these deep investiga
tions he was also engaged with all earnestness in
promoting the working of mines and metals, and
on his return home he attempted to introduce
an entirely new method of reducing copper ore,
as described in his treatise on Copper published
twelve years later. In the spring of 1723, though
not yet an Ordinary Assessor, he became a regular
attendant at the sittings of the College, except
when abroad or engaged in the sessions of the Diet,
of which by the ennoblement of the family he
now became member. In place of speeches at the
Diet, none of which have been preserved, we have
memorials presented by him not without interest
at the present day. The following was perhaps
his first address, read to the Diet, February 7,
1723: —
"The chief cause of a country's increase in
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
wealth is the balance of commerce : if its imports
are greater than a country can pay with its own
products, it follows that it loses annually consider
able sums by leaving them in the hands of foreign
nations ; besides, it diminishes the capital which
it collected under more favorable circumstances,
and which it should hand down to posterity. As
soon also as a country by an imprudent course
suddenly falls into poverty, it unavoidably sinks in
the estimation of other nations, and they refuse
any longer to trade with it, although in former
times they may have enriched themselves by its
wealth and sucked out its substance and marrow.
Yea, more serious consequences still may ensue ;
for unless a watchful eye is kept on the balance of
a country's trade, a general want may be caused
thereby which makes itself felt in the private
circumstances of every one; fortunes and pos
sessions in the land are diminished in value; no
means are forthcoming for the support of the
navy and army ; the defence of the country be
comes weak and impotent; the public servants
must be satisfied with small salaries ; manufac
tures and agriculture together with all the moneys
invested in them depreciate in value ; besides other
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contingencies which in such a case overtake the
higher as well as the lower ranks, and especially
the business men, who must suffer most heavily
from it."
He then presents two computations : the first
showing the average imports and exports during
the reign of Charles XI, when Swedish com
merce was most flourishing ; and the second show
ing the balance of trade at the time of the me
morial. In the first case the balance of exports
was four and a half million florins in favor of
Sweden, and in the second case the balance was
from two and a half to three millions against the
country. " From which," he says, " it follows that
the rich products of Sweden are no longer suffi
cient to pay the excess of imported goods and
merchandise, but that annually a part of the cash
property of the country has to be employed to ad
just the difference. ... As every one now is left
in freedom to express his well-meant thoughts,
and to suggest how the common weal is likely to
be best helped, it is hoped that it will not be un
favorably received if I insist, in all humility, that
there is nothing the present Diet can do of greater
importance than to examine and to assist and pro-
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
mote all propositions which have for their purpose
to infuse new life into Swedish commerce, so as
to make our balance even ; and this for the sake
of the private welfare of every one of us and also
for that of our whole posterity." Next he shows
that Sweden has lost, first, the revenues formerly
derived from various provinces that have been
conquered by Russia and Denmark ; second, the
freighting business which she formerly enjoyed,
but which during her wars and by the decay of
her shipping has gone into foreign hands ; third,
her former profitable commerce with the now lost
provinces. Finally, he points out Swedish iron and
copper mining interests as the most important in
the balance of trade, and most worthy of atten
tion, and concludes with recommending careful
inquiry how the mercantile marine may be built
up, unnecessary importation checked or cheap
ened, and domestic manufactures developed and
protected. On the 1 8th of the same month Swedenborg
memorializes the Diet against the rule and law of
the country which requires the mining of a baser
metal to give way to that of a more noble, even
when, as he shows, the mining of the baser by
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its greater abundance may be many-fold more
valuable. In the following May he had occasion to pre
sent another and longer memorial to the same
purport, in consequence of instructions given by
the Diet to the Royal College of Mines to pay
special attention to the mining of silver and cop
per. He showed that the yearly production of iron
in Sweden was equivalent to fifty tons of gold,
and that of copper was equivalent to less than fif
teen tons. While then he would have the copper
mines cherished and protected, he would not have
it done at the expense of the iron mines. Yet he
seems to have been opposed in these common-
sense views by his own colleagues of the Royal
College of Mines, on what ground we do not know.
About the same time he presented another
memorial to the Diet, setting forth the fact that
Swedish iron was then exported in pigs to Hol
land, whence it was re-shipped inland to Liege
and Sauerland, where it was puddled and rolled
into bar or sheet iron, then carried back to Holland
and exported at great profit to various countries.
This profit, he declares, with small expense and
industry might be kept at home. He accompanies
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
his memorial with drawings and details of the
puddling furnaces and rolling-mills abroad, and
simply submits the expediency of encouragement
by the Government to those who will undertake
the manufacture in Sweden.
The treatment which this eminently reasonable
and practical memorial received at the hands of
the Diet and the Royal College of Mines goes far
to convince us that Swedenborg had reason to
complain of the want of response to his genius
in his own country and home. The memorial was
read before the Committee on the business of the
Diet, April 20, 1723 ; by them it was referred to
the Committee on Mining and Commerce, where
it was read May 7th. By the Diet it was referred
to the King, by whom it was submitted to the
Royal College of Mines and to that of Commerce,
Aug. 1 o, 1725. It arrived in the Royal College
of Mines, Aug. 23, 1725, and was filed for future
reference, Sept. 1, 1726. In the course of three
years and a half, a matter which would properly
have commended itself for instant action is filed
away for future reference ! So slow were the
Swedes to manufacture the Swedes iron, now in
demand throughout the world.
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On the 15th of July, 1724, a Royal warrant
was issued by King Frederick appointing the well
born Assessor Emanuel Swedenborg a regular
Assessor in the Royal College, with a salary of
eight hundred dalers * in silver. This was not the
full salary of the office, which was twelve hundred
dalers, but was increased to it six years later. Of
the following ten years employed in public duties
we have no details, but know from his later pub
lications that together with his official duties
Swedenborg was diligently pursuing the course
of study he had adopted. Early in the year 1733
he asked from the King leave of absence for
nine months, in which to go to Germany and see
through the press his great work entitled as a
whole, Opera Philosophica et Mineralia. Of this
there were three noble folio volumes, printed at
the expense of his friend the Duke of Brunswick.
The first volume had the special title of Principia
Rerum Naturalium, or First Principles of Natu
ral Things ; the other two treated of the working
of iron and copper. Of the Principia its Eng
lish translator, the Reverend Augustus Clissold,
says — 1 About $450.
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
" The First Part treats of the origin and laws
of motion, and is mostly devoted to the consider
ation of its first principles ; which are investigated
philosophically, then geometrically, their existence
being traced from a first natural point down to
the formation of a solar vortex, and afterwards
from the solar vortex to the successive constitu
tion of the elements and of the three kingdoms
of nature. From the first element to the last com
pound, it is the author's object to show that effort
or conatus to motion tends to a spiral figure ; and
that there is an actual motion of particles consti
tuting a solar chaos, which is spiral and conse
quently vortical.
" In the Second Part the author applies this
theory of vortical motion to the phenomena of
magnetism, by which on the one hand he endeav
ors to test the truth of his principles, and on the
other by application of the principles to explain
the phenomena of magnetism ; the motion of the
magnetical effluvia being as in the former case
considered to be vortical.
" In the Third Part the author applies the same
principles of motion to Cosmogony, including the
origination of the planetary bodies from the sun,
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and their vortical revolutions until they arrived
at their present orbit ; likewise to the constitution
and laws of the different elements, the motions
of all which are alleged to be vortical ; likewise to
the constitution and laws of the three kingdoms
of nature, the animal, vegetable, and mineral : so
that the entire Principia aims to establish a true
theory of the vortices, founded upon a true system
of corpuscular philosophy."
The Principia is too deeply mathematical and
reasoned with too subtile intuition for common
readers to follow. For this reason, in part, it has
been neglected by later scientists ; but also be
cause they with more perfect instruments have
devoted their attention chiefly to experimental
observation. For a century the atomic theory suf
ficed them, but now they are going far deeper and
are closely approximating Swedenborg's theory of
matter as compounded of first finites — as he
calls them — in intense vortical motion. Not that
this theory was originated by him. It was held in
a way by the old Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras,
and was revived by Descartes. But Swedenborg
elaborated it beyond his predecessors, and beyond
our ability to follow. To him also is now ascribed
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
the nebular theory of the solar system, and the
position of this system in the visible universe. In
his Principia is to be found an elaborate, and, we
are persuaded, true theory of phenomena of light
and of electricity or magnetism, with calculation
of coming variations of the magnetic needle for a
century. We are not at the end of his philosophic
and inventive anticipations, the correctness of
which may serve to give confidence that even in
these pursuits Swedenborg was being led in the
path of truth. But after he found himself engaged
in his true mission of unfolding the genuine
meaning of the Scriptures, he made no attempt to
display his discoveries in science or philosophy,
regarding all the insight he had obtained into the
mysteries of creation as a training and basis for
understanding the mysteries of the Divine provi
dence in the care of human souls.
Of the other two volumes of the Opera Philo-
sophica et Mineralia, on Iron and on Copper, there
is little to be said of general interest, since they
are practical treatises on the mining and working
of these metals. In his own preface Swedenborg
says —
" I intend to distribute the treatise upon each
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metal, as here upon iron, into three divisions.
The first division will comprise in particular
the processes and methods of smelting that are
in use in various parts of Europe ; and as the
methods in vogue in Sweden have come more
under my own observation than those employed
in other countries, so I dwell upon them longer
in proportion. The second division will give the
various methods of assaying ; by which the ore is
tried in small fires, or assaying furnaces, and its
composition examined, in order that it may be
the better proceeded with on a large scale. The
third division will embrace an account of all the
different chemical processes that have fallen
under my notice, with the characteristics of each ;
and will deliver numerous experiments and ob
servations which have been made on one and the
same metal in the course of solution, crystalliza
tion, precipitation, and other chemical changes."
The great learning and practical value of the
volumes on metallurgy was at once admitted. The
Academy of Sciences at Paris translated and
published the treatise on Iron. In England the
work was cited as of the highest authority. In
Russia its author was elected corresponding raem-
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
ber of the Imperial Academy of Sciences ; and at
home he became Fellow of the Royal Academy
of Sciences. Fifty years after its publication, on
the report of a commission to the unfortunate
Louis XV, that there did not yet exist any theory
of the magnet, the Marquis de Thome responded
indignantly and at length, declaring that the
Opera Philosophica of Swedenborg was held in
high esteem in all Europe, and that the most
celebrated men " had not disdained to draw ma
terials from it to assist them in their labors ; "
that "the theory of the Swedish author is a true
theory of the magnet, and of all magnetism ; "
and that M. Camus, who performed such surpris
ing things with the magnet before their eyes,
admitted that he had " derived from this author
almost all the knowledge he exhibited on the
subject." To this we may add that some prac
tical electricians of the present day are finding
in this theory explanations of results which they
do not find explained by any other.
For completing the publication of the Opera
Mineralia et Philosophica Swedenborg obtained
an extension of his leave of absence, but in July,
1734, was in his seat again, examining candidates
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for the post of Assay Master, and was constant
in attendance till the middle of January, 1736,
when he requested the Royal leave to attend the
burial of his father in West Gothland. But these
practical duties of the College of Mines could not
long satisfy his aspirations for the advancement
of human knowledge, and in the following May
he again petitioned King Frederic to grant him
three or four years' leave of absence, on half pay,
for the elaboration and publishing of works he had
undertaken requiring " long and deep thought and
a mind unencumbered with cares and troubles."
This request was referred by the King to the
Royal College and received its approval, where
upon Swedenborg thanked the College, and espe
cially for the continuance of half his salary "in
consideration partly of the well-intentioned and
useful design I have in view, and partly because
I have been an Assessor in the Royal College
for twenty years. It will both cheer me on and
be an assistance in my proposed undertaking,
which will be sufficiently expensive."
On the 3d of July he took his leave of their
Majesties, who were very gracious, and on the
10th of the Royal College, to which he did not
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
return till November, 1740. Proceeding to Ham
burg he called on Pastor Christopher Wolf with
letters from Benzelius, as we learn from a letter
of Wolf's to Benzelius, dated Sept. 1, 1736: —
" I received recently your most welcome let
ter, which was handed to me by your relative, the
most noble Swedenborg, who was known to me
by name already. I value his most celebrated
work in mineralogy so much the more, because
in the present age scarcely any one can be com
pared with this most excellent and clear-headed
man in this department."
Of this and other journeys and sojourns in
foreign lands we have many notes of his own
hand, mentioning places, persons, churches, and
libraries visited, with interesting comments on
the manners and customs of the people, and with
an occasional remark on what he then had in
hand. It was no longer metallurgy and the ma
terial elements that he was studying, but man —
body, mind, and soul — and his relation to the
Supreme Being. For some years he had given
close attention to the study of Anatomy, and to
this he now devoted several years' labor, yet with
the soul always in view. Already in September
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in Paris he notes, " I made the first draught of
the introduction to my new treatise [Economy
of the Animal Kingdom], namely, that the soul
of wisdom is the knowledge and acknowledg
ment of the Supreme Being." Here in Paris and
in Italy he found the best opportunities for ana
tomical studies, and in Amsterdam for printing
his GEconomia Regni Animalis, on the completion
of which he returned home in November, 1740.
This quarto volume of 582 pages represents,
however, but a small part of the author's labors
during these four years. Very much more is con
tained in the great pile of notes, observations,
and deductions which he brought home in manu
script, from which important treatises have since
been and are still being published.
Not simple phenomena, but their hidden causes
Swedenborg was always seeking. The philosophy
of his century was leading to negative results,
to disbelief in the power of reason to conclude
anything in regard to the Divine Being, however
clear to moral sense may be His existence. Kant's
results, as summed up by Lewes, are these : —
" The attempt to demonstrate the existence of
God is an impossible attempt. Reason is utterly
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
incompetent to the task. The attempt to pene
trate the essence of things — to know things per
se — to know noumena — is also an impossible at
tempt. And yet that God exists, that the World
exists, are irresistible convictions. There is an
other certitude, therefore, besides that derived
from demonstration, and this is moral certitude,
which is grounded upon belief. I cannot say, ' It
is morally certain that God exists,' but I must
say, ' I am morally certain that God exists.' " *
Swedenborg himself wrote in his Principia —
" When therefore the philosopher has arrived
at the end of his studies, even supposing him to
have acquired so complete a knowledge of all
mundane things that nothing more remains for
him to learn, he must there stop ; for he can
never know the nature of the Infinite Being, of
His Supreme Intelligence, Supreme Providence,
Supreme Love, Supreme Justice, and other infi
nite attributes. He will therefore acknowledge
that in respect to this supremely intelligent and
wise Being his knowledge is nothing : he will
hence most profoundly venerate Him with the
utmost devotion of soul ; so that at the mere
1 Lewes: History of Philosophy, ii, 518.
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thought of Him his whole frame, or membranous
and sensitive system, will awfully, yet sweetly
tremble, from the inmost to the outermost prin
ciples of its being."
But in the same year with the Principia Swe
denborg had continued his investigation of the
questions of his time in his Sketch of a Philo
sophical Argument on the Infinite and the Final
Cause of Creation ; and on the Intercourse be
tween the Soul and the Body. In this essay his
unswerving faith in Revelation is conspicuous all
through, and with it a recognition of something
higher than merely natural reason. In the Preface
he says —
" Philosophy if it be truly rational can never
be contrary to Revelation. . . . The end of
reason can be no other than that man may per
ceive the things that are revealed and those that
are created : thus the rational cannot be contrary
to the Divine, since the end why reason is given
us is that we may be empowered to perceive that
there is a God and to know that He is to be wor
shipped. If reason be the mean, endowed with
the faculty and power of perceiving, and if the
actual perception be the end, then the mean, in
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
so far as it is correctly rational, cannot be re
pugnant to the end. The very mysteries that are
above reason cannot be contrary to reason, al
though reason is unable to explain their grounds."
Thus begins the first chapter : —
" In order that we may be favored and happy
in our endeavors, they must begin from the In
finite, or God, without whom no undertakings can
attain a prosperous issue. He it is that bestows
on all things their principles ; from whom all things
finite took their rise ; from whom we have our
souls, and by whom we live ; by whom we are at
once mortals and immortals ; to whom in fine we
owe everything. And as the soul was created by
Him and added to the body, and reason to both,
in order that the soul might be His, so our
thoughts, whether we revolve them within, or
utter them in words, or commit them to writing,
must always be so directed as to have their begin
ning and end from Him; whereby the Deity may
be present with gracious favor as the First and
the Last, in either end as well as in the means."
Then alluding to the desire of human reason
to be convinced in order to accept theology, he
shows at length the impossibility of the reason's
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concluding anything in regard to the nature of
the Infinite, by comparison with the finite. But,
not abandoning the matter so, he proceeds to in
quire as to the producing cause of what is finite,
even of its first and least particular. Showing
that it cannot have its existence of itself, nor of
any other finite thing, since then the question
would be removed but one step backward, he con
cludes that reason must admit an infinite pro
ducing cause. But of these there cannot be many,
only One. Now taking this Infinite as the cause
of all creation, he deduces the entire variety from
the same Cause, in all its intricacy and order.
Then citing examples of this order and intricate
beauty — especially in ample detail from the con
struction and operation of the organs of the hu
man body — calling forth our admiration, he seeks
to transfer this and transform it into adoration
for the Deity. But this full acknowledgment, he
admits, must come partly on self -evidence, spring
ing from the human soul, and partly as a con
sequence from the arguments adduced.
"There is in fact," he says, "a tacit consent,
or a tacit conclusion of the soul, to the being as
well as to the infinity of God. This is dictated, I
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
say, partly by the soul in its own free essence,
partly by the soul as instructed and advised by
the diverse innumerable effects presented in the
world. ... It cannot be denied that there is
that in man as man, provided he enjoy the use
of reason, which acknowledges an omnipotent
God, an omnipresent and all-provident Deity ; it
seems therefore to be innate, and to be a power
or action of reason, when not on the one hand
troubled too much by its own ideas, nor on the
other hand too destitute of all cultivation and de
velopment. But we care not whether it be spon
taneous or the contrary, if it be admitted that
there is no one living, provided he be hot over or
under rational, but acknowledges the existence
of a Deity, however ignorant he be of the Divine
nature. Hence it is that after man has exerted
his powers and whetted his reason to find out
this nature, he falls into strange darkness and
ideal conclusions. He knows indeed that there is
a Deity, that there is an omnipotence, but he has
been unsuccessful in eliciting the nature of either
from any dictates of reason. ... In truth man
kind is always desirous to imagine the qualities
of God, to bring Him within the bounds of rea-
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son and rational ideas, and to finite and fix Him
in something, by something, or to something.
For this reason the above investigation has all
along been the issue and offspring of reason and
philosophy. And though the philosophers have
heard that He is infinite, yet on behalf of poor
reason, which is always bounded by finite limits,
they imagine the infinite as finite, being unable
to perceive at all apart from the finite. We now
therefore see why reason has failed, and that the
cause is the same in the common people as in
the learned."
Proceeding then to point out in detail the errors
of many theories, all of which are owing to the
judging of the Infinite from the finite, he con
cludes that —
" Beyond our finite sphere there are verily in
finities, to the knowledge of which it is useless
to aspire, and which in the Infinite are infinitely
many and can be known to no one but the Infinite.
In order that these may in some measure be con
ceived by the soul introduced through faith into
communion with the Infinite, it has pleased God
to discover by Revelation much whereby the mind
can finitely conceive and express Him : not how-
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
ever that finite perceptions or expressions are
similar or adequate to Him, but only that those
made use of are not repugnant."
Returning to what has been granted, that the
Infinite exists as the cause of the finite world,
Swedenborg next questions whether or no there
must be a nexus, or means of influence, between
the Infinite and the finite. Showing by argument
that a nexus is indispensable, he then shows that
the nexus itself must be infinite, not finite. As
suming this to be within our knowledge by proof
of reason, he asks whether if any one can tell us
more about this nexus that shall agree with what
we already know, we shall not listen to it. And
then he alleges, what he says has been taught by
Revelation, that this nexus is the Son of God, be
gotten from eternity," to be the means of commu
nication from the Infinite with the finite. But,
from what he has already shown, he declares this
nexus itself to be infinite ; and as there cannot be
two infinites, the nexus., or the Son of God, is none
other than the Infinite, God Himself.
1 This current theological expression was firmly repudiated
in his later works, in which he recognized the Son as the
Divine Presence in humanity, thus in time.
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STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS ABROAD
"To say then," he continues, "that the finite
came forth mediately through the Son, is exactly
tantamount to saying that it came forth immedi
ately through the Father, or immediately through
the Son ; since the Father and Son are alike the
Infinite, and the Infinite is the immediate cause
of the finite." Then showing that in creation
there must be a Divine, or infinite, final end ;
that this end is to be reached through the whole
chain of creation, of which man is the last link,
the crown of all, he declares that in man therefore
for the fulfilment of the Divine end, there must be
something that can partake of the Infinite : —
"Not certainly in the fact that man is an ani
mal and has senses provided him to enjoy the
delights of the world ; nor in the fact that he has
a soul, for his soul is finite and can contain no
thing of the Infinite. Neither in reason, which is
the effect of the cooperation between the soul
and the body ; which, as they are both finite, so
the effect of both is also finite : therefore it does
not lie in reason. So far we find nothing Divine
in man. Where is that, then, which appears to be
nowhere, and yet is necessary to realize the Divine
end? . It lies in this, that man can acknowledge

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
and does acknowledge God ; that he can believe
and does believe that God is infinite ; that though
he is ignorant of the nature of the Deity, yet he
can acknowledge and does acknowledge His exist
ence, and this without the shadow of doubt. And
especially does it consist in this further privilege,
that by this undoubting faith he is sensible in love,
or delight resulting from love, of a peculiar con
nection with the Infinite. But where he doubts,
he does not acknowledge and the Divine is not in
him. All Divine worship proceeds from this foun
tain of faith and love. . . . Thus the true divinity
in man, who is the final effect in which the Divine
end dwells, is none other than an acknowledgment
of the existence and infinity of God . . . and a
sense of delight in the love of God, although hu
man reason cannot do this of itself, inasmuch as
man, with all his parts and his very soul, is finite ;
notwithstanding which he may be a fit recipient,
and as he is in the finite sphere he may concur to
dispose himself for reception."
Now comes the crowning effort in this argu
ment. It being granted that the Divine sought
this final return of creation to Itself, the question
is asked, how it is to be secured through the va-
102

STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS ABROAD
rious stages from first to last. The answer being
given that it is to be secured by means of the
soul, which from its altitude is designed to rule the
body, it is asked by what means the true order is
to be restored when, as must have been foreseen,
the body refuses to obey the instincts of the
soul and fails to serve its true purpose. And the
triumphant answer is given that "God provided
against this by His Infinite, only-begotten Son,
who took on Him the ultimate effect of the world,
or a manhood and a human shape, and thereby
was infinite in and with the finite, and conse
quently restored the nexus in His own person
between the Infinite and the finite, so that the pri
mary end was realized. . . . The Infinite . . . thus
Himself became the last effect — at once God and
man, the Mediator between the finite and the In
finite. . . . Without Him there would be no con
nection between the last effect and the Infinite ;
whereas through Him somewhat of the Divine
may dwell in us, namely, in the faculty to know
and believe that there is a God, and that He is
infinite. And again through Him, by the use of
the means, we are led to true religion, and become
children of God, and not of the world."
103

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Observing now that this is not the place to
explain the nature of the connection by the nexus,
he stops to consider the difficulty which may be
felt as to the condition of those who have not
learned and believed in the Messiah. He con
cludes that though the coming of the Messiah is
the essentia] means of salvation, yet " those who
did not know and do not know that He has come,
could and can become partakers by the grace of
God through His coming ; for otherwise we
should suppose something in God that would
seem at variance with His Divine nature and end.
But as for those who know the Messiah, or have
the opportunity to know Him, we say that they
too are made partakers through His coming ; but
the knowledge also of His coming is necessary to
them in order to their faith, for the quality of
faith is determined by knowledge, and its per
ception rendered distinct and full ; and therefore
where knowledge is given, it and faith are in
separable." The summing up of our author's argument is
as follows : " Observe what we have gained. We
have the affirmation of reason for the existence
of God, and also for His Infinity ; and as this is
104

STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS ABROAD
now positive knowledge, together with that other
truth of the existence of a nexus between God
and man in the Person of the only-begotten Son,
so we may legitimately advance, not indeed to
inquire into the nature or qualities of Deity, be
cause He is infinite, and His qualities therefore
we can never penetrate, but to inquire what there
can be in man to lead to this primary end ; what
there can be in him that does not repugn the in
finite and the nexus ; how a confessedly infinite
Deity may best be expressed in finite terms that
shall not be repugnant to the occasion ; what be
fitting worship consists in ; what is the peculiar
efficacy of faith proceeding from a true acknow
ledgment of God; with innumerable other sub
jects, which cannot be settled briefly, but require
to be rationally deduced in a volume by them
selves. And as by the grace of God we have all
these matters revealed in Holy Scripture, so where
reason is perplexed in its apprehensions we must
at once have recourse to Revelation ; and where
we cannot discover from Revelation either what
we should adopt or in what sense we should un
derstand its declarations, we must then fly to the
oracle of reason."

CONTINUED STUDY OF THE BODY
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
What is our quest ? A man fitted by birthright
and by training of heart and mind to recognize
the sign of the Son of Man in the clouds of per
verted Scripture, that have darkened human rea
son and withdrawn the light of faith. And here
we have Emanuel Swedenborg of such birthright,
with devotion of his life to the advancement of
mankind, led through severest mathematical, me
chanical, and philosophical reasoning — without
as yet any consciousness of special guidance or
purpose — to absolute demonstration in his own
mind of the necessity and the existence of the
Divine Son of Man, to be sought and found by
us in the Holy Scriptures. But let us wait. Sci
entific and philosophic studies are not yet com.
pleted. Twelve years more are to be devoted to
them before the mission is Divinely signified to
him of revealing this Son of Man in His Word.
The Economy of the Animal Kingdom, pub-
106

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
lished in 1740, was an attempt to reach a philo
sophic view of the human organism as the abode
and instrument of the soul. Of his method the
author says —
"In the experimental knowledge of anatomy
our way has been pointed out by men of the
greatest and most cultivated talents, such as
Eustachius [and nineteen others named], whose
discoveries, far from consisting of fallacious,
vague, and empty speculations, will forever con
tinue to be of practical use to posterity. Assisted
by the studies and elaborate writings of these
illustrious men and fortified by their authority, I
have resolved to commence and complete my de
sign — that is to say, to open some part of those
things which it is generally supposed that nature
has involved in obscurity. Here and there I have
taken the liberty to throw in the results of my
own experience ; but this only sparingly, for on
deeply considering the matter I deemed it best to
make use of the facts supplied by others. Indeed,
there are some that seem born for experimental
observation and endowed with a sharper insight
than others, as if they possessed naturally a finer
acumen. . . . There are others again who enjoy
107

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
a natural faculty for contemplating facts already
discovered, and eliciting their causes. Both are
peculiar gifts and are seldom united in the same
person. Besides, I found when intently occupied
in exploring the secrets of the human body that
as soon as I discovered anything which had not
been observed before, I began, seduced probably
by self-love, to grow blind to the most acute lu
cubrations and researches of others, and to origi
nate the whole series of inductive arguments
from my particular discovery alone. . . . Nay,
when I essayed to form principles from these
discoveries, I thought I could detect in various
other phenomena much to confirm their truth,
although in reality they were fairly susceptible
of no construction of the kind. I therefore laid
aside my instruments, and restraining my desire
for making observations, determined rather to
rely on the researches of others than to trust
to my own."
After describing as from experience the faculty
which some enjoy — who ever more than he ? —
of confining their attention to one thing and
evolving with distinctness all that lies in it, of
distributing their thoughts into classes separat-
10S

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
ing mixed topics into appropriate divisions, of
skilfully subordinating the series thus divided,
and of being never overwhelmed by the multi
plicity of things, but continually enlightened more
and more, he says of such as enjoy the faculty —
"The fictitious depresses them, the obscure
pains them ; but they are exhilarated by the truth,
and in the presence of everything that is clear
they too are clear and serene. When after a long
course of reasoning they make a discovery of the
truth, straightway there is a cheering light and
joyful confirmatory brightness that plays around
the sphere of their mind, and a kind of mysterious
radiation — I know not whence it proceeds —
that darts through some sacred temple in the
brain. Thus a sort of rational instinct displays
itself, and in a manner gives notice that the soul
is called into a state of inward communion, and
has returned at that moment into the golden age
of its intellectual perfections. The mind that has
known this pleasure is wholly carried away in
pursuit of it ; and in the kindling flame of its love
despises in comparison, as external pastimes, all
merely corporeal pleasures ; and though it recog
nizes them as means for exciting the animal mind
109

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
and the purer blood, it on no account follows them
as ends. Persons of this cast regard the arts and
sciences only as aids to wisdom, and learn them
as helps to its attainment, not that they may be
reputed wise for possessing them. They modestly
restrain all tendency to inflated ideas of them
selves, knowing that the sciences are an ocean of
which they can catch but a few drops. They look
on no one with a scornful brow or supercilious
air, nor arrogate any praise to themselves. They
ascribe all to the Deity, and regard Him as the
source from which all true wisdom descends. In
the promotion of His glory they place the end
and object of their own."
Remarking now how sensual and worldly cares
impair this noble faculty, he says, " Nothing super
induces more darkness on the human mind than
the interference of its own fancied providence in
matters that properly belong to the Divine provi
dence." And then he goes on to say, still as from
experience —
" This faculty, however, is chiefly impaired by
the thirst for glory and the love of self. I know
not what darkness overspreads the rational fac
ulties when the mind begins to swell with pride,

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
or when our intuition of objects calls up in the
objects themselves the image and glory of our
own selfhood. It is like pouring a liquor upon
some exquisite wine, which throws it into a froth,
sullies its purity, and clouds its translucence. It
is as if the animal spirits were stirred into waves,
and a tempest drove the grosser blood into insur
gent motion, by which the organs of internal sen
sation or perception becoming swollen, the powers
of thought are dulled, and the whole scene of
action in their theatre changed. In those who
experience these disorderly states, the rational
faculty is crippled and brought to a standstill ; or
rather its movements become retrograde instead
of progressive. A limit is put to its operations,
which its possessor imagines to be the limit of all
human capacity, because he himself is unable to
overstep it. He sees little or nothing in the most
studied researches of others, but everything —
oh, how vain-glorious ! — in his own. Nor can
he return to correct conceptions until his elated
thoughts have subsided to their proper level.
'There are many,' says Seneca, ' who might have
attained wisdom, had they not fancied they had
attained it already.' The Muses love a tranquil

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
mind ; and there is nothing but humility, contempt
of self, and simple love of truth, that can prevent
or remedy the evils we have described.
" But how often does a man labor in vain to
divest himself of his own nature ! How often, when
ignorant or unmindful of the love that creeps upon
him, will he betray a partiality to himself and the
offspring of his own genius ! If an author there
fore desires that his studies should give birth to
anything of sterling value, let him be advised,
when he has committed to paper what he con
siders to be of particular merit and is fond of fre
quently perusing, to lay it aside for a while, and
after the lapse of months to return to it as to
something he had forgotten, and as the produc
tion not of himself but of some other writer. Let
him repeat this practice three or four times in
the year. . Should his writings then often raise
a blush upon his countenance, should he no longer
feel an overweening confidence with regard to the
lines which had received the latest polish from his
hands, let him be assured that he has made some
little progress in wisdom."
At the conclusion of Part First, Swedenborg
gives a chapter which he styles An Introduction

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
to Rational Psychology, regarding this as the first
and last of those sciences which lead to the know
ledge of the animal economy. " But whereas the
soul," he goes on to say, " lives withdrawn so far
within that she cannot be exposed to view until
the coverings under which she is hidden are un
folded and removed in order, it hence becomes
necessary that we ascend to her by the same steps
or degrees and the same ladder by which her na
ture in the formation of the things of her kingdom
descends into her body. By way therefore 'of an
Introduction to Rational Psychology, I will premise
the Doctrine of Series and Degrees — a doctrine
of which in the preceding chapters I have made
such frequent mention, the design of which is to
teach the nature of order and its rules as observed
and prescribed in the succession of things."
The first chapter of Part Second is devoted to
the motion of the brain, the second to the cortical
substance of the brain, and the third to the human
soul. Confessing the difficulties in the search for
the soul and his frequent disappointments, he
says —
" At length I awoke as from a deep sleep when
I discovered that nothing is farther removed from
"3

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
the human understanding than what at the same
time is really present to it ; and that nothing is
more present to it than what is universal, prior,
and superior, since this enters into every particu
lar and into everything posterior and inferior.
What is more omnipresent than the Deity — in
whom we live and move and have our being —
and yet what is more remote from the sphere of
the understanding ?
" The more any one is perfected in judgment,
and the better he discerns the distinctions of
things, the more clearly will he perceive that there
is an order in things, that there are degrees of
order, and that it is by these alone he can pro
gress, and this step by step from the lowest sphere
to the highest, or from the outermost to the in
nermost. For as often as Nature ascends away
from external phenomena, or betakes herself in
ward, she seems to have separated from us, and
to have left us altogether in the dark as to what
direction she has taken. We have need therefore
of some science to serve as our guide in tracing
out her steps, to arrange all things into series, to
distinguish these series into degrees, and to con
template the order of each thing in the order of
114

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
the whole. The science which does this I call the
Doctrine of Series and Degrees, or the Doctrine
of Order . . . [which] teaches the distinction and
relation between things superior and inferior, or
prior and posterior. . . .
"lam strongly persuaded that the essence and
nature of the soul, its influx into the body, and
the reciprocal action of the body can never come
to demonstration without these doctrines, com
bined with a knowledge of anatomy, pathology,
and psychology; nay, even of physics, and es
pecially of the auras of the world. . . . This and
no other is the reason that with diligent study
and intense application I have investigated the
anatomy of the body, and principally the human,
so far as it is known from experience ; and that I
have followed the anatomy of all its parts, in the
same manner as I have here investigated the cor
tical substance."
The soul itself and a society of souls he finds
to be the final purpose of all creation, and then
he concludes —
" If there be a society of souls, must not the
City of God on the universal earth be the semi
nary of it ? The most universal law of its citizens
"5

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
is, that they love their neighbor as themselves,
and God more than themselves. All other things
are means, and are good in proportion as they
lead directly to this end. Now as everything in
the universe is created as a means to this end, it
follows that the application of the means, and a
true regard of the end in the means, are the sole
constituents of a citizen [of the Holy City]. The
Holy Scripture is the code of rules for obtaining
the end by the means.
"These rules are not so dark or obscure as
the philosophy of the mind and the love of self
and of the world would make them ; nor so deep
' and hidden but that any sincere soul which per
mits the Spirit of God to govern it may draw
them from this pure fountain — pure enough for
the use and service of the members of the City
of God all over the world — without violating any
form of ecclesiastical government. It is foretold
that the kingdom of God shall come ; that at last
the guests shall be assembled at the marriage
supper ; that the wolf shall lie down with the lamb,
the leopard with the kid, the lion with the ox ; that
the young child shall play with the asp ; that the
mountain of God shall rise above all other moun-
116

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
tains, and that the Gentile and the stranger shall
come to it to pay their worship."
To quote more from this remarkable work of
the Economy of the Animal Kingdom would ex
ceed the proper limits of this small volume. Of
the literary merits of the work S. T. Coleridge
said — "I remember nothing in Lord Bacon su
perior, few passages equal, either in depth of
thought, or in richness, dignity, and felicity of
diction, or in the weightiness of the truths con
tained."' And Dr. Spurgin, formerly President
of the Royal College of Physicians in London,
pronounced the Part on the Soul " a production
unparalleled for excellence in the whole compass
of human philosophy."2
But with the preparation and printing of the
Economy of the Animal Kingdom in 1740 and
1 74 1, Swedenborg's studies in this direction were
by no means at an end. Though he returned to
his duties in the Royal College in November,
1 740, fulfilling these duties anew for two years and
a half, he had already prescribed for himself a
1 Literary Remains, May 27, 1827.
2 Wisdom, Intelligence, and Science the True Characteristics
of Emanuel Swedenborg. 117

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
definite series of continued studies, year by year,
to be completed in 1747 with that of "The City
of God." These studies had been pursued with
such diligence that in June, 1743, he petitioned
the King and the Royal College for a new leave
of absence, that he might go abroad and complete
and see through the press a new work of not less
than five hundred sheets. Leave having been
obtained, Swedenborg repaired to Holland to con
sult the chief libraries and then to print a portion
of what he had prepared, in two quarto volumes
of 438 and 486 pages, entitled Regnum Animale
— The Animal Kingdom. In his Prologue to the
first volume he said —
" Not very long since I published the Economy
of the Animal Kingdom . . . and before travers
ing the whole field in detail, I made a rapid pas
sage to the soul and put forth an essay respecting
it. But on considering the matter more deeply,
I found that I had directed my course thither both
too hastily and too fast — after having explored
the blood only and its peculiar organs. I took the
step impelled by an ardent desire for knowledge."
Now he proposes to traverse the whole king
dom of the body, hoping that by bending his
118

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
course inward continually he may open all the
doors that lead to her and at length by the Divine
permission contemplate the soul herself. But
he supposes the objection made that "all those
things which transcend our present state are mat
ters for faith and not for intellect ; " that the in
tellect should be " contented with this its lot, and
not aspire to higher things which, inasmuch as
they are sanctuaries and matters of Revelation,
exist to faith only. . . . Where there is faith what
need is there of demonstration ? . . . Faith is above
all demonstration because it is above all the phi
losophy of the human mind." His reply is, " I
grant this ; nor would I persuade any one who
comprehends these high truths by faith, to attempt
to comprehend them by his intellect : let him ab
stain from my books. Whoso believes Revelation
implicitly, without consulting the intellect, is the
happiest of mortals, the nearest to heaven, and at
once a native of both worlds. But these pages of
mine are written with a view to those only who
never believe anything but what they can receive
with the intellect ; consequently who boldly invali
date and are fain to deny the existence of all
supereminent things, sublimer than themselves -
119

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
as the soul itself, and what follows therefrom ; its
life, immortality, heaven, etc. . . . Consequently
they honor and worship nature, the world, and
themselves ; in other respects they compare them
selves to brutes, and think that they shall die in
the same manner as brutes, and their souls exhale
and evaporate : thus they rush fearlessly into wick
edness. For these persons only I am anxious ; and,
as I said before, for them I indite and to them I
dedicate my work. For when I shall have demon
strated truths themselves by the analytic method,
I hope that those debasing shadows or material
clouds which darken the sacred temple of the mind
will be dispersed ; and that thus at last under the
favor of God, who is the Sun of Wisdom, an access
will be opened and a way laid down to faith. My
ardent desire and zeal for this end is what urges
and animates me."
In the Second Part he says —
" If we wish to invite real truths, whether nat
ural or moral or spiritual — for they all make
common cause by means of correspondence and
representation — into the sphere of our rational
minds, it is necessary that we extinguish the im
pure fires of the body and thereby our own delu-
120

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
sive lights, and submit and allow our minds un
molested by the influences of the body to be
illumined with the rays of the spiritual power :
then for the first time truths flow in, for they all
emanate from that power as their peculiar foun
tain. Nor when they are present, are there want
ing a multitude of signs by which they attest
themselves — namely, the varied forms of sweet
ness and delight attendant upon truth attained,
and affecting the mind as the enjoyments that
result from the harmonies of external objects
affect the lower and sensitive faculties of the
body : for as soon as ever a truth shines forth,
such a mind exults and rejoices ; and this joy is
the ground of its first assent, and of its first de
lighted smile. But the actual confirmation of the
truth proceeds from its accordance with numer
ous reasons, confirmed by experience by means
of the sciences, and each point of which accord
ance receives a similar assent — the mind going
onward the while with assiduous attention and
pains by the analytic way, or from effects to
causes. In addition to these delights there are
still more universal signs, as the desire and the
passion for attaining truth, and the love of the
121

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
truth attained, not for the sake of our own ad
vantage, but for that of the advantage of human
society ; and neither for the glory of ourselves or
of society, but of the Supreme Divinity alone.
This is the only way to truths : other things as
means, which are infinite, God Omnipotent pro
vides." Inquiring then into the ends or purposes of
the provision by which it is ordained that man
should ascend from lowest and outermost to
highest and innermost, he unfolds them compre
hensively, concluding with these — " that in this
ultimate circle of nature we may receive the won
ders of the world, and as we ascend the steps and
ladders of intelligence receive still greater won
ders, in all their significance and with full vision ;
and that at length we may comprehend by faith
those profound miracles that cannot be compre
hended by the intellect ; and from all these things,
in the deep hush of awe and amazement, vener
ate and adore the omnipotence and providence of
the Supreme Creator ; and thus in the contempla
tion of Him regard as vanity everything that we
leave behind us. . . . The last end, which also
is the first, is that our minds, at length become

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
forms of intelligence and innocence, may consti
tute a spiritual heaven, a kingdom of God, or a
holy society, in which the end of creation may
be regarded by God, and by which God may be
regarded as the end of ends. From infinite wis
dom, added to equal power, and this to equal
providence, such perpetual end flows constantly
from the first end to the last, and from the last
to the first, through the intermediate ends, that
declare the glory of the Divinity." To this he
adds in a note, " I shall treat of these subjects,
by the blessing of God, in the last of my analytic
Parts. But as yet we are dwelling in the mere
effects of the world, which exhibit the amazing
and Divine circle of these ends before the con
templation of our very senses."
Of the high purposes and original method pur
sued in this treatise on The Animal Kingdom, the
following extracts will give a good idea : —
" As the blood is continually making its circle
of life, that is to say, is in a constant revolution
of birth and death ; as it dies in its old age and
is regenerated or born anew ; and as the veins
solicitously gather together the whole of its cor
poreal part, and the lymphatics of its spirituous
123

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
part, and successively bring it back, refect it with
new chyle, and restore it to the pure and youth
ful blood ; and as the kidneys constantly purge it
of impurities, and restore its pure parts to the
blood, so likewise man, who lives at once in body
and spirit while he lives in the blood, must undergo
the same fortunes generally, and in the progress
of his regeneration must daily do the like. Such
a perpetual symbolical representation is there of
spiritual life in corporeal life ; as likewise a per
petual typical representation of the soul in the
body. In this consists the searching of the heart
and the reins, which is a thing purely Divine.
" In our Doctrine of Representations and Cor
respondences, we shall treat of both these sym
bolical and typical representations, and of the
astonishing things which occur, I will not say in
the living body only, but throughout nature, and
which correspond so entirely to supreme and spir
itual things that one would swear that the physical
world is purely symbolical of the spiritual world,
insomuch that if we choose to express any natural
truth in physical and definite vocal terms, and to
convert these terms only into the corresponding
spiritual terms, we shall by this means elicit a
124

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
spiritual truth or theological dogma, in place of
the physical truth or precept ; although no mortal
would have predicted that anything of the kind
could possibly arise by bare literal transposition,
inasmuch as the one precept, considered sepa
rately from the other, appears to have absolutely
no relation to it.
" I intend hereafter to communicate a number
of examples of such correspondences, together
with a vocabulary containing the terms of spir
itual things, as well as of the physical things for
which they are to be substituted. This symbol
ism pervades the living body ; and I have chosen
simply to indicate it here, for the purpose of
pointing out the spiritual meaning of searching
the reins."
In addition to what Swedenborg himself pub
lished of The Animal Kingdom, several parts
have been recently published in Germany and
England, including three thick octavo volumes
on " The Brain, Considered Anatomically, Physio
logically, and Philosophically." ' That so much
labor was given to the study of the brain was
doubtless because the author found in it the seat
1 James Spiers: London, 1882, 1887.
"5

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
of the soul, to knowledge of which he was aspir
ing. In the Animal Kingdom he says —
" The soul is properly the universal essence of
its body. The soul is the only thing substantial
and essential in its body. From it are derived
and born all the substances and essences which
are called composite and corporeal. For what
can truly be unless it be from a thing prior, more
simple, and more unique, which is the beginning
of the rest ? That which gives to others being
and existence must itself be. It cannot be pro
duced from modes, accidents, and qualities with
out a subject and form, and consequently without
a real essence and substance. The soul also is pe
culiar or individual, and there is not one universal
soul for all ; so that the soul of one cannot be
long to the body of another ; for — which is to be
demonstrated — the very form of the body is the
result of its essential determination, or the body
itself represents the soul as it were in an image.
. . . The higher or highest universal essence is
the soul, the lower is the animal spirit, and the
third the blood. The highest essence imparts
being, the power of acting and life, to the lower,
and this imparts the same in like manner to
126

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
the lowest ; the lowest, consequently, exists and
subsists from the first by means of the middle.
. . . The determinations of the highest univer
sal essence of the bodily system are those fibres
which are the simplest of all, and which are like
rays of the soul, and the first designations of
forms. The determinations of the lower universal
essence are those fibres which are derived from
the most simple ; but those of the lowest are the
arterial and venous vessels. As the essences, so
also the determinations are in turn derived from
one another, the higher imparting being to the
lower. From these determinations, or from these
determining essences, all the organic viscera, and
consequently the whole bodily system, is woven
and formed."
"It is the cerebrum through which the inter
course between the soul and the body is established;
for it is as it were the link and the uniting me
dium. From what follows it will appear that the
soul is in the cerebrum as it were in its heaven
and Olympus, though it is essentially everywhere
and present in every individual part. In the cere
brum, however, is formed as it were its court and
palace chamber, from which it looks around on
127

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
all things belonging to it, and determines them
into act in agreement with its intuition."
The thoroughness of this study of the brain
with the intent to find the residence of the soul
and the mode of its control over the body led to
some remarkable discoveries, of which the learned
world is now first becoming aware. Among these
it is surprising to find the determination of the
glandules of the cortical substance of the cere
brum, as the seat of the soul's sensation and
control of the body. Even more surprising is
Swedenborg's first general localization of the
different functions of the several parts of the
cerebrum. Many more observations and deduc
tions are contained in these wonderful studies —
published and unpublished — from which there
is doubtless still much for students to learn. Dr.
Max Newburger of Vienna in a recent essay
says —
" The great physiological system set forth by
Swedenborg in his two works — CEconomia Regni
Animalis and Regnum Animale — contains such
a number of successful anticipations of modern
science that we do not wonder when we see how
feebly his contemporaries grasped the true great-
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
ness of this Aristotle of the North. All the more
strange is it, however, that the spirit of medical
investigation elsewhere so lively in these times
should have left unfilled a field so rich as this in
possibilities." *
In an address to the Congress of Anatomists
assembled at Heidelberg, May 29, 1903, its Presi
dent, Prof. Dr. Gustaf Retzius, after describing
some of Swedenborg's contributions to a know
ledge of the anatomy and physiology of the brain,
concludes —
"Emanuel Swedenborg, therefore, according to
the standpoint of his time, not only had a thorough
knowledge of the construction of the brain, but
had also gone far ahead of his contemporaries in
fundamental questions. The question arises —
how was all this possible ? The answer can hardly
be other than that Swedenborg was not only a
learned anatomist and a sharp-sighted observer,
but also in many respects an unprejudiced, acute,
and deep anatomical thinker. He towers in the
history of the study of the brain as a unique,
wonderful, phenomenal spirit — as an ideal seeker
for truth, who advanced step by step to ever
1 The New Philosophy, October, ioc^
129

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
higher problems. One may more easily under
stand his life and labors when one places his
achievements in Anatomy and Physiology in jux
taposition with those in Geology, Mechanics, Cos
mogony, and Physics. With this as a background
his whole endeavor becomes somewhat more in
telligible. He sought to find the one principle of
the universe and of life in the whole. He thought
that he had found this original principle in the
motion, the tremulation of the first particles.
This fundamental view of things led him always
further to an almost all-sided investigation and to
a view of the fabric of Creation wonderfully deep
for his time. With this view as a guide he gained
knowledge and created theories which could be
acknowledged and appreciated only in our own
age." Another section of the manuscript left by
Swedenborg as a part of The Animal Kingdom,
continues the study of the soul under the title of
Rational Psychology : —
"All souls are purely spiritual forms. Thus all
minds and their loves are purely spiritual, whether
they are good or evil ; for a spirit whether good
or evil is still purely spirit, or purely mind, and
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
has purely spiritual — that is, universal — loves,
in which are contained the principles of lower
and purely natural loves. A good angel, as also
an evil angel or devil, is purely spirit ; and the
loves of each are purely spiritual, but with the dif
ference that whatever a good spirit loves, the evil
spirit hates and loves its opposite.
"The first and supreme love of the spirit or
soul, and the most universal, is the love of Being
above itself, from which it has drawn and con
tinually draws its essence; in which, through
which, and on account of which it is and lives.
This love is the first of all, because nothing can
exist and subsist from itself except God, who
exists in Himself, and alone is He who is. Be
cause the soul feels this in itself, that supreme
love is also inborn in it, and thus is the very Di
vine love within us. There is also given a love
directly opposite to this, though also spiritual and
supreme, which is hatred of any power or being
above itself. This love is called diabolical ; from
it is known what the quality of good love is, and
from the good what the quality of evil love is.
"The Divine providence takes especial care
that individuals shall be distinct one from an-
131

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
other, since it is the very end of creation that a
most perfect society of souls may exist. ... As
then no soul is absolutely like another, but some
difference or diversity of state exists between all,
this has not obtained merely for the sake of dis
tinguishing one from another, but to the end that
the most perfect form of society might exist from
the variety. And in such a form there must needs
be not only a difference among all, but such a
difference or variety as that all the individuals
may come together in harmony, so as to form to
gether a society in which nothing shall be want
ing that is not found in some one. . . . This
harmonic variety, however, does not consist in
the outward variety of souls, but in their spiritual
variety, of love toward God and toward their
neighbor ; for the state of the soul concerns only
its spiritual state, how it may be nearest to its
God. When any shade of variety is wanting,
some place in heaven may be said to be as yet
vacant ; so that all the differences, or varieties,
are to be filled up before the form can exist in
full perfection.
"But whether there are to be many societies
and as it were many heavens of which the uni-
J32

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
versal society will consist, which is called the
kingdom of God, we seem also able to conclude ;
for every variety, even spiritual, involves an order,
with subordination and coordination. . . . For
when the form of rule is most perfect, it is of
necessity that all societies should produce a gen
eral harmony together, as the individual members
produce a particular harmony in each society.
"This is called in heaven the kingdom of God,
but on earth the seminary of that kingdom, the
very city of God, which is not joined to any cer
tain religion or church, but is distributed through
the whole world ; for God elects His members
out of all, that is, of those who had actually
loved God above themselves and their neighbors
as themselves. For this is the law of all laws : in
this culminate all laws, Divine and natural ; all
the rest are but means leading to this.
" Such a society cannot exist without its Head
or Prince ; that is to say, without Him who has
been man, without blame and without offence,
victor over all affections of the mind, virtue itself
and piety itself, and the love of God above one's
self, and the love of the companion and neighbor,
and thus Divinity in Himself — in whom the
i33

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
whole society should be represented, and through
whom the members of the society might come to
His will. Without such a king of souls, the soci
ety might be gathered and exist in vain. This
also follows necessarily from the conceded form
of rule, from the difference of state of each mem
ber, and from the approach to God through love.
For that form must be determined by the purer
of every degree, consequently by the purest, who
has been without sin, that is, by our Saviour and
Preserver, Jesus Christ, in whom alone we can by
faith and love draw near to the Divine throne."
We have followed Swedenborg in his search for
the life and soul of the universe through the geo
metry and physics of the inanimate world, then
through the living organism of the human body,
the soul's home and body-servant, and lastly in
the soul's reception of life from the Creator, in
its duty to this Source of its life, and in its de
pendence on God-man, the Son of God, as the
means of conjunction with the Divine Itself. The
marked feature in all this study, that which gives
its charm and inspiration, is its never-failing recog
nition of life, life from the Divine Life, as the
cause, the essence, the form, and the activity of
i34

IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
each minutest entity — the living activity being
manifested in inconceivably minute and rapid vi
brations, or tremulations — a theory wonderfully
verified in our own day, though our physicists
do not yet connect the life of matter with its
Source. Yet a notable recognition of similar import in
our day is that of our greatest mathematician,
Professor Benjamin Pierce, who stated in the in
troduction to his Analytic Mechanics —
" i . Motion is an essential element of all physi
cal phenomena ; and its introduction into the uni
verse of matter was necessarily the preliminary
act of creation. The earth must have remained
forever ' without form, and void,' and eternal dark
ness must have been upon the face of the deep,
if the spirit of God had not first ' moved upon the
face of the waters.'
" 2. Motion appears to be the simplest manifes
tation of power, and the idea of force seems to be
primitively derived from the conscious effort which
is required to produce motion. Force may, then,
be regarded as having a spiritual origin, and when
it is imparted to the physical world, motion is its
usual form of mechanical exhibition.
^35

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
" 3. Matter is purely inert. It is susceptive of
receiving and containing any amount of mechani
cal force which may be communicated to it, but
cannot originate new force, or in any way trans
form the force which it has received."

VI

CONTINUED STUDY OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM :
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Thus far Swedenborg's labors have been de
voted to the unfolding of the Divine revelation
in the Book of Nature, by means of experiment,
analysis, and the exercise of reason, under such
guidance as he was prepared to receive of the Spirit
of Truth. In these labors we have observed the
ample training of the reasoning faculty, even to
maturity, with its increasing acknowledgment of
dependence on the light of the Sun of heaven.
We are now to learn the preparation of heart yet
necessary, in order that the submission to the
guidance of the Spirit of Truth might become so
entire as to direct him securely in unfolding the
Divine revelation in the written Word. The
groundwork of this preparation we may recog
nize in the Rules of Life which Sandels found,
as he says in his eulogy, in more than one place
among his manuscripts, and which may be com
mended to all of us who would fulfil the duties
i37

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
of this life and prepare for life in the kingdom of
heaven : —
" i . Diligently to read and meditate upon the
Word of God.
"2. To be content under the dispensations of
God's providence.
"3. To observe a propriety of behavior, and to
preserve the conscience pure.
" 4. To obey what is commanded, to attend
faithfully to one's office and other duties, and in
addition to make one's self useful to society in
general." As marking the progress of the preparation, we
find in his philosophical works, besides the grow
ing humility and reverence that illumine the pages,
some plain statements, drawn we cannot doubt
from his spiritual experience. In the part of The
Animal Kingdom treating of the soul, he says —
" To change the disposition is to change the
very nature. To change a good disposition into an
evil one is comparatively easy ; but to change an
evil one into a good is more difficult. This can in
no way be effected except by means of the rational
mind and its understanding, whether the under
standing be our own, or derived from faith, or per-
138

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
suaded by authority. Nor is the nature changed
unless we become averse to evils and abhor them,
and never lead our mind back into the former state ;
and unless whenever it slips back, we snatch it out,
from the liberty given, and come into the state
which agrees with the more perfect love. Not even
so is it changed unless we remain a long while in
this state, and meet the other with force and vio
lence, clothing ourselves with the opposite new
state by constant works and practices of virtues,
and so continuing until it has become a second
nature and expelled as it were the other nature —
so that whenever the old nature returns, we per
ceive that it must be resisted. In this way and no
other we can put off the evil nature and put on a
good nature ; but it is very difficult in this life with
out grace and Divine help."
These we feel to be the words of experience,
of long and successful labor. But what is here
described is only the reformation of the natural
mind, or disposition. After this it is necessary that
the natural mind should so far submit as to suffer
the spiritual mind to flow in with its own loves.
" To this," Swedenborg says, " the intellect
unless from what is revealed contributes nothing,
i39

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
but faith springing from God does the work. And
so, His will being invoked, His spirit flows into
the soul and changes its state, or perfects it ; but
the work is one of long discipline, if the soul is
evil, that it may become good. . . . Hence it
is plain how difficult it is to turn an evil soul into
a good one, and that this is of the Divine grace
alone, though there must be persevering applica
tion on the part of man."
What is here described, though in the terms
of his Psychology, we cannot fail to recognize as
the regeneration of water and of the spirit. The
description is that of experience already, we may
believe, far advanced. What was yet needed for
its completion we are now to see. But we may
well pause to consider how little we have our
selves accomplished, even of the reformation of
the natural disposition, and how little we know
in our own experience of the total regeneration
sought by Swedenborg. This deep regeneration,
though with his consent and cooperation, was
being effected by the Lord for a purpose to Swe
denborg unknown. A few years later, he wrote —
" What the acts of my life involved I could not
distinguish at the time they happened, but by the
140

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Divine mercy of God Messiah I was afterward
informed with regard to some, even many par
ticulars. From these I was at last able to see that
the Divine providence governed the acts of my
life uninterruptedly from my very youth, and
directed them in such a manner that by means
of the knowledge of natural things I was enabled
to reach a state of intelligence, and thus by the
Divine mercy of God Messiah, to serve as an in
strument for opening those things which are hid
den interiorly in the Word of God Messiah."
Still later, Nov. n, 1766, he wrote to Oetin-
ger— " I was introduced by the Lord into the natu
ral sciences, and thus prepared, and indeed from
the year 17 10 to 1744, when heaven was opened
to me." And this he said was for the purpose —
"That the spiritual things which are being
revealed at the present day may be taught and
understood naturally and rationally ; for spiritual
truths have a correspondence with natural truths,
because in these they terminate, and upon these
they rest. . . . The Lord has granted me besides
to love truths in a spiritual manner — that is, to
love them, not for the sake of honor, nor for the
141

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
sake of gain, but for the sake of the truths them
selves ; for he who loves truths for the sake of
truth, sees them from the Lord, because the Lord
is the Way and the Truth."
For a better understanding of this love of truth
for the sake of truth, and of its effects, let us
here read a passage or two from Swedenborg's
later Heavenly Arcana: —
" Doctrine is to be drawn from the Word, and
while it is being drawn man must be in enlighten
ment from the Lord ; and he is in enlightenment
when in the love of truth for the sake of truth,
not for the sake of self and the world. These are
they who are enlightened in the Word when they
read it, and see truth, and therefrom form for
themselves doctrine. The reason is, that such
men communicate with heaven, thus with the
Lord, and so, being enlightened from the Lord,
they are led to see the truths of the Word as they
are in heaven ; for the Lord flows in through hea
ven into their understandings, the interior under
standing being what is enlightened. The Lord at
the same time flows in with faith, by means of the
cooperation of the new will, to which it belongs to
be affected with truth for the sake of truth."
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SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
" The Lord speaks with the man of the Church
in no other way than by means of the Word, for
He then enlightens man so that he may see the
truth ; and He also gives perception so that man
may perceive that it is so. But this takes place
according to the quality or the desire of truth
with man, and the desire of truth with man is
according to the love of it. They who love truth
for the sake of truth are in enlightenment, and
they who love truth for the sake of good are in
perception." Of the manifestation to him of the Divine pur
pose, and of further steps necessary in prepara
tion, we now learn many things from his Spiritual
Diary : —
" During several years " — he notes, Aug. 27,
1748 — " not only had I dreams by which I was
informed about the things on which I was writing,
but I experienced also changes of state, there
being a certain extraordinary light in what was
written. Afterward I had many visions with
closed eyes, and light was given me in an extraor
dinary manner. There was also an inflow from
spirits, as manifest to the sense as if it had been
into the senses of the body ; there were infesta-
*43

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
tions in various ways by evil spirits when I was
in temptations ; and afterward when writing any
thing to which the spirits had an aversion, I was
almost possessed by them, so as to feel something
like a tremor. Flamy lights were seen [confirm
ing what was written] and conversations heard in
the early morning, besides many other things."
" For nearly three years " — he writes in August,
1747 — "I have been allowed to perceive and
notice the operation of spirits, not by a sort of
internal sight, but by a sensation which is asso
ciated with a sort of obscure sight, by which I
noticed their presence, which was various, their
approach and departure, besides many other
things." For some years his dreams had been growing
more remarkable and more significant, so that he
had been led to keep a record of them. The ear
lier records, beginning as early as 1736, were cut
from his Diary for preservation in the family and
now are lost ; but there is still preserved a minute
account of the dreams that he had at Amsterdam
and London in the spring and summer of 1744,
the critical period of his spiritual experience, to
gether with a brief memorandum of those that
144

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
came to him in the previous December, when he
had gone from Amsterdam to the Hague.
In that month he notes — " How I opposed my
self to the Spirit ; and how I then enjoyed this,
but afterward found that it was nonsense, without
life and coherence ; and that consequently a great
deal of what I had written, in proportion as I had
rejected the power of the Spirit, was of that de
scription ; and indeed that thus all the faults are
my own, but the truths are not my own. Some
times indeed I became impatient and thought I
would rebel if all did not go on with the ease I
desired, after I no longer did anything for my
own sake. [And again] I found my unworthiness
less, and gave thanks for the grace."
This is interesting in connection with the fact
that in the Economy of the Animal Kingdom,
published three years before, we find some ma
terial statements which have been disproved by
later researches ; while in The Animal Kingdom,
which he was now preparing for the press, nothing
of importance is found that does not stand the test
of time. It is noteworthy also that near this period
he appends to some of his manuscripts the remark,
" These things are true, for I have the sign " —
J45

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
by which we understand him to mean the flamy
sign that appeared to him as a confirmation of
what was true. To others again he appends, on
stating what he is going to do, " So I seem or
dered." Still his struggles go on : —
" How I resisted the power of the Holy Spirit,
and what took place afterward. The hideous spec
tres which I saw, without life — they were terrible ;
although bound, they kept moving in their bands.
They were in company with an animal by which
I and not the child was attacked. It seemed to
me as if I were lying on a mountain below which
was an abyss; knots were on it. I was lying there
trying to hold myself up, holding on to a knot,
without foothold, and an abyss underneath. This
signifies that I desire to rescue myself from the
abyss, which yet is not possible."
That is to say, as we understand, the abyss of
natural, selfish will, out of which we are to be
rescued by the Divine grace, but not possibly by
our own power. In March he dreams again of the
abyss, into which there is danger of falling unless
he receive help.
In April, " the day before Easter, I experienced
nothing the whole night, although I repeatedly
146

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
woke up ; I thought that all was past and gone,
and that I had been either forsaken or exiled.
About morning it seemed to me as if I were rid
ing, and as if I had had the direction pointed out.
It was however dark, and when I looked I found
that I had gone astray on account of the dark
ness ; but then it brightened up and I saw how I
had gone wrong, and I noticed the way and the
forests and groves which I was to go through,
and also heaven behind them, and then I awoke.
My thoughts then of their own accord turned upon
this, and afterward on the other life, and it seemed
to me as if everything was full of grace. I burst
into tears at having not loved, but rather pro
voked, Him who had led me and pointed out the
way to the kingdom of grace ; and also at my
being unworthy of acceptance by grace."
"Easter was on the 5th of April, when I went
to the Lord's table. Temptation still continued,
most in the afternoon, till six o'clock ; but it
assumed no definite form. It was an anxiety
felt at being condemned and in hell ; but in this
feeling the hope given by the Holy Spirit — ac
cording to Paul's epistle to the Romans, v. 5 —
remained strong. . I was assured that my sins
i47

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
were forgiven, and yet I could not control my
wandering thoughts so as to restrain some ex
pressions opposed to my better judgment : I was
by permission under the influence of the Evil One.
The temptation was assuaged by prayer and the
Word of God : faith was there in its entirety, but
confidence and love seemed to be gone."
After describing a terrible conflict that followed
with a snake, changing to a dog, in a dream, he
adds —
" From this may be seen the nature of the
temptation and, on the other hand, the greatness
of God's grace by the merit of Christ and the
operation of the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory
forever and ever. The idea at once struck me how
great the grace of the Lord is, who accounts and
appropriates to us our resistance in temptation,
though it is purely God's grace and is His and
not our work ; and He overlooks our weaknesses
in it, which yet must be manifold. I thought also
of the great glory our Lord dispenses after a brief
period of tribulation. . . . Afterward I awoke and
slept again many times and all was in answer to
my thoughts, yet so that in everything there was
such life and glory that I can give no description
148

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
of it; for it was all heavenly, clear to me at the
time, but afterward inexpressible. In short I was
in heaven, and I heard a language which no hu
man tongue can utter with its inherent life, nor
the glory and inmost delight resulting from it.
Besides, while I was awake I was in a heavenly
ecstasy which is also indescribable. . . . Praise
and honor and glory be to the Highest ! hallowed
be His Name ! Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts ! "
" By this means," he says, " I learned by ex
perience the meaning of this, not to love the
angels more than God ; as they had nearly over
thrown the whole work. In comparison with our
Lord no attention must be paid to them, that is,
to them in respect to the help they can render,
since their love is far lower than His. By some
rays of light in me I found that it would be the
greatest happiness to become a martyr ; for, on
beholding inexpressible grace combined with love
to God, a desire was kindled in me to undergo
this torture, which is nothing compared with
eternal torment ; and [a sense] that the least of
the things that one can offer is his life. . . . This
took place in the night between Easter Sunday
and Easter Monday." 149

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Here we see the inward depth of the tempta
tion and regeneration which Swedenborg was now
undergoing. All his previous efforts were external
in comparison, and futile. Indeed he is learning
the inefficacy and error of all merely human efforts
for goodness, even those of the angels themselves.
And all this was to the end that he might yield
himself wholly into the Lord's hands, and become
His humble, faithful servant, with a new heart
and a new spirit. Nor was his personal regenera
tion all that was at stake. The great question as
to how regeneration is accomplished was to be
experimentally solved and intelligently compre
hended. From the time of the Christian Fathers
it had become more and more misunderstood.
The Roman Catholic Church taught that it was
effected by baptism and confirmed by good works.
The Reformed Churches had adopted the same
belief in baptism as regeneration, for those who
should receive faith as the elect — denying that
men can do anything about it. For the implanting
of a new, true, interior Christian Church, it was es
sential that the real means of regeneration should
be understood. Swedenborg by inheritance was a
mild Lutheran. By experience he now learns that
*5°

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
neither has baptism regenerated, nor his own labor
in reformation ; that he is in danger of the abyss
from deep natural tendency to sin ; that the Lord's
merit cannot be imputed to him and so effect his
salvation ; but that to be saved he must see and
confess his sinfulness, be distressed on account
of it, pray to the Lord for the grace of forgive
ness, making every possible effort of resistance to
evil, and all with the acknowledgment that both
the prayer and the effort are not his own, but given
from the Lord alone. The process is, indeed, not
essentially different from that we have seen
already sketched in The Animal Kingdom ; but
it is now being accomplished in interior degrees,
far beyond what Swedenborg has imagined. And
in his later works he has taught us that regener
ation is applicable to several distinct degrees of
the mind, of which the more interior are opened
and regenerated with comparatively few. And as
each successive degree is nearer to the Lord,
His presence and agency in its regeneration be
come more clearly seen ; or, in other words, each
successive approach to the Lord brings a new
consciousness of interior tendency to sin, which
must needs be deplored and submitted to Him,
I5I

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
and a deeper consciousness that all the power of
deliverance is from Him alone. All this is learn
ing to understand and to be aided by our Lord's
victory over the weakness of human nature — in
fact, to see His face in the clouds of heaven.
How deeply this was impressed on Swedenborg's
heart and soul we learn from his Diary : —
" This have I learned, that the only thing . . .
is in all humility to thank God for His grace and
to pray for it, and to recognize our own unworthi-
ness and God's infinite grace. . . . The sum of
all I found to be this, that the one thing needful
is to cast one's self in all humility on our Lord's
grace, to recognize one's own unworthiness, and to
thank God in humility for His grace ; for if there
is a feeling of glorification contained in it, the ten
dency of which is toward our own honor — whether
it is a glorification of God's grace or of anything
else — such a feeling is impure. ... I found that
I was more unworthy than others and the greatest
sinner for this reason, that our Lord has granted
me to penetrate by thought into certain things
more deeply than many others do ; and the very
source of sin lies in the thoughts I am carrying
out, so that my sins have on that account a deeper
I52

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
foundation than those of many others : and in this
I found my unworthiness and my sins greater than
those of other men. For it is not sufficient to de
clare one's own unworthiness, since the heart may
be far removed from such a declaration, and it
may be a mere matter of the imagination : but
actually to see that such is the case is due to
the grace of the Spirit.
" Now while I was in the spirit I thought and
strove by thought to attain a knowledge of how
to avoid all that was impure. I noticed, however,
that this intruded itself from the ground of the
love of self on all occasions when anything was
reflected upon ; as, for instance, when any one did
not regard me according to my own estimation of
myself, I thought, ' O if you only knew what grace
I have, you would act differently.' This then was
not only impure, but originated in the love of self.
At last I found this out and entreated God's for
giveness ; and I then wished that others also might
have the same grace, as they perhaps either have
had or will have. From this I observed clearly that
there was still in me that same pernicious apple
which has not yet been converted, and which is
Adam's root and his hereditary sin. Yes, and an
i53

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
infinite number of other roots of sin remain in
me. At times he trusted that his pride in his own
works was subdued and would no more trouble him,
but again and again he had to learn his depend
ence for this, as for all other grace, on the con
stant protection of the Lord.
" April IO and II. . . . When awake I began
thinking whether all this was not mere fantasy,
and I then noticed that my faith was vacillating.
I therefore pressed my hands together and prayed
that I might be strengthened in faith, which also
took place immediately. Again when thoughts
occurred to me about being worthier than others,
I prayed in like manner, whereupon these thoughts
at once vanished ; if therefore our Lord in the least
withdraw His hand from any one, he is out of the
true path, and also out of faith, as has been mani
festly the case with me.
"I slept this night about eleven hours and
during the whole of the morning was in my usual
state of internal gladness, which was nevertheless
attended with a pang : this I thought arose from the
power of the spirit and my own unworthiness. At
last with God's help I came into these thoughts
*54

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
— that we ought to be contented with everything
which pleases the Lord, because it is for the Lord
to say ; and further that the Spirit is not to be re
sisted when we receive from God the assurance
that it is God's grace which does all things for our
welfare ; for if we are God's we must be delighted
with whatever He pleases to do with His own : still
we must ask the Lord for this, because not even
the least thing is in our own power. For this the
Lord gave me His grace. I reflected upon this,
desiring to understand the reason why all this hap
pens to me. Yet this was sinful, for my thoughts
ought not to have gone in that direction, but I
ought to have prayed to the Lord for power to
control them. It ought to be enough for us that
it so pleases the Lord. In everything we ought
only to call upon Him, pray to and thank Him,
and with humility recognize our own unworthi
ness. " I am still weary in my body and mind ; for I
know nothing except my own unworthiness, and
am in pain on account of being a wretched crea
ture. I see by this knowledge that I am unworthy
of the grace I have received. ... I have there
fore adopted the following motto —
*55

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
" God's will be done ; I am Thine and not
mine."
" April II and 12. . . . There is not a single
thought which is not very much alloyed with un
cleanness and impurity. It is therefore best that
man should every hour and every moment acknow
ledge that he is deserving of the punishment of
hell, but that God's grace and mercy which are in
Jesus Christ overlook it. I have indeed observed
that our whole will into which we are born, and
which is ruled by the body and introduces thought,
is opposed to the Spirit which does this ; where
fore there is a continual strife, and we can by no
manner of means unite ourselves with the Spirit,
which by grace is with us ; and hence it is that we
are dead to everything good, but to everything evil
we are inclined from ourselves. For this reason
we must at all times acknowledge ourselves guilty
of innumerable sins, because our Lord God knows
all and we only very little about them : we know
only so much as enters into our thoughts, and only
when it also enters into the actions do we become
convinced of it.
"April 12 and IJ. . . . God's grace thus
showed me that I had to strive after salvation
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SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
amid fear and trembling. But I have for my motto,
' God's will be done ; I am Thine and not mine;'
as therefore I have given myself from myself to
the Lord, He may dispose of me after His own
pleasure. In the body there seemed to be some
thing of discontent, but in the spirit joy ; for the
grace of our Lord does this. May God strengthen
me therein !
" I was continually in a state of combat be
tween thoughts which were antagonistic to one
another. I pray Thee, O Almighty God, that
Thou wouldst grant me the grace of being Thine
and not mine. Pardon my saying that I am Thine
and not mine ; it is God's privilege and not mine
to say so. I pray for the grace of being Thine,
and of not being left to myself.
" April 18 and ip. ... I was at Divine ser
vice, where I noticed that thoughts on matters of
faith, respecting Christ, His merit, and the like,
even though they be entirely favorable and con
firmatory, still cause a certain disquietude, and
give rise to opposing thoughts which cannot be
resisted, whenever man tries to believe from his
own understanding, and not from the Lord's grace.
At last it was granted me by the grace of the
157

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Spirit to receive faith without reasoning upon it,
and thus to be assured in respect to it. I then saw
as it were below me my own thoughts by which
faith was confirmed; I laughed in my mind at
them, but still more at those by which they were
impugned and opposed. Faith appeared to be far
above the thoughts of my understanding. Then
only I got peace : may God strengthen me in it !
For it is His work ; and mine so much the less as
my thoughts, and indeed the best of them, hinder
more than they are able to promote. ... It is
therefore a higher state — I am uncertain whether
it is not the highest — when man by grace no
longer mixes up his understanding in matters of
faith ; although it appears as if the Lord with some
persons permits the understanding to precede
such states of assurance in respect to things
which concern the understanding. 'Blessed are
they who believe and do not see.' This I have
clearly written in the Prologue [to The Animal
Kingdom] ; yet of my own self I could never have
discovered this or arrived at the knowledge of it,
but God's grace has wrought this, I being uncon
scious of it: afterward, however, I perceived it
from the very effect and the change in my whole
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SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
interior being. This therefore is God's grace and
His work, and to Him alone belongs eternal glory.
From this I see how difficult it is for the learned,
more indeed than for the unlearned, to arrive at
such a faith, and consequently to conquer them
selves so as to be able to smile at themselves ; for
man's worship of his own understanding must first
of all be abolished and overthrown, and this is
God's work and not man's. It is also God's work
for man to continue him in that state. Faith is in
this way separated from our understanding and
resides above it. This is pure faith ; the other,
so long as it is mixed up with our own under
standing, is impure. Man's understanding must
be put in bonds, and under the government of
faith. The ground of faith however must be this,
that He who has spoken it is God over all and
Truth itself. That we must become like little
children is to be understood, it seems, in this
sense. Faith then is purely God's gift, and
is received by man when he lives according to the
commandments of God and continually prays to
God for it."
Such experience and testimony is most valuable
on the part of him who was at the very time en-
i59

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
gaged in exploring the philosophy of the soul in
the body, to the end that the way might be made
clearer for the understanding to arrive at the true
objects of faith. It is to be noted, however, that
the submission of the understanding which he
here enjoins, is to the faith given by the grace of
God in the inner mind.
" April 21 and 22. . . . On awaking I heard
the words, ' All is grace ; ' by which is meant that
all that has happened is of grace and for the best.
Afterward, because it seemed to me I was so far
separated from God that I could not yet think of
Him in a sufficiently vivid manner, I came into a
state of doubt whether I should not direct my
journey homeward ; a crowd of confused reasons
came and my body was seized with a tremor. Yet
I gathered courage and perceived that I had come
here to do what was best of all, and that I had re
ceived a talent for the promotion of God's glory.
I saw that all had helped together to this end ;
that the Spirit had been with me from my youth
for this very purpose ; wherefore I considered
myself unworthy of life unless I followed the
straight course. I then smiled at the other seduc
ing thoughts, and thus at luxury, riches, and dis-
160

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
tinction which I had pursued. All these I saw to
be vain; and I discovered that he who is without
them and is contented, is happier than he who
possesses them. I therefore smiled at all argu
ments by which I might be confirmed, and with
God's help made a resolution. May God grant
His help! . . I further noticed that faith is
a sure confidence which is received from God,
which nevertheless consists in every man's act
ing according to his talent for doing good to his
neighbor, and continually more and more ; that a
man must do so from faith, because God has so
ordered it, and must not reason any more about
it, but do the work of love from obedience to
faith, even though this be opposed to the lusts
of the body and its persuasions. Wherefore faith
without works is not the right kind of faith. A
man must in reality forsake himself."
Thus we find Swedenborg learning by experi
ence, from his own needs and under Divine guid
ance, what saving faith is. From another dream
he learns " that God speaks with me, and that I
comprehend only the least portion of what He
says, because it is in representations, of which I
understand as yet but very little ; and further
161

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
that He hears and perceives everything that is
spoken and every thought that any one enter
tains." From other representative dreams he under
stands "that I must employ my remaining time
in writing upon that which is higher, and not
upon worldly things which are far below; and
indeed that I must write about that which con
cerns the very centre of all, and that which con
cerns Christ. May God be so gracious as to en
lighten me respecting my duty, for I am still in
some obscurity as to the direction whither I am
to turn."
Early in May, 1 744, he went to London for the
better prosecution of his work on The Animal
Kingdom. His dreams, interior struggles, and
thorough purification were continued.
" May 5 and 6. . . . This now is the sum of
all : First, that there is nothing but grace by
which we can be saved. Second, grace is in Jesus
Christ, who is the seat of grace. Third, love to
God in Christ promotes salvation. Fourth, man
then allows himself to be led by the spirit of
Jesus. Fifth, everything that comes from our
selves is dead, and is nothing but sin, and worthy

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
of eternal damnation. Sixth, for good can come
from no other source than from the Lord."
Still laboring in the day-time on The Animal
Kingdom, a large share of his dreams at night
relate to his studies ; sometimes encouraging him
to expect in them the Divine assistance, some
times warning him not to be withdrawn by them
too far from what was more holy and of more
importance. In this work, which he had under
taken of his own counsel, we cannot suppose that
he would be easily freed from confidence in his
own abilities.
August 5 he notes, " I boasted [in a dream]
of my strength, in the presence of Assessor B.
This signifies that daily I sin against my God
in the thoughts which cling to me, and from
which no man, but God alone, can deliver me ;
likewise that I had boasted to D. H. about my
work. On the following day I had intended to
go to the communion ; but I forbore when from
the above I found that none but God alone can
give absolution from sins ; wherefore it was given
me also to observe some things with respect to
confession." Here we may take leave of Swedenborg's scien-
163

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
tific pursuits, remarking only that their results
are in train soon to receive greater attention than
ever before, in consequence of being newly pub
lished in sumptuous style and great completeness
by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

VII
OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT : UNFOLDING OF
THE WORD
About this time Swedenborg began to project
his treatise on the Worship and Love of God.
He seems to have felt a Divine call to write it,
and at times to have doubted whether he ought
not to leave his other work for the purpose. Yet
it was with reference to this treatise that he re
ceived the following caution : —
" October 6 and 7. . . . Afterward I lighted
upon these thoughts and received this instruc
tion, namely, that all love for whatever object —
as, for instance, for the work on which I am now
engaged — when the object is loved in itself and
not as a means to the only love, which is to God
and Jesus Christ, is a meretricious love. For this
reason also this love is always compared in the
Word of God to whoredom. This I have also ex
perienced in myself. But when love to God is
man's chief love, then he does not entertain for
165

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
these objects any other kind of love than that of
promoting thereby his love of God."
As thoughts on religion filled his mind he be
came full of zeal to instruct others. "Afterward
I seemed to say to myself that the Lord Himself
will instruct me. For, as I discovered, I am in
such a state that I know nothing on this subject
except that Christ must be all in all, or God
through Christ, so that we of ourselves cannot
contribute the least toward it, and still less strive
for it : wherefore it is best to surrender at discre
tion, and were it possible to be altogether passive
in this matter, it would be a state of perfection.
I saw also in a vision how some beautiful bread
was presented to me on a plate. This was a pre
diction that the Lord Himself will instruct me,
as soon as I have attained that state in which I
shall know nothing, and in which all my precon
ceived notions will be removed from me ; which
is the first state of learning : or in other words
that I must first become a child, and that then I
shall be able to be nurtured in knowledge, as is
being done with me now."
On the 27th of October he began the work on
the Worship and Love of God, and laid aside,
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OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
never to resume, The Animal Kingdom. "May
God lead me in the right way ! Christ said that
I must not undertake anything without Him."
" In the morning on awaking I fell into a swoon
or fainting fit, similar to that which I experienced
about six or seven years ago at Amsterdam, when
I entered upon the Economy of the Animal King
dom ; but it was much more subtile, so that I was
almost dead. It came upon me as soon as I saw
the light. I threw myself upon my face, when it
gradually passed off. In the mean time short, in
terrupted slumbers took possession of me ; so
that this swoon or deliquium was deeper, but I
soon got over it. This signifies that my head is
being cleared, and is in fact being cleansed of all
that would obstruct these thoughts — as was also
the case the last time, because it gave me pene
tration, especially whilst writing. This was repre
sented to me now in that I appeared to write a
fine hand."
Coincidently with his increasing submission of
heart to the Divine guidance, we find a growing
sensitiveness or openness to spiritual impressions.
Indeed, whether as a constitutional peculiarity or
from depth of thought, Swedenborg had a cer-
167

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
tain faculty of retrocession from physical activity
when thinking deeply. In The Animal Kingdom
he had remarked, " When the mind is thinking
very intently and breathing tacitly and slowly,
then the lungs elevated to a certain degree appear
in like manner to keep silence, and to send out
and draw in the air almost imperceptibly, so as not
to disturb the analyses of the rational mind by
any motion on their part." And again, " If we
carefully attend to profound thoughts, we shall
find that when we draw breath, a host of ideas
rush from beneath as through an open door into
the sphere of thought, whereas when we hold the
breath, and slowly let it out, we deeply keep the
while in the tenor of our thought, and communi
cate as it were with the higher faculty of the soul
— as I have observed in my own person times
without number. Retaining or holding back the
breath is equivalent to having intercourse with
the soul : attracting or drawing it in amounts to
intercourse with the body."
But it was long after spiritual manifestations
began to occur to him before he thought of the
possibility of conversing with spirits. Indeed, he
knew nothing about spirits. He believed in the
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OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
Holy Spirit and in the power of the devil. He
believed in angels, but knew nothing of the world
filled with the spirits and angels who had once
been men. We see how gradually the knowledge
came to him : —
" October j to 6. I have noticed several times
that there are various kinds of spirits. The One
Spirit, which is that of Christ, is the only one
that has all blessedness with it ; by other spirits
man is enticed a thousand ways to follow them,
but woe to those who do so. Another time Korah
and Dathan occurred to me, who brought strange
fire to the altar and could not offer it. Such is
the case when a different fire is introduced than
that which comes from Christ. I saw also some
thing like a fire coming to me. It is necessary
therefore that a distinction should be made be
tween spirits, which however cannot be done
except through Christ Himself and His Spirit."
Some years later, after referring to the sundry
spiritual manifestations which we have already
described, he says —
"At last a spirit spoke a few words to me,
when I was greatly astonished at his perceiving
my thoughts. Afterward, when my mind was
169

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
opened, I was greatly astonished that I could con
verse with spirits ; as the spirits were astonished
that I should wonder. From this it may be con
cluded how difficult it is for man to believe that
he is governed by the Lord through spirits, and
how difficult it is for him to give up the opinion
that he lives his own life of himself without the
agency of spirits."
The date of this occurrence appears to have
been the middle of April, 1745, while still en
gaged perhaps on The Worship and Love of God.
The fullest account preserved is given by his friend
Robsahm, who says that in answer to his own
inquiry where and how it was granted him to see
and hear what takes place in the other world,
Swedenborg answered —
" I was in London, and dined rather late at the
inn where I was in the habit of dining and where
I had my own room. My thoughts were engaged
on the subjects we have been discussing. I was
hungry and ate with a good appetite. Toward the
close of the meal I noticed a sort of dimness be
fore my eyes ; this became denser, and I then saw
the floor covered with the most horrid crawling
reptiles, such as snakes, frogs, and similar crea-
170

OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
tures. I was amazed, for I was perfectly conscious
and my thoughts were clear. At last the darkness
increased still more ; but it disappeared all at once,
and I then saw a man sitting in the corner of
the room : as I was then alone I was very much
frightened at his words ; for he said, 'Eat not so
much' All became black again before my eyes,
but immediately it cleared away and I found my
self alone in the room."
That this "man" was a spirit appears from
Swedenborg's statement about his astonishment
when a spirit first spoke a few words to him, and
from Robsahm's own statement that this account
was given in answer to his inquiry where and how
he first came to see and hear spirits. It would seem
then that Robsahm has made a little confusion
in what he goes on to say about the same mans
appearing the following night. And yet as, ac
cording to Swedenborg, when the Lord appears
to angels and men, He does so by filling an an
gel with His presence and speaking through his
mouth, it may be that it was the same angel
from the Lord who had been present with him
in the spiritual thoughts on which he was en
gaged in the day-time, and then warned him not
171

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
to yield too much to the demands of the body,
and again in the night instructed him as to the
labors for which the Lord was preparing him —
first seeming as a man, giving human admonition,
and then as the Lord, uttering His commands.
According to Robsahm, Swedenborg continued —
" I went home, and during the night the same
man revealed himself to me again, but I was not
frightened now. He then said that he was the
Lord God, the Creator of the world, and the
Redeemer, and that He had chosen me to unfold
to men the spiritual sense of the Scripture, and
that He Himself would show to me what I should
write on this subject. That same night also were
opened to me, so that I became thoroughly con
vinced of their reality, the world of spirits, heaven,
and hell ; and I recognized there many acquaint
ances of every condition in life. From that day I
gave up the study of all worldly science and la
bored in spiritual things, according as the Lord
had commanded me to write. Afterward the Lord
opened my eyes, very often daily, so that in mid
day I could see into the other world, and in a
state of perfect wakefulness converse with angels
and spirits." 172

OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
The remarkable absence of dignity and circum
stance, such as imagination would invent, in this
first introduction to the sight and hearing of the
other world, witnesses nothing against its plain
truth. We may wonder that the first announce
ment should be so simple a prohibition. On this
Swedenborg says not a word. We have no reason
to suppose him an inordinate eater; but doubt
less in hunger he gave himself up for the time to
the body's demand for satisfaction, and his mind
fell from its high thoughts. The spirits or angels
with him would perceive his fall and would, if
opportunity were given, rebuke him. Fasting as
well as prayer is the means of release from selfish
ness and evil. With Swedenborg there had been
reformation of life, and then internal regenera
tion of a very deep kind. This regeneration must
needs work outward till it cleansed the whole
life, more perfectly, because from internal ground,
than the first reformation could do. It may well
be that the last stronghold of selfish spirits, not
yet given up to the Lord of all, was that of out
ward sense. So our Lord Himself finished the
work of purifying His humanity by overcoming
the resistance of the body. So the last thing He
i73

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
did for the disciples, before giving to them the
bread and the wine that represented His own
life, was to wash their feet, that they might be
clean every whit. So too, Swedenborg tells us,
those who are internally prepared for heaven and
who have been delivered from all evil except that
which belongs to the infirmities of the body, are
taken up into heaven immediately after death.
That from this time forth he himself enjoyed a
remarkable protection from spirits who would
have excited vain thoughts about his own works
and the grace vouchsafed him, is manifest in
everything he wrote, if we except a certain florid-
ity of style in this work already in hand on the
Worship and Love of God, in which he himself
later detected " somewhat of egotism." Dr. Wil
kinson well says of the change that now came
over him —
" Certainly, in turning from his foregone life
to that which now occupies us, we seem to be
treating of another person — of one on whom
the great change has passed, who has tasted the
blessings of death and disburdened his spiritual
part, of mundane cares, sciences, and philosophies.
The spring of his lofty flights in nature sleeps in
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OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
the dust beneath his feet. The liberal charm of
his rhetoric is put off, never to be resumed. . . .
It is a clear instance of disembodiment — of
emancipation from a worldly lifetime ; and we
have now to contemplate Swedenborg, still a
mortal, as he rose into the other world. From
that elevation he as little recurred to his scien
tific life, though he had its spirit with him, as a
freed soul to the body in the tomb : he only
possessed it in a certain high memory, which
offered its result to his new pursuits."
All his mental labors had served as efficient
training for the work now laid out for him. But
what he had begun to find even in philosophic
study — the need to lay down all thought of
himself — became imperative, the sine qua non
for submitting wholly to the guidance of the
Holy Spirit in unfolding the true inner meaning
of the Scriptures. He never forgot that the Lord
alone could unloose the seals of the Book, and
reveal Himself therein. He had already gained
the truth that the material things of the body
correspond in their use to the spiritual things
of the soul, and that herein was the key to the
true understanding of the Scriptures. But what
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
did he know of the spiritual things of the soul ?
of the things of heaven, and of the Divine provi
dence therein ? In all this he was to be instructed
by the Lord Himself in His Word, but with the
aid of open communication with angels and spirits
whose life this inner meaning is.
It is now the year 1745. The time is ripening
for the judgment. The clouds obscuring the face
of the Son of Man are at their darkest. It is
time for the dawn of the light that is to come.
The light of the Lord's presence is to begin to
be seen in His written Word. The age of mir
acles compelling belief is past. Man is to be in
structed in an orderly, rational manner. One
mind has been prepared and taught its mission.
Through its labors the light is to have a point of
diffusion on earth, and still more by ready com
munication in the spirit world among the multi
tudes there gathered who clung to their erroneous
interpretations of Scripture, from which they
could not be released until the unsealing of the
Book by the Lamb. That this unsealing should
be, not an instantaneous, but a gradual process,
and that it should have effect in the world where
the letter of the Book belongs, is in keeping with
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OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
the orderly, gradual course of the Divine provi
dence. Twelve years were devoted by Sweden
borg to writing and publishing what was revealed
to him in the Scriptures, before the judgment in
the world of spirits was seen by him to come to
its fulfilment.
Though assured of the Divine sanction and
aid in the office intrusted to him, Swedenborg
entered upon the task in natural and scientific
manner He procured the best editions of the
Scriptures in the original languages, studied them
diligently from beginning to end time after time,
and then began making short notes — Adversaria
— much as do ordinary commentators, together
with several Biblical indexes for future use. All
this was preliminary study, not for print, occupy
ing nearly two years. In 1747 he was ready for
the service required of him and prepared for the
press the first volume of his Arcana Calestia, in
which he unfolds verse by verse the internal con
tent of the first fifteen chapters of Genesis. This
was the beginning of the fulfilment of his mis
sion, the nature of which is set forth in the intro
duction to the volume : —
"I. That the Word of the Old Testament con-
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
tains arcana of heaven, and that all and each of
the things therein regard the Lord, His heaven,
the Church, faith, and the things which are of
faith, no mortal apprehends from the letter ; for
from the letter or the sense of the letter no one
sees anything else than that they regard in gen
eral the external things of the Jewish Church ;
when yet there are everywhere internal things
which are nowhere manifest in the external, ex
cept a very few which the Lord revealed and
explained to the Apostles ; as, that sacrifices sig
nify the Lord, that the land of Canaan and Jeru
salem signify heaven, whence Canaan and Jerusa
lem are called heavenly and Paradise.
"II. But that all things and each, yea the most
particular, even to the least jot, signify and in
volve spiritual and heavenly things, the Christian
world is hitherto profoundly ignorant, and so it
has little regard for the Old Testament. Yet the
truth might be known merely from this, that
the Word, because it is the Lord's and from the
Lord, could in no wise be given without contain
ing interiorly such things as are of heaven, of
the Church, and of faith ; not otherwise could it
be called the Word of the Lord, nor could it be
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OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
said that there is any life in it ; for whence is its
life unless from those things which are of life ?
that is, unless from this, that all and each of the
things in it have reference to the Lord, who is
the very Life itself ? Wherefore whatsoever does
not interiorly regard Him, does not live ; nay,
whatever expression in the Word does not involve
Him, or in its own manner relate to Him, is not
Divine. " III. Without such life the Word as to the
letter is dead ; for it is with the Word as with
man, who, as is known in the Christian world, is
external and internal ; the external man separate
from the internal is the body, and thus dead ; but
the internal is what lives and gives to the exter
nal to live. The internal man is the soul. Thus
the Word as to the letter alone is as the body
without the soul..
" IV. From the sense of the letter alone, when
the mind is fixed in it, can in no wise be seen
that it contains such things ; as in this first part
of Genesis, from the sense of the letter nothing
else is known than that it treats of the creation
of the world and of the Garden of Eden, which
is called Paradise; also of Adam as the first
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
created man : who imagines anything more ? But
that these things contain arcana which have never
hitherto been revealed, will be sufficiently evident
from what follows ; and indeed that the first
chapter of Genesis in the internal sense treats of
the New Creation of man, or of his Regener
ation, in general, and of the Most Ancient
Church in particular ; and indeed in such manner
that there is not the least particle of an expres
sion that does not represent, signify, and involve
these things.
" V. But that such is the case no mortal can
ever know unless from the Lord. For this reason
it is permitted to state at the outset that of the
Lord's mercy it has been granted me now for
several years to be constantly and continuously in
the company of spirits and angels, to hear them
speaking and in turn to speak with them ; hence
it has been given me to hear and see astonish
ing things which are in the other life, which have
never come to the knowledge of any man, nor into
his idea. I have there been instructed concerning
different kinds of spirits, concerning the state of
souls after death, concerning hell or the lament
able state of the unfaithful, concerning heaven
180

OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
or the most happy state of the faithful, especially
concerning the doctrine of faith which is acknow
ledged in the whole heaven ; on which subjects
by the Divine mercy of the Lord many things
will be said in the following pages."
Following this introduction is printed the whole
of the first chapter of Genesis in Latin. Then is
given a summary of the contents of the chapter
in the internal sense : —
"The six days, or times, which are so many
successive states of man's regeneration, are in
general as follows : —
" The first state is that which precedes, both
from infancy and immediately before regenera
tion, and is called a void, emptiness, and thick
darkness. And the first movement, which is the
mercy of the Lord, is the spirit of God moving
itself upon the faces of the waters.
" The second state is when distinction is made
between the things which are the Lord's and
those which are man's own ; those which are the
Lord's are called in the Word 'remains,' and are
here especially the knowledges of faith which man
has acquired from infancy, which are stored up
and are not manifest before he comes into this
181

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
state. This state seldom exists at the present day
without temptation, misfortune, or grief, which
cause the things of the body and the world, or
his own, to become quiet and as it were die. Thus
the things of the external man are separated from
those of the internal : in the internal are the re
mains stored up by the Lord for this time and
this use.
" The third state is that of repentance, in which
from the internal man he speaks piously and de
voutly, and brings forth good things, as the works
of charity, but which are nevertheless inanimate
because he regards them as from himself. These
are called the tender grass, then the herb yielding
seed, and afterward the tree yielding fruit.
" The fourth state is when he is affected by
love and illumined by faith; he before indeed
spoke pious things and brought forth good things,
but from a state of temptation and distress, not
from faith and charity. These therefore, love and
faith, are now enkindled in the internal man, and
are called the two great lights.
" The fifth state is, that he speaks from faith
and thereby confirms himself in truth and good ;
the things which he then brings forth are ani-
182

OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
mate, and are called the fishes of the sea and the
birds of the heavens.
" The sixth state is when from faith and thence
from love he speaks true things and does good
things ; the things which he then brings forth are
called the hving soul and creature. And because
he then begins to act from love also, as well as
from faith, he becomes a spiritual man, which is
called an image of God. His spiritual life is de
lighted and sustained by the things that are of the
knowledges of faith and of the works of charity,
which are called his food; and his natural life is
delighted and sustained by the things that are
of the body and the senses ; from which there
is a combat until love reigns and he becomes a
celestial man.
"They who are regenerated do not all arrive
at this state, but some, and the greatest part at
this day, only to the first ; some only to the sec
ond ; some to the third, the fourth, and the fifth ;
few to the sixth, and scarce any to the seventh."
The seventh state, here but alluded to, is de
scribed in the next chapter, in the explanation
of the seventh day. After this summary of the
contents of the first chapter, he begins with the
183

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
particular unfolding of the internal sense, verse
by verse, clause by clause, premising that —
" In the following pages by the Lord is meant
solely the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ;
and He is called Lord without the other names.
He is acknowledged and adored as Lord in the
entire heaven, because He has all power in the
heavens and in the earth. He commanded also
saying, ' Ye call Me Lord, and ye say rightly, for
I am' (John xiii. 13). And after the resurrection
the disciples called Him Lord.
"Through the whole heaven they know no
other Father than the Lord, because they are One,
as He said : ' I am the way, the truth, and the life.'
Philip saith, ' Show us the Father.' Jesus saith
to him, ' Am I so long time with you, and yet
hast thou not known Me, Philip ? He that hath
seen Me hath seen the Father : how sayest thou
then, show us the Father? Believest thou not
that I am in the Father and the Father in Me ?
Believe Me that I am in the Father and the
Father in Me ' (John xiv. 6-1 1)."
Twenty-six octavo pages are given to the expli
cation of this first chapter, and then it is said —
"This then is the internal sense of the Word,
184

OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
its very life, which does not at all appear from
the sense of the letter; but the arcana are so
many that volumes would not be sufficient for
unfolding them. Here only a few are declared,
and such as may prove that regeneration is here
treated of, and that this proceeds from the ex
ternal man to the internal. Thus the angels un
derstand the Word. They know nothing at all
which is of the letter, not even one word of what
it proximately signifies, still less the names of
countries, cities, rivers, and persons, which occur
so frequently in the historic and prophetic parts.
They have only an idea of the things signified
by words and names ; as, by Adam in Paradise
they have a perception of the Most Ancient
Church, and not of the Church itself, but of the
faith toward the Lord of that Church; by Noah,
the Church remaining with posterity and con
tinued to the time of Abram ; by Abraham, not
the man who lived, but the saving faith which he
represented ; and so on. Thus they perceive things
spiritual and celestial, altogether abstracted from
words and names."
An appropriate beginning is this of the work
to which Swedenborg was to devote the remaining
185

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
thirty years of his life — that of causing the face
of the Son of Man to be seen in the clouds of
the letter of His Word. To this task he brought
certain important qualifications : —
First, inherited reverence for the Scriptures,
as the Word of God. Second, intimacy therewith
by daily reading and meditation. Third, convic
tion through philosophic study that all material
things are the representatives or correspondents
of spiritual things, and that this correspondence is
the key to the understanding of Holy Scripture.
Fourth, knowledge by experience that truth must
be sought for its own sake, with no thought of
merit or personal advantage. Fifth, certainty that
he was Divinely called to this service and would
be Divinely protected and guided in it. Sixth, ex
perience of the enlightenment given to the self-
denying seeker of truth for the truth's sake.
Seventh, living consciousness of the presence of
the Lord in the inner sense of His Word — as
described in his last published work : — "To the
end that the Lord might be continually present,
He has disclosed to me the spiritual sense of His
Word, in which Divine truth is in its light, and
in this light He is constantly present."
186

OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT
To all this was added the ineffable grace of
being able to see and converse with the angels
of heaven, who perceive in the Scriptures all the
inner meaning applicable to their own capacity
and needs. Nevertheless in his unfolding of the
Word for the use of men he was not, he says,
permitted to take anything from any angel, but
solely from the Word itself under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit. With all this guidance and
never without, Swedenborg used scientific method
in his studies, everything he wrote having passed
through the alembic of his rational thought, to
the end that it might be accepted by the rational
thought of men. Thus throughout his explications
of the Word he is continually drawing and de
monstrating the internal meaning by citation of
divers other passages in which the expression
in question has the meaning he now assigns to
it. This was the purpose of his indexes. And
further, as he goes on, he continually refers back
to previous numbers in which the same subject
has been treated. By these constant citations and
references it is that his volumes of explications
become so bulky, the Arcana unfolded in Genesis
and Exodus making in English twenty volumes.
187

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Interspersed, however, with the chapters, are short
treatises on many kindred subjects, some doctrinal
and others descriptive of the other world.
The original Latin edition of the Arcana was
completed in 1758 in eight large quarto volumes,
published in London. During this period of eleven
years nothing else was published by the author,
and little else written save many volumes of notes
of his spiritual experience. These have since been
published by his friends both in Latin and in
English, under the title of his Spiritual Diary, and
the most important of their contents are to be
found here and there as needed in his own pub
lications.

VIII
" THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED " AND
OTHER WORKS
In the Arcana of the Books of Moses, and col
laterally in the other Books of the Old Testament,
Swedenborg had found a constant foreshadowing
of the eventual coming of the Lord to dwell with
men their God. In other terms, he had seen the
inner Word to be the revelation of the Divine
purpose toward mankind, inducing always the
Divine image and likeness, and in due time to be
fully accomplished by this purpose, or the Word,
becoming flesh and dwelling among men. This
great event in the history of mankind we are wont
to regard as wholly completed in the Gospel
period, while our Lord remained visible in the
flesh. But this was only the beginning, the intro
duction to the Lord's dwelling with men in their
souls, their hearts, and even in their flesh. By
coming down, or coming forth from within, into
all the degrees of human life, even to the flesh,
in the single form taken from woman, the Divine
189

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Purpose, the Word, the Divine Will toward men,
entered into human clothing and became forever
present and operative with man, as he will accept
it for his own — not indeed in continued visible
presence, which could be but in one spot and
there compelling, but throughout the world for
all time in the record of the Gospel and within
the heart as the Holy Spirit to those that love
His commandments and do them.
This inner presence became real to the disciples
after the outward presence left them, and inspired
them to preach and heal in His name. But it was
less and less realized in succeeding generations
till — even as the Lord had foretold — all percep
tion of it was lost. In fact, the understanding of
it by the first disciples was not what would have
been given if they could have received it. They
thought of their Lord as they had seen Him —
as a Divine Person, the Only-begotten Son, in
the bosom and at the right hand of the Father.
It was with this idea that Judas wondered how
He could manifest Himself to them and not to
the world. And we may doubt whether any un
derstood the Lord's answer — " If a man love Me,
he will keep My word ; and My Father will love
190

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
him, and We will come unto him and make Our
abode with him." For all the pains their Lord
had taken to make them understand that He was
but the manifestation of the Father's will in their
human degree of life, they could not realize that
when He had laid down the human form taken
from the mother Mary, He would thereafter be
with them and all who would love Him — not in
limited bodily form, but as the Father's will in the
Divinely human form of thought and feeling,
which is the Word in essence and which He had
revealed to them in the flesh.
This Divine Human presence manifesting itself
by the Holy Spirit, calling all things to our re
membrance whatsoever He has said unto us in all
the Scriptures, the Church has been slow to ap
prehend. Only in love can it be apprehended. An
age must pass of faulty apprehension in which
the love of the many will wax cold. But John
should endure to the end. There should yet be
gleanings of the olive, a few berries in the topmost
boughs of the Church, some of the love repre
sented by John, when the time should be fulfilled
for the new recognition of their Lord in His
Word. 191

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
John in vision saw the Son of Man in the midst
of seven golden candlesticks, with all heavenly
light and love. The golden candlesticks, accord
ing to Swedenborg, represent the acceptance in
the heavens of this the Lord's light in His Di
vine Human manifestation. John's falling at His
feet as dead represents the utter abasement of all
merely human conceit when this Divine presence
is apprehended in the Word. John as represent
ing the loving acceptance of the Divine Human
presence represents also the teaching of this pre
sence, and thus his addresses to the churches re
present the effect of this teaching, or doctrine,
on the various states of those of the Church who
are in the end to compose itin its new age — that
of the New Jerusalem. In the fifth chapter of his
vision the opening of the Book by the Lamb de
scribes the effect of its interior light on the inte
riors of men in both worlds. Thus the Book is at
once the book of the Word and the book of men's
lives as it searches and judges them. And the
remaining chapters are filled with the particulars
of this judgment, condemning and consigning to
their homes those whose hearts and lives are op
posed to the Divine will, enlightening and enrol-
192

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
ling in a new Christian heaven those whose hearts
are open to this will.
All the while that this true understanding of
the Divine Human presence was descending from
heaven into the world of spirits and executing the
judgment there, Swedenborg was on earth re
cording both the judgment and the interior signi
ficance of the vision to John, in his " Apocalypse
Explained." The judgment he describes as being
effected during the year 1757. In that year and
the one or two following he was preparing this
work for the press in four large volumes. At first
the method pursued is that of the Arcana, giving
the high internal explication of each verse and
word, with abounding citations from other parts
of the Word in confirmation, with their internal
meaning. And as in the Arcana, though true
doctrine is drawn from the Word in contrast
with the false doctrine condemned, but little is
said of the new church by which the true is to be
held, and that little speaks of it as probably, like
the first Christian, to be established among the
Gentiles. When however he comes to the four
teenth chapter, he finds the woman encompassed
with the sun and with the moon at her feet, to
i93

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
represent the love for the Lord remaining in the
Church, which was to bring forth the true doc
trine — the man-child — and to become the new
stage of the Church.
This becomes more and more apparent to him
as he advances in the explication, and as he finds
at the conclusion of the judgment a new heaven
being formed of those from the Christian world
who had in patience been awaiting the new light
and now found their place in this heaven of the
new church to be founded on earth. With this
new understanding of the coming age of the
Christian Church, as he came nearer its more
particular description, he stayed his hand in the
nineteenth chapter and laid this nearly completed
work aside, not to be printed until by his friends
after his death. Instead he now first published
several smaller treatises, on " The Final Judg
ment," on " Heaven and Hell," " The Earths in
the Universe," and " The New Jerusalem and its
Heavenly Doctrine." Then he took up the Apoc
alypse anew and in 1 766 produced a much smaller
work entitled "The Apocalypse Revealed," omit
ting in great part the numerous citations from other
parts of Scripture which, with their explication,
194

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
made the former work so voluminous. And from
the very beginning of this later work he treats of
those of the Christian Church of the first age
who on being enlightened are to form the Church
in its new age — the New Church of the New
Jerusalem, the genuine Christian Church. The
descent of the light of the Divine Human pres
ence through heaven effecting the judgment in
the world of spirits and for a beginning on this
earth, was already bringing this enlightenment
and was forming the new heaven.
The part taken in this judgment and enlight
enment by Swedenborg's reception of this new
light from the inner sense of the Word, with its
publication and demonstration from the Word in
the letter, is not set forth by him, but may in
some degree be inferred. We have seen the doc
trine of salvation by faith alone attacked by him
from boyhood. It was the dominant power in the
Protestant Church of his day, and his attacks
which pervaded his theological works aroused the
hostility of the Swedish clergy in this world, as
well as of the numberless supporters of this doc
trine in the world of spirits. Of the virulence
with which his demonstration of the falsity of this
i95

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
doctrine was attacked, and of the effects in the
world of spirits of this demonstration from the
Scriptures, a striking example is related by him
at the close of his explication of the eleventh
chapter of the Apocalypse : —
" I was once seized suddenly with a disease that
seemed to threaten my life. I suffered excru
ciating pain all over my head ; a pestilent smoke
ascended from that Jerusalem [in the world of
spirits] which is called Sodom and Egypt ; half
dead with the severity of my sufferings, I expected
every moment would be my last. Thus I lay in
my bed three days and a half ; my spirit was re
duced to this state, and my body in consequence.
And then I heard the voices of persons about me,
saying, ' Lo, he who preached repentance for the
remission of sins, and the man Christ alone, lies
dead in the streets of our city.' And they asked
some of the clergy whether he was worthy of
burial ; who answered, ' No, let him lie to be
gazed at.' And they passed to and fro, and mocked.
All this befell me, of a truth, when I was writing
the explanation of this chapter of the Apocalypse.
Then were heard many shocking speeches of scoff
ers who said, ' How can repentance be performed
196

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
without faith ? And how can the man Christ be
adored as God ? Since we are saved of free grace
without any merit of our own, what need is there
of any faith but this — that God the Father sent
the Son to take away the curse of the law, to
impute his merit to us, and so to justify us in His
sight, and absolve us from our sins by the de
claration of a priest, and then give the Holy Ghost
to operate all good in us ? Are not these doctrines
agreeable to Scripture, and consistent with reason
also?' All this the crowd who stood by agreed to
and applauded. I heard what passed without the
power of replying, being almost dead ; but after
three days and a half my spirit recovered, and
being in the spirit I left the street and went into
the city, and said again, ' Do the work of repent
ance and believe in Christ, and your sins will be
remitted and ye will be saved; but otherwise ye
will perish. Did not the Lord Himself preach
repentance for the remission of sins, and that men
should believe in Him? Did not He enjoin His
disciples to preach the same ? Is not a full and
fatal security of life the sure consequence of this
dogma of your faith ? ' But they replied, ' What
idle talk ! Has not the Son made satisfaction ?
197

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
And does not the Father impute it to us, and
justify us who have believed in it ? Thus are we
led by the spirit of grace ; how then can sin have
place in us, and what power has death over us ?
Do you comprehend this Gospel, thou preacher
of sin and repentance ? ' At that instant a voice
was heard from heaven, saying, ' What is the faith
of an impenitent man but a dead faith ? The end
is come, the end is come upon you that are secure,
blameless in your own eyes, justified in your own
faith, ye devils.' And suddenly a deep gulf was
opened in the midst of the city, which spread itself
far and wide, and the houses fell one upon another
and were swallowed up ; and presently water began
to bubble up from the wide whirlpool, and over
flowed the waste.
"When they were thus overwhelmed and, to
appearance, drowned, I was desirous to know
their condition in the deep ; and a voice from
heaven said to me, 'Thou shalt see and hear.'
And straightway the waters in which they seemed
to be drowned.disappeared ; for waters in the spir
itual world are correspondences, and hence appear
to surround those who are in falsities. Then they
appeared to me in a sandy place, where there were
198

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
large heaps of stones, amongst which they were
running, and lamenting that they were cast out of
their great city; and they lifted up their voices
and cried, ' Why has all this befallen us ? Are we
not by our faith clean, pure, just, and holy ? . . .
Have we not made reconciliation, propitiation, ex
piation, and are thus absolved,washed, and cleansed
from sins ? And is not the curse of the law taken
away by Christ ? Why then are we cast down here
as the damned ? We have been told by a presump
tuous preacher of sin in our great city, " Believe in
Christ and repent." But have we not believed in
Christ while we believed in His merit ? And have
we not done the work of repentance while we
confessed ourselves sinners ? Why then has all
this befallen us ? ' But immediately a voice from
one side said to them, ' Do you know any one sin
that is in you ? Have you ever examined your
selves ? Have you in consequence shunned any
evil as a sin against God ? For he who does not
shun sin, remains in it ; and is not sin the Devil ?
Ye are therefore of the class of whom the Lord
said, Then shall ye begin to say, " We have eaten
and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught
in our streets;" but He shall say, "I tell you I
199

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
know you not, whence ye are ; depart from Me,
all ye workers of iniquity." . . . Depart ye,
therefore, every one to his own place ; you see
the openings into those caverns ; enter, and there
work shall be given each of you to do, and after
wards food according to your work ; but should
you refuse at present to enter, the demands of
hunger will speedily compel you.' "
This, though not written for the purpose, bears
plain testimony to the part which the opening of
the Word to and through Swedenborg himself
had in the diffusion of the light of the judgment.
And what were the effects of the judgment :
Through the vast multitude of spirits gathered
for harvest in the world of spirits the Gospel was
preached anew with light from its Divine Author.
As at His first coming, those who had done well
welcomed the light and were gathered by it into
its home, while those who had done evil fled from
the light and were gathered unto their like in hell.
Thus the atmosphere was cleared above and about
men's souls ; and from that time forward when
ever the Word of God is read with simple heart, .
the light of heaven, which is none other than that
of the Holy Spirit, flows into the mind and en-

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
ables it to see with some clearness the true pur
port of what is read. How truly does this explain
the return of the Christian mind to the simple
Gospel and the right understanding thereof !
The new heaven was formed of those gathered
by the judgment into the fold of the Good Shep
herd. The new earth, its child in the world, is
being born and nurtured. But the holy city, the
new Jerusalem, what is that ? A city is the abode
of a community of men, with separate dwellings
but with common streets in which they walk in
concert, and public grounds and buildings for
common interests. The city of men's minds is
a system of thought or, spiritually speaking, of
doctrine, in which, while each mind has its pecu
liar abode, the general lines are held in common,
with common centres for assembling, for common
interests. And as in the centre of a city resides
its government, so in the centre of a common
cult, or doctrine resides its object of worship, its
Lord. So was it with the old Jerusalem, with the
Law of God in its central most holy place. So is
it with the new. The Holy City is to be the new
Christian faith, the resurrected faith, as declared
in the Gospel, and as newly called to our remem-

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
brance and made clear by the light of the Holy
Spirit. It has no need of the sun [of earth],
neither of the moon to shine in it ; for the glory
of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof. For continuity of subject we have taken Swe
denborg's Apocalypse Revealed in connection
with his Apocalypse Explained. But after laying
aside the latter he wrote various smaller works,
of which he published The Doctrine of the New
Jerusalem concerning the Lord, The Doctrine of
the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scrip
ture, The Doctrine of Life for the New Jerusalem,
and The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concern
ing Faith ; also a Continuation concerning the
Final Judgment. These were but small treatises.
In 1763 he published the larger work entitled
" Angelic Wisdom concerning the Divine Love and
the Divine Wisdom," and in the same or the next
year that entitled " Angelic Wisdom concerning
the Divine Providence." In these two most im
portant works we find the spiritual philosophy of
the New Church. Then came the Apocalypse Re
vealed, 1 764- 1 766, followed in 1767 by "The De
lights of Wisdom concerning Marriage Love." It

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
is noteworthy that this last named work was the
first of his theological works to which the author
attached his name, " By Emanuel Swedenborg, a
Swede." But at the end of the volume he appends
a " List of the Theological Works published by
me," adding that they are still for sale at his print
ers and publishers in London. In the same style he
affixed his name to the " Summary Exposition of
the Doctrine of the New Church which is meant
by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse." This
was a small tract preliminary to his last important
and crowning work entitled " The True Christian
Religion, containing the entire theology of the
New Church foretold by Daniel, chap, vi i. 13, 14,
and in the Apocalypse, xxi. 1, 2: by Emanuel
Swedenborg, Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ."
This appellation he told a friend that he had asked
and received permission to affix. The original vol
ume in Latin was published at Amsterdam in the
year 1771, in a quarto of 541 pages.
This monumental work contains far more than
a mere statement of the doctrine of the true Chris
tian Church. It contains ample exposition of every
particular, with confutation of all opposing doc
trine. And between the chapters are Memorabilia
203

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
of things seen and heard in the other world, es
pecially of important discussions held in the world
of spirits on the very points of doctrine considered
in the chapters. We cannot better close this sketch
of Swedenborg's theological works than with what
he sets forth at the beginning of this last great
work as "the face, gate, and summary" of this
new Christian doctrine : —
" The faith of the New Heaven and the New
Church in the Universal Form is this : — That
the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, came into
the world that He might subjugate the hells and
glorify His Human ; and that without this no
mortal could have been saved ; and that those are
saved who believe in Him.
" It is said in the universal form because this
is the universal of faith ; and a universal of faith
is that which will be in the whole and every part.
It is a universal of faith that God is one in essence
and in person, in whom is a Divine Trinity, and
that He is the Lord God the Saviour Jesus Christ.
It is a universal of faith that no mortal could have
been saved unless the Lord had come into the
world. It is a universal of faith that He came into
the world that He might remove hell from man
204

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
and that He did remove it by means of combats
against it and victories over it ; thus He subju
gated it and reduced it to order and under obedi
ence to Himself. It is a universal of faith that He
came into the world that He might glorify His
Human which He assumed in the world, that is,
might unite it to the Divine from which [it pro
ceeded] ; thus He holds hell in order and under
obedience to Himself forever. Since this could
not have been done but by means of temptations
admitted into His Human, even to the last of
them, and the last was the passion of the cross,
therefore He underwent that temptation. These
are the universals of faith concerning the Lord.
" The universal of faith on the part of man is
that he should believe in the Lord ; for by be
lieving in Him conjunction with Him is effected,
by which is salvation. To believe in Him is to
have confidence that He saves ; and because no
one can have this confidence but he that lives well,
therefore this also is meant by believing in Him."
Such is Swedenborg's own summary of the
doctrine for the new age of the Christian Church
— the "True Christian Religion " — which it was
his mission to draw from the letter of the Word
205

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
of God, under the guidance of the inner heavenly
content revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. There
is nothing new or strange in the doctrine, for it
is simply that of our Lord Himself, as recorded
in the Gospel, now first clearly and rationally
understood. The difficulty with the common in
terpretations of the Gospel has been the lack of
clear distinction between that in our Lord which
was of man and that which was of God. This dis
tinction is rightly understood only with experience
in ourselves of the distinction between the natural
man, which is of self and the world, and the spir
itual man, which is of God and of heaven — a
distinction of which Paul well warned us. The
life natural to man, into which he is born, is cen
tripetal, self-centred. The life of God which man
is to receive for his own, in coming into the image
and likeness of his Creator, is centrifugal, giving
forth of itself endlessly for the blessing of others.
Our Lord taught plainly the absolute necessity of
conversion from the one life to the other in order
to enter the kingdom of heaven. What has not
been well understood is that within or above man's
natural mind, with its necessary concern for him
self, he has an inner or superior spiritual mind,
206

THE APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED
at first undeveloped, but capable of being opened
and becoming lord of the house : not by any effort
of the natural, but by the inflowing Divine life,
when by instruction or experience the natural has
been made willing to subside into its appointed
place of humble service.
All this the Lord taught, not by words alone,
but more emphatically by His own example, in
Himself laying down the maternal human nature
and living and speaking solely from the Divine
Human nature within. It is this inner Divine
Human life which He bade men recognize as the
will of the Father, and in which He declared that
whoever had seen and known Him, had seen and
known the Father. In this He desired men also
to understand that whatever they should be en
abled to do of the Father's will, would be not of
themselves, but of God. " Why callest thou Me
good? None is good save One, that is, God." The
comprehension of this Divine teaching was little
possible to races just emerging from barbarism,
or worse, from the profligacy of Roman civiliza
tion. What could they do in the way of renounc
ing their own will and accepting the Divine in its
stead ? For the time, therefore, it was permitted
207

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
them to regard the Lord Jesus as a Divine Being
distinct from the Father, retaining His maternal
human nature, which for consistency has been
determined in the Roman Church to have been
itself Divinely immaculate. On this Rock of the
Divine Human of our Lord the Christian Church
has split and been shattered to pieces. The true
understanding of this Corner-stone on which the
Church is to be rebuilt is that the maternal hu
man, after serving its temporary purpose as a
recipient, and in itself being rejected, no longer
existed. But the Divine Life which had in this
maternal human entered fully into the life of men,
had thereby acquired a perpetual Divine Human
presence with man, in which it became God-with-
us, our known Father in heaven.

IX
MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
The outward manner of life of one whose inner
life is passed in open communication with spirits
and angels, cannot but be of interest. Happily in
Swedenborg's case we are not without abundant
information. In 1748 at sixty years of age he
went to London to put to press the first volume
of the Arcana, and there for similar purpose he
made his home much of the time until his death,
twenty-four years later. In 1750 John Lewis, his
publisher, in the advertisement of the second
volume of the Arcana said —
"Though the author of the Arcana Ccelestia
is undoubtedly a very learned and great man, and
his works highly esteemed by the literati, yet he is
no less distinguished for his modesty than for his
great talents, so that he will not suffer his name
to be made public. But though I am positively
forbid to discover that, yet I hope he will excuse
me if I venture to mention his benign and gener
ous qualities. How he bestowed his time and la-
209

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
bors in former years I am not certainly informed,
though I have heard by those who have been long
acquainted with him that they were employed in the
same manner as I am going to relate ; but what
I have been an eye-witness to, I can declare with
certain truth ; and therefore I do aver that this
gentleman, with indefatigable pains and labor,
spent one whole year in studying and writing the
first volume of the Arcana Ccelestia, was at the
expense of two hundred pounds to print it, and
also advanced two hundred pounds more for the
printing of this second volume ; and when he had
done this, he gave express orders that all the
money that should arise in the sale of this large
work should be given toward the charge of the
propagation of the Gospel. He is so far from de
siring to make a gain of his labors, that he will
not receive one farthing back of the four hundred
pounds he has expended ; and for that reason his
works will come exceedingly cheap to the public."
In the spring of 1750 Swedenborg returned
again to Stockholm, having spent the intervening
time partly in London, but mostly in Holland. In
Stockholm he remained, tending his garden and
busily employed on the Arcana. We hear no
210

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
more of him at the College of Mines, but for some
time yet we have an occasional paper presented
to the Diet. A paper of much importance had been
presented by him in 1734, in opposition to a party
plan of declaring war against Russia, which is
supposed to have had great weight in maintaining
peace at that time. A fragment of a memorial
addressed by him to the Diet in 1755 urges the
necessity of limiting the distillation of whiskey,
" that is, if the consumption of the whiskey can
not be done away with altogether, which would
be more desirable for the country's welfare and
morality than all the income which could be real
ized from so pernicious a drink." In addition, the
memorial urges a recall of the power granted to
the Bank to grant loans on all property in the
country, which he regarded as one of the causes
of the bankruptcy into which it was drifting. By
these means Swedenborg hoped a check might
be put on the drain from the country, as shown
by the excess of imports over exports, and the
balance of trade be restored in its favor.
In 1 760 also, on occasion of a financial panic in
Sweden, as a member of a committee on Finance,
he presented to the Diet a memorial showing the
211

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
necessity of curtailing the issue by the Bank, of
loans on any other property than gold and silver ;
of gradually diminishing the amount of certificates
of indebtedness that had been issued on other
property, by requiring the debtors to pay each year
a certain percentage of their debt in addition to
the interest ; of gradual redemption by the Bank
of all other notes than those payable in coin; of
prohibiting for the time all exportation of copper,
and requiring the Bank to hoard it in anticipation
of resumption ; of abolishing the monopoly of the
Iron-Office ; and finally of farming out the dis
tillation of whiskey, as a means of revenue, if the
consumption of the pernicious drink could not be
done away with altogether.
Not long after, in refutation of some charges
against the Government, Swedenborg addressed
the Diet in these terms : —
" Every human being is inclined by nature, and
nothing is easier and pleasanter for him to do than
to find faults in others, and to pass an unfavorable
judgment upon them, inasmuch as all of us are
by nature inclined to see the mote in our brother's
eye and not to see the beam in our own eyes ;
moreover we are apt to strain out a gnat and to
212

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
swallow a camel. All proud and evil-disposed men
place their prudence in finding fault with and
blaming others ; and all generous and truly Chris
tian souls place their prudence in judging all
things according to circumstances, and hence in
excusing such faults as may have arisen from
weakness, and in inveighing against such evils as
may have been done on purpose. The same also
happens in a general way in that which concerns
governments: faults, numberless faults may be
found in all, so that volumes might be filled with
them. Should I undertake to make known all the
mistakes of which I have heard, and which I know
from my own experience to have happened in
England and Holland to the detriment of justice
and the public good, I believe I might fill a whole
book with lamentations ; when, nevertheless, those
governments, together with our own in Sweden,
are the very best in Europe, as every inhabitant,
notwithstanding all the shortcomings which hap
pen there, is safe in his life and property, and no
one is a slave, but they are all free men. The
Honorable Houses of the Diet will allow me to
go still higher : if in this world there should exist
a heavenly government, consisting of men who
213

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
had an angelic disposition, there would neverthe
less be in it faults caused by weakness, together
with other shortcomings ; and if these were fer
reted out, reported, and exaggerated, this govern
ment too might be undermined by calumny, and
thereby gradually a desire might be raised among
the well-disposed to change and destroy it. The
best government, and that which is most wisely
arranged, is our own government in Sweden ; inas
much as all things are connected here as in a chain,
and are joined together for the purpose of admin
istering justice from the highest leader to the
lowest citizen."
Swedenborg spoke from much experience, hav
ing been in friendly relations with several kings
and queens, ah officer of the government thirty
years in the College of Mines, and being in the
Diet of the party which curtailed the royal power,
retaining the supreme control in the Houses of
the Diet themselves. This was in 1762. The next
year his views prevailed and his first measure was
passed, forbidding bank loans on movable property.
The year after, however, against Swedenborg's
advice, a too sudden and radical measure was
adopted and the whole ground was lost.
214

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
Another matter that gave him concern about
this time was the controversy between the Court
and the Diet on behalf of the people. The latter
party under the lead of Count Hopken and other
senators had sustained the alliance of Sweden
with France, against the wishes of the Royal
family, which was allied to that of Prussia. The
war that ensued was unfortunate, and Hopken
and two colleagues were obliged to resign. In
1 76 1 Swedenborg memorialized the Diet in strong
terms, urging the necessity of maintaining intact
the government, at once free and conservative,
which they had hitherto enjoyed, resisting the
encroachments of the Court, backed by that of
Prussia, itself under the influence of intriguing
Papacy, and maintaining sacred their alliance with
France. In this view he strongly advised the re
storation of Hopken and his colleagues, as tried
and faithful servants of Sweden — advice that
was afterward followed.
As stated by a Swedish authority —
" Up to the time of his extreme old age Swe
denborg interested himself in the administrative,
financial, and political affairs of his country. As
a member of the House of Nobles, he was an in-
2J5

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
dependent member, supporting whatever he saw
to be worthy of his own position and to be right
and generally useful, without allowing himself to
be influenced by the right or the left side. Like
every true friend of liberty, he was opposed alike
to despotism and to anarchy. His entrance into
the House of Nobles was contemporaneous with
the reestablishment of freedom in Sweden. Dur
ing his childhood and youth he had witnessed the
misfortunes into which an unlimited monarchy
had precipitated his country. He himself had
seen the misery and distress which a war of
eighteen years' duration, with dearly-bought vic
tories and bloody defeats, with decimated armies
and bankrupt finances, attended by pestilence
and famine, had brought upon it. Need we won
der, then, that Swedenborg was in favor of a con
stitution which set bounds to the arbitrary power
and whims of a hitherto unlimited monarchy ;
which prevented the dissolution of the country,
and gradually changed discontent into satisfaction,
at least among the majority of its citizens ? Swe
denborg enjoyed the good fortune envied by many,
of having been able during half a century to in
fluence by his vote the resolutions passed for the
216

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
welfare of his country, and of not giving up his
place in the House of Nobles before the year
1772, when death closed his eyes to the darkened
prospects with which a change in the administra
tion threatened Sweden's independence. He thus
belonged to the whole of that period of freedom
which is valued so highly by many, and is made
light of by others. With that period his political
career began and ended." *
Thus it appears that Swedenborg, after as be
fore his introduction into his spiritual office and
into visible heavenly companionship, was alive to
the important questions of the day to which he
was called by love for his country and his duty
as a member of its Diet. With spiritual eyes open
to all his spiritual surroundings, his natural eyes
were wide open also to all real needs of this
world. He lived much alone, as his constant ab
sorbing labors required, but he was not a recluse.
He had many friends among statesmen and men
of learning, with whom he enjoyed pleasant inter
course. His garden was his solace, and he took
much pleasure in meeting young children, whom
he loved to make happy. Of his friendly relations
1 Nya Kyrkan, i, Sverige, part ii, p. 48.
217

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
in his own country he wrote in answer to the in
quiries of an English friend in 1 769 —
" Moreover, all the bishops of my native coun
try, who are ten in number, and also the sixteen
senators, and the rest of those highest in office,
entertain feelings of affection for me ; from their
affection they honor me, and I live with them on
terms of familiarity, as a friend among friends —
the reason of which is that they know I am in
company with angels. Even the King and the
Queen and the three princes, their sons, show me
great favor. I was invited once by the King and
Queen to dine with them at their own table, which
honor is generally accorded only to those who are
highest in office ; subsequently the Crown Prince
granted me the same favor. They all desire me
to return home ; wherefore I am far from appre
hending in my own country that persecution which
you fear, and against which in your letter you
desire in so friendly a manner to provide ; and if
they choose to persecute me elsewhere, it can do
me no harm."
Of the esteem in which Swedenborg was held
in Sweden the following letter gives a pleasing
account. It was written by Count Anders Johan
218

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
Von Hopken,1 holding office under the Swedish
Government equivalent to Prime Minister, to his
friend General Tuxen, another friend of Sweden
borg's, who held important office under the Dan
ish Government at Elsinore.
" I have not only known him these two and
forty years, but also, some time since, daily fre
quented his company. A man who like me has
lived long in the world, and even in an extensive
career of life, must have had numerous opportu
nities of knowing men as to their virtues or vices,
their weakness or strength ; and in consequence
thereof I do not recollect to have known any
man of more uniformly virtuous character than
Swedenborg — always contented, never fretful or
morose, though throughout his life his soul was
occupied with sublime thoughts and speculations.
He was a true philosopher and lived like one ; he
labored diligently and lived frugally without sor-
didness ; he travelled continually, and his travels
cost him no more than if he had lived at home.
He was gifted with a most happy genius and a
fitness for every science, which made him shine
1 Called in the Swedish Biographical Dictionary "The Swed
ish Tacitus." 219

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
in all those which he embraced. He was without
contradiction the most learned man in my country.
In his youth he was a great poet : I have in my
possession some remnants of his Latin poetry
which Ovid would not have been ashamed to own.
In his middle age his Latin was in an easy, ele
gant, and ornamental style ; in his latter years it
was equally clear, but less elegant after he had
turned his thoughts to spiritual subjects. He was
well acquainted with Hebrew and Greek, an able
and profound mathematician, a happy mechani
cian, of which he gave proof in Norway, where by
an easy and simple method he transported the
largest galleys over high mountains and rocks to
a gulf where the Danish fleet was stationed. . .
He possessed a sound judgment upon all occa
sions ; he saw everything clearly and expressed
himself well on every subject. The most solid
memorials and the best penned at the Diet of
1 76 1 on matters of finance, were presented by
him. . . .
"I once represented in rather a serious manner
to this venerable man, that I thought he would
do better not to mix with his beautiful writings so
many 'memorable relations,' or things heard and

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
seen in the spiritual world concerning the states
of men after death, of which ignorance makes a
jest and derision. But he answered me that this
did not depend on him ; that he was too old to sport
with spiritual things, and too much concerned for
his eternal happiness to yield to such foolish no
tions ; assuring me on his hopes of salvation that
imagination produced in him none of his revela
tions, which were true and from what he had heard
and seen."
In another letter Count Hopken recurs to the
same point : speaking of a certain clergyman, he
says —
" He was by no means a Swedenborgian, for
he did not understand his ' memorable relations' ;
and I could wish the happy deceased had left them
out, as they may prevent infidelity from approach
ing his doctrines. I represented to him these in
conveniences ; but he said that he was commanded
to declare what he had seen in the other world ;
and he related it as a proof that he did not reveal
his own thoughts, but that they came from above.
As for the rest, I find in his system a simplicity
and gradation and such a spirit as the work of God
in nature everywhere proves and exhibits ; for

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
whatever man creates is complicated, labored, and
subject to vicissitude."
In a letter to another friend, still to the same
point, the Count says —
" There are two circumstances in the doctrine
and writings of Swedenborg. The first is his
' memorable relations.' Of these I cannot judge,
not having had any spiritual intercourse myself, by
which to judge of his assertions either approvingly
or disapprovingly ; but they cannot appear more
extraordinary than the Apocalypse of John, and
other similar relations in the Bible. The second
is his tenets of doctrine. Of these I can judge :
they are excellent, irrefutable, and the best that
ever were taught, promoting the happiest social
life. I know that Swedenborg wrote his memora
bilia bond fide. . . .
" I have sometimes told the King that if ever
a new colony were to be formed, no religion could
be better, as the prevailing and established one,
than that developed by Swedenborg from the
Sacred Scriptures, and this for the two following
reasons : First, this religion, in preference to and
in a higher degree than any other, must produce
the most honest and industrious subjects ; for it

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
properly places the worship of God in uses. Sec
ond, it causes least fear of death, as this religion
regards death merely as a transition from one state
to another, from a worse to a better situation ; nay,
upon his principles I look upon death as being of
hardly any greater moment than drinking a glass
of water. I have been convinced of the truth of
Swedenborg's doctrine from these arguments in
particular, namely, that One is the author of every
thing, and that a separate person is not the Crea
tor, and another the Author of religion ; that there
are degrees in everything and these subsisting to
eternity ; the history of creation is unaccount
able unless explained in the spiritual sense. We
may say of the religion which Swedenborg has
developed in his writings from the Word of God,
with Gamaliel : 'If it be of God, it cannot be
overthrown ; but if it be of man, it will come to
nought.' "
That Swedenborg on his part held Hopken in
high esteem is shown by the memorials to the
Diet in his favor, to which we have already al
luded. We will take our leave of the Count in
copying his statement of the " Truthful account
made by the late Queen Dowager": —
223

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
" Swedenborg was one day at a court reception.
Her Majesty [the Queen Dowager Louisa Ulrica]
asked him about different things in the other life,
and lastly whether he had seen or talked with
her brother, the Prince Royal of Prussia. He an
swered, 'No.' Her Majesty then requested him to
ask after him, and to give him her greeting, which
Swedenborg promised to do. I doubt whether
the Queen meant anything serious by it. At
the next reception Swedenborg again appeared at
court ; and while the Queen was in the so-called
white room, surrounded by her ladies of honor,
he came boldly in and approached her Majesty,
who no longer remembered the commission she
had given him a week before. Swedenborg not
only greeted her from her brother, but also gave
her his apologies for not having answered her last
letter ; he also wished to do so now through Swe
denborg, which he accordingly did. The Queen
was greatly overcome, and said, ' No one except
God knows this secret.'
"The reason why the Queen never adverted to
this before, was that she did not wish any one
in Sweden to believe that during a war with Prus
sia she had carried on a correspondence in the
224

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
enemy's country. The same caution her Majesty
exercised during her last visit to Berlin. When
she was asked about this transaction, which had
been printed in a German paper, she did not
answer." The same story comes to us through many
different channels, to substantially the same ef
fect. The account given by Mr. Springer, as from
Swedenborg himself, contains a variation quite
likely to be true : —
" The Queen of Sweden had written letters to
her brother, a Prince of Prussia ; and having no
answers, she doubted whether he had received
them or not. The Baron [Swedenborg] at that
time had converse with the Queen, and her
brother had died in Prussia. She was very desir
ous to know if he had received the letters. She
consulted the Baron, who said he would inform
her in a few days. He did so, and told her he had
received them and was going to answer them,
and that in an escritoire of the Prince was a letter
unfinished intended for her ; but he was taken ill
and died. She sent to the King of Prussia, and it
was as the Baron had declared : the King sent the
unfinished letter." 225

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
The Prince of Prussia referred to was Augustus
William, brother to Frederic II and to the Queen
Louisa Ulrica, wife of Adolphus Frederic, King
of Sweden from 175 1 to 177 1. It is amusingly
told, on the authority of the wife of Swedenborg's
gardener, that " for days following the occurrence
carriages stopped before the door of her master,
from which the first gentlemen of the kingdom
alighted, who desired to know the secret of which
the Queen was so much frightened ; but her mas
ter, faithful to his promise, refused to tell it."
Christopher Springer, whose statement we
have just quoted, was a Swede, and long a friend
of Swedenborg, both in their own country and in
London, where for political reasons he resided
many years. He had been prominent in public
affairs at home, and became the confidential agent
of the English Government in all that concerned
Swedish matters, being employed in bringing
about peace between Sweden and Frederick the
Great in 1762. In London he was regarded as
the father of the Swedes, and was applied to for
all aid and information. In answer to inquiries
about Swedenborg, after his decease, Mr. Springer
said — 226

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
" His father, Jesper Swedberg, was Bishop of
Skara, a man of great learning ; but this Emanuel
Swedenborg received richer endowments from
God. His knowledge as well as his sincerity was
great. He was constant in friendship, extremely
frugal in his diet, and plain in his dress. His usual
food was coffee with milk, and bread and butter ;
sometimes, however, he partook of a little fish,
and only at rare intervals ate meat ; and he never
drank above two glasses of wine. . . .
" Two or three weeks before his decease . . .
I asked him when he believed that the New Je
rusalem, or the New Church of God, would mani
fest itself, and whether this manifestation would
take place in the four quarters of the world. His
answer was that no mortal and not even the ce
lestial angels could predict the time ; that it was
solely in the will of God. ' Read,' said he, ' the
Book of Revelation xxi. 2, and Zechariah xiv. 9,
and you will see there that the New Jerusalem
will undoubtedly manifest itself to the whole
earth.' . . .
" Fifteen years ago [in 1766] Swedenborg set
out for Sweden, and asked me to procure a good
captain for him, which I did. I contracted with
227

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
one whose name was Dixon. . . . When the cap
tain of the vessel called for Swedenborg, I took
leave of him and wished him a happy journey.
Having then asked the captain if he had a good
supply of provisions on board, he answered me
that he had as much as would be required. Swe
denborg then observed, ' My friend, we have not
need of a great quantity ; for this day week we
shall, by the aid of God, enter into the port of
Stockholm at two o'clock.' On Captain Dixon's
return, he related to me that this happened ex
actly as Swedenborg had foretold.
"Two years afterward Swedenborg returned
to London, where we continued our former friend
ship. He told me that he had sent his works to
the bishops of Sweden, but without result, and
that they had received him with the same indif
ference that he had experienced from the bish
ops in England. What a remarkable change I
noticed among the bishops in London ! I had wit
nessed myself with what coldness he was received
by them before his departure for Sweden, and I
saw that on his return he was received by them
with the greatest civility. I asked him how this
change could have come, when he answered, ' God
228

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
knows the time when His Church ought to
commence.' . . .
" As to what relates to myself, I cannot give
you a reason for the great friendship Swedenborg
entertained for me, who am not a learned man.
It is true, we were good friends in Sweden ; but
that this friendship between us should have be
come as constant as it has been, I never expected.
" All that he had told me of my deceased friends
and enemies, and all of the secrets I had with them,
is almost past belief. He even explained to me
in what manner peace was concluded between
Sweden and the King of Prussia ; and he praised
my conduct on that occasion He even specified
the three high personages whose services I made
use of at that time ; which was nevertheless a
profound secret between us. On asking him how
it was possible for him to obtain such information,
and who had discovered it to him, he replied,
' Who informed me about your affair with Count
Claes Ekeblad? You cannot deny that what I
have told you is true. Continue,' he added, « to
merit his reproaches [for refusing a great bribe] ;
depart not from the good way either for honors
or money ; but, on the contrary, continue as
229

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
constant therein as you have hitherto, and you
will prosper.' "
John Christian Cuno, soldier, poet, and mer
chant, of Amsterdam, left a manuscript autobio
graphy, in which he has much to say of Sweden
borg : —
" I must remain faithful to a promise made last
year, and begin by giving an account of the most
singular saint who has ever lived, Mr. Emanuel
Swedenborg. As nothing concerns me more in
this world than the worship of God, and as I found
interspersed in the last work of that man such
strange and singular things, I was naturally im
pelled by an irresistible curiosity to make the
acquaintance of the author. . . .
" The Christian worship of God is subject to
this sad calamity in this world, that attacks are
made upon it either by arrogant fools who call
themselves strong-minded, or by visionaries ; the
latter rendering it ridiculous sometimes without
wishing to do so, but the former endeavoring to
do so with all their power. The learned Mr. Swe
denborg cannot be classed among the freethinkers
and enemies of the Christian religion ; for he writes
with the greatest reverence for God and His Word.
230

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
He has impressed upon me the most profound
reverence for the adorable Saviour of the world,
and his entire system of doctrine is based upon
His Divinity. . . .
" I scarcely believe that he has any enemies ;
at all events he could not have made them by the
innocent, even sainted, tenor of his life ; and should
he have them, it would be impossible for them,
as well as for the scoffers who examine closely all
modes of life different from their own, to discover
anything in him which they could justly find fault
with, or even calumniate. . . .
" My first acquaintance with him dates from
November 4, 1768, when I happened to meet him
in the French book-shop of Mr. Francois Chan-
guion. The old gentleman speaks both French and
High-German, yet not very readily. Besides, he
is afflicted with the natural infirmity of stammer
ing; yet at one time more than at another. Our
first meeting was pleasing and sympathetic. He
permitted me to call upon him at his own house,
which I did on the following Sunday ; and I con
tinued to do so almost every Sunday, after attend
ing church in the morning. He lodged near our
old church in Kalbergasse [Amsterdam], where he
231

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
had engaged two comfortable rooms. One of my
first questions was whether he had no male attend
ant to wait upon him in his old age, and to accom
pany him on his journeys. He answered that he
needed no one to look after him, because his
angel was ever with him, and conversed and held
communication with him. If another man had
uttered these words, he would have made me
laugh ; but I never thought of laughing when this
venerable man, eighty-one years old, told me this
— he looked far too innocent ; and when he gazed
on me with his smiling blue eyes, which he always
did in conversing with me, it was as if truth itself
was speaking from them. I often noticed with
surprise how scoffers, who had made their way into
large companies where I had taken him, and whose
purpose it had been to make fun of the old gentle
man, forgot all their laughter and their intended
scoffing ; and how they stood agape and listened
to the most singular things which he, like an open-
hearted child, told about the spiritual world, with
out reserve and with full confidence. It almost
seemed as if his eyes possessed the faculty of
imposing silence on every one.
" He lived with simple burgher folks, who kept
232

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
a shop in which they sold chintz, muslin, hand
kerchiefs, and the like, and who had quite a
number of little children. I inquired of the land
lady whether the old gentleman did not require
very much attention. She answered, ' He scarcely
requires any ; the servant has nothing to do for
him except in the morning to lay the fire for him
in the fireplace. Every evening he goes to bed
at seven, and gets up in the morning at eight.
We do not trouble ourselves any more about him.
During the day he keeps up the fire himself,
and on going to bed takes great care lest the fire
should do any damage. He dresses and undresses
himself alone, and waits upon himself in every
thing ; so that we scarcely know whether there
is any one in the house or not. I should like him
to be with us during the rest of his life. My
children will miss him most ; for he never goes
out without bringing them home sweets : the little
rogues also dote on the old gentleman so much
that they prefer him to their own parents.' . .
" It soon became known in town that I asso
ciated with this remarkable man, and everybody
troubled me to give them an opportunity of mak
ing his acquaintance. I advised the people to do
233

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
as I had done, and to call upon him, because he
willingly conversed with every honest man. Mr.
Swedenborg moves in the world with great tact,
and knows how to address the high as well as the
low. . . .
"Once, at the urgent request of my friend,
Mr. Nicolam Konauw, I agreed to bring him to
dinner. The old gentleman consented and was
prepared at once to go. Mr. Konauw sent his
carriage for us. On presenting ourselves to Ma
dame, we found among other guests the two
Misses Hoog, who had been highly educated and
had been introduced, beyond the common sphere
of woman, into the higher, especially the philo
sophical sciences. Mr. Swedenborg's deportment
was exquisitely refined and gallant. When dinner
was announced, I offered my hand to the hostess,
and quickly our young man of eighty-one years
had put on his gloves and presented his hand to
Mademoiselle Hoog, in doing which he looked
uncommonly well. Whenever he was invited out,
he dressed properly and becomingly in black
velvet ; but ordinarily he wore a brown coat and
black trousers. . . .
"I shall never forget, as long as I live, the
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MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
leave which he took of me in my own house. It
seemed to me as if this truly venerable old man
was much more eloquent this last time, and spoke
differently from what I ever heard him speak
before. He admonished me to continue in good
ness and to acknowledge the Lord for my God.
' If it please God, I shall once more come to you
in Amsterdam; for I love you.' 'O my worthy
Mr. Swedenborg,' I interrupted him, ' this will
probably not take place in this world ; for I, at
least, do not attribute to myself a long life.'
'This you cannot know,' he continued, 'we are
obliged to remain as long in the world as the
Divine providence and wisdom sees fit. If any one
is conjoined with the Lord, he has a foretaste of
the eternal life in this world ; and if he has this,
he no longer cares so much about this transitory
life. Believe me, if I knew that the Lord would
call me to Himself to-morrow, I would summon
the musicians to-day, in order to be once more
really gay in this world.' In order to feel what I
felt then, you would have had to hear the old man
say this, in his second childhood. This time also
he looked so innocent and so joyful out of his
eyes as I had never seen him look before. I did
235

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
not interrupt him, and was as it were dumb with
astonishment. He then saw a Bible lying on my
desk, and while I was thus gazing quietly before
me and he could easily see the state of my mind,
he took the book and opened it at this passage —
i John v. 20, 21. 'Read these words,' he said,
and then closed the book again, 'but that you
may not forget them, I will rather put them down
for you ; ' and in saying these words he dipped the
pen in order to write the reference on the leaf
which is preserved here; his hand however
trembled, as may be seen from the figure 1 . This
I could not bear, and so I asked him in a friendly
manner to mention the passage to me. I then
put down the reference myself. As soon as I had
done so, he arose. 'The time now approaches,'
he said, ' when I must take leave of my other
friends.' He then embraced and kissed me most
heartily. " As soon as he had left, I read the passage
which he had recommended to me. It read thus :
' But we know that the Son of God has come,
and hath given us an understanding that we may
know Him that is true, and we are in Him that
is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is
236

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
the true God, and eternal life. Little children,
keep yourselves from idols. Amen.' "
In 1770 Cuno again noted in his memoirs —
" Last year I gave my readers many sheets to
read respecting my dear old Swedenborg ; but I
am by no means done yet with this singular man,
and as long as my eyes remain open, I shall not
so easily turn them away from him. I still hear
news concerning him from Sweden, nay, a short
time ago he desired to be remembered to me, and
sent me word that he hoped to embrace me this
summer. The clergy have made an assault upon
him with all their power, but they could not do
him aiyy harm, because those high in authority,
even, it is said, the King and the Queen, love
him." In his " Theory of Pneumatology " J. H. Jung-
Stilling — whose name is cited in Kurtz's " Church
History " among the five most brilliant and best
known names of the faithful sons of the Church
who withstood the rationalistic spirit of the age
— says —
" As so very much has been written both for
and against this extraordinary man, I consider it
my duty to make known the pure truth respecting
237

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
him, since I have had an opportunity of knowing
it pure and uncontaminated."
After declaring that Swedenborg was no im
postor, but a pious Christian man, and referring
to the " three proofs generally known that he
had actually intercourse with spirits," Stilling
continues —
" But I must add here a fourth experimental
proof which has not been made public before, and
which is fully as important as any of the foregoing.
I can vouch for the truth of it with the greatest
certainty. " About the year 1 770 there was a merchant
in Elberfeld with whom during seven years of my
residence there I lived in close intimacy. He was
a strict mystic in the purest sense. He spoke little,
but what he said was like golden fruit on a salver
of silver. He would not have dared for all the
world knowingly to tell a falsehood. This friend
of mine, who has long ago left this world for a
better, related to me the following story : —
" His business required him to take a journey
to Amsterdam, where Swedenborg at that time
resided ; and having heard and read much of this
singular man, he formed the intention of visiting
238

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
him and becoming better acquainted with him.
He therefore called upon him, and found a very
venerable-looking, friendly old man, who received
him politely and requested him to be seated,
whereupon the following conversation began : —
" Merchant. ' Having been called hither by
business, I could not deny myself the honor, Sir,
of paying my respects to you : your writings have
caused me to regard you as a very remarkable
man.' " Swedenborg. ' May I ask you where you are
from ? '
" M. 'I am from Elberfeld, in the Duchy of
Berg. Your writings contain so much that is
beautiful and edifying, that they have made a
deep impression on me ; but the source from which
you derive them is so extraordinary, so strange and
uncommon, that you will perhaps not take it amiss
of a sincere friend of truth if he desire incontest
able proofs that you really have intercourse with
the spiritual world.'
" 5. ' It would be very unreasonable if I took
it amiss ; but I think I have given sufficient proofs,
which cannot be contradicted.'
" M. ' Are these the well-known ones, respect-
239

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
ing the Queen, the fire in Stockholm, and the
receipt ? '
" S. ' Yes, those are they, and they are true.'
" M. ' And yet many objections are brought
against them. Might I venture to propose that
you give me a similar proof ? '
" 5. ' Why not ? Most willingly.'
" M. 'I had formerly a friend who studied Di
vinity at Duisburg, where he fell into consump
tion, of which he died. I visited this friend a short
time before his decease ; we conversed together
on an important topic : could you learn from him
what was the subject of our discourse ? '
" .S. ' We will see. What was the name of your
friend ? '
" The merchant told his name.
" 5. ' How long do you remain here? '
" M . ' About eight or ten days.'
" .S. ' Call upon me again in a few days. I will
see if I can find your friend.'
" The merchant took his leave and despatched
his business. Some days afterward he went again
to Swedenborg, full of expectation. The old gentle
man met him with a smile and said — ' I have
spoken with your friend ; the subject of your dis-
240

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
course was the restitution of all things! He then
related to the merchant with the greatest preci
sion what he and what his deceased friend had
maintained. My friend turned pale, for this proof
was powerful and invincible. He inquired further
— ' How fares it with my friend ? Is he in a state
of blessedness ? ' Swedenborg answered, ' No, he is
not in heaven yet; he is still in hades, and torments
himself continually with the idea of the restitution
of all things.' This answer caused my friend the
greatest astonishment. He exclaimed — ' My God!
what, in the other world ? ' Swedenborg replied —
' Certainly, a man takes with him his favorite incli
nation and opinions, and it is very difficult to be di
vested of them: we ought therefore to lay them
aside here.' My friend took his leave of this re
markable man perfectly convinced, and returned
back to Elberfeld. . . That Swedenborg for
many years had frequent intercourse with the in
habitants of the spiritual world, is not subject to
any doubt, but is a settled fact."
Another statement given by Jung-Stilling, as
he had it from " a certain beloved friend for many
years, who is far advanced in Christianity," is as
follows : — 241

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
" In the year 1 762, on the very day when Peter
III of Russia died, Swedenborg was present with
me [a God-fearing friend of Stilling's friend] at a
party in Amsterdam. In the middle of the con
versation his physiognomy changed, and it was
evident that his soul was no longer present in him
and that something was taking place with him.
As soon as he recovered, he was asked what had
happened. At first he would not speak out ; but
after being repeatedly urged, he said, ' Now, at
this very hour, the Emperor Peter III has died
in prison ' — explaining the nature of his death
[strangled by order of the Empress]. 'Gentlemen,
will you please make a note of this day, in order
that you may compare it with the announcement
of his death which will appear in the newspaper? '
The papers soon after announced the death of
the Emperor, which had taken place on the very
same day. . . .
" Such is the account of my friend ; if any one
doubts this statement, it is a proof that he has
no sense of what is called historical faith and its
grounds, and that he believes only what he him
self hears and sees."
And yet Jung-Stilling himself preferred attri-
242

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
buting Swedenborg's communication with the
other world to somnambulism and a state of ec
stasy in which spirits spoke through him — a no
tion not at all consistent with the fact that Swe
denborg never laid aside his own reason and the
control of his speech and acts. These illustrations
of this open communication we quote, not as proofs
to convince the incredulous — no second-hand
testimony can do that — but as a part of Swe
denborg's daily life which cannot fairly be omit
ted, and which indeed is necessary to complete
our understanding of his being present in both
worlds at once. As such they serve as con
firmation to those who recognize the spiritual
truths which this communication was given to
reveal. Of the three proofs to which Jung-Stilling re
ferred, we have already seen the story of Queen
Ulrica and her brother. The second is of the fire
in Stockholm known to Swedenborg at Gotten-
burg; and the third is of a mislaid receipt. Of
these occurrences Swedenborg himself says, in a
letter to Venator, minister of the Landgrave of
Hesse-Darmstadt —
"These must by no means be regarded as
243

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
miracles ; for they are simply testimonies that I
have been introduced by the Lord into the spir
itual world and have intercourse and converse
there with angels and spirits, in order that the
Church, which has hitherto remained in ignorance
concerning that world, may know that heaven and
hell really exist, and that man lives after death a
man as before ; and that thus no more doubts
may flow into his mind in respect to his immor
tality." The occurrence of the Stockholm fire is vari
ously related. Immanuel Kant's account, gathered
by him with great care for a correspondent, seems
most complete and trustworthy, with R. L. Tafel's
correction of the date. Says Kant —
"The following occurrence appears to me to
have the greatest weight of proof, and to place
the assertion respecting Swedenborg's extraordi
nary gift beyond all possibility of doubt : —
"In the year 1759, toward the end of July, on
Saturday at four o'clock p. m., Swedenborg ar
rived at Gottenburg from England, when Mr.
William Castel invited him to his house, together
with a party of fifteen persons. About six o'clock
Swedenborg went out, and returned to the com-
244

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
pany quite pale and alarmed. He said that a dan
gerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm,
in the Sodermalm (Gottenburg is about three
hundred miles from Stockholm), and it was
spreading very fast. He was restless and went
out often. He said that the house of one of his
friends, whom he named, was already in ashes,
and his own was in danger. At eight o'clock,
after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed,
' Thank God ! the fire is extinguished, the third
door from my house.' The news occasioned great
commotion throughout the whole city, but par
ticularly amongst the company in which he was.
It was announced to the governor the same even
ing. On Sunday morning Swedenborg was sum
moned to the governor, who questioned him
concerning the disaster. Swedenborg described
the fire precisely — how it had begun, and how it
had continued, and in what manner it had ceased.
On the same day the news spread through the
city and, as the governor had thought it worthy
of attention, the consternation was considerably
increased, because many were in trouble, on ac
count of their friends and property which might
have been involved in the disaster. On Monday
245

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
evening a messenger arrived at Gottenburg, who
was despatched by the Board of Trade during the
time of the fire. In the letters brought by him
the fire was described precisely in the manner
stated by Swedenborg. On Tuesday morning the
royal courier arrived at the governor's with the
melancholy intelligence of the fire, of the loss
which it had occasioned, and of the houses it had
damaged and ruined, not in the least differing
from that which Swedenborg had given at the
very time when it happened ; for the fire was ex
tinguished at eight o'clock."
From many different accounts of the lost re
ceipt, agreeing in substance, we select again that
of Kant, confirmed as it is in all essential particu
lars by the secretary of the legation and executor
of the estate : —
" Madame Marteville, the widow of the Dutch
Ambassador in Stockholm, some time after the
death of her husband, was called upon by Croon,
a goldsmith, to pay for a silver service which her
husband had purchased from him. The widow
was convinced that her late husband had been
much too precise and orderly not to have paid
this debt, yet she was unable to find the receipt.
246

MANNER OF LIFE IN LATER PERIOD
In her sorrow, and because the amount was con
siderable, she requested Mr. Swedenborg to call
at her house. After apologizing to him for trou
bling him, she said that if, as all people say, he
possessed the extraordinary gift of conversing
with the souls of the departed, he would perhaps
have the kindness to ask her husband how it was
about the silver service. Swedenborg did not at
all object to comply with her request. Three days
afterward the said lady had company at her house
for coffee. Swedenborg called, and in his cool
way informed her that he had conversed with
her husband. The debt had been paid seven
months before his decease, and the receipt was
in a bureau in the room up-stairs. The lady re
plied that the bureau had been quite cleared out,
and that the receipt was not found among all the
papers. Swedenborg said that her husband had
described to him how, after pulling out the left-
hand drawer, a board would appear which required
to be drawn out, when a secret compartment
would be disclosed, containing his private Dutch
correspondence, as well as the receipt. Upon
hearing this description the whole company rose
and accompanied the lady into the room up-stairs.
247

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
The bureau was opened ; they did as they were
directed ; the compartment was found, of which
no one had known before ; and to the great as
tonishment of all, the papers were discovered
there in accordance with his description."

X
LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
Another of the five faithful sons of the Church
named by Kurtz was Oetinger, called by him
"the magus of the south," "the first representa
tive of a theology of the future." It is interesting
to note that Swedenborg's relations of things heard
and seen in the other world, which Hopken would
have wished omitted, were to Oetinger the most
attractive part of his theological works, for the
reason perhaps that his spiritual interpretations of
the prophecies of Scripture were at variance with
Oetinger's conception of their literal fulfilment.
With his own works Oetinger published transla
tions of intermediate chapters in Swedenborg's
Arcana, under the following introduction : —
" I herewith present to the reader something
rare, which God has given us to know in the pres
ent times. It is profitable to compare unusual
things with those to which we are accustomed ;
but in doing so it is necessary sometimes to keep
back our judgment until we are able to take in the
249

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
whole matter. The infidelity which is rife now in
the world has induced God to make use of a cele
brated philosopher in order to communicate to us
heavenly information. Mathematics have checked
the imagination of this philosopher ; wherefore it
will not do to say that he reports mere imagina
tions. Experimental facts are not imaginations.
These experiences are due to the influx of heavenly
intelligence by the command of the Lord. Should
any one say, ' We have Moses and the Prophets,'
he may read what follows or not, just as he pleases.
Still, a person anxious to improve himself ought
not to forego any opportunity by which he may
become acquainted with new light offered to him
by truth. Swedenborg, a distinguished Assessor
of the College of Mines in Sweden, wrote a large
work in folio, which is most costly. This I call
Earthly Philosophy in contradistinction to the fol
lowing, which is of a heavenly origin, and which
he has published in thirteen works that are still
more valuable. Should you find therein proposi
tions which appear objectionable, remember the
twelve Ephesians in the Acts, xix. 21, who 'had
not so much as heard whether there be any Holy
Ghost,' and nevertheless were thought worthy at
250

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
once to receive the Holy Spirit, notwithstanding
they were ignorant of one of the chief grounds of
faith, and opposed to the Scripture. Does not
Swedenborg place the Scripture higher than any
one else ? and does he not wish to have all expe
riences judged thereby ? Is not all he says well
connected ? And does he not appeal to many wit
nesses ? "
Referring to the first volume of the same philo
sophical work, in a letter of defence addressed to
the Duke of Wurtemberg, Oetinger says, " Thirty
years previously I had studied Swedenborg's Prin
cipia Rerum Naturalium in folio, which I pre
ferred much to Wolff's philosophy, on account of
its leading to the Sacred Scripture. It is wonderful
how a philosopher, who was accustomed to think
according to rules of mechanics, should have be
come a prophet."
We have now shown the esteem for Sweden
borg of two of the men named by Kurtz as the
leading religious spirits of this period in Germany
— Jung-Stilling and Oetinger. That of a third,
Lavater, is sufficiently shown in two letters to
Swedenborg, the second and shorter of which we
here copy : — 251

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
" Most noble, venerable, and beloved in Christ
our Lord: — I have taken the liberty of writing
to you a second time, as it is likely you may not
have received my other letter, on account of your
travels ; but I have at last learned by what means
this will probably reach you.
" I revere the wonderful gifts you have re
ceived from God. I revere the wisdom which shines
forth from your writings, and therefore cannot
but seek the friendship of so great and excellent
a man now living. If what is reported be true,
God will show you how much I seek to converse
with you in the simplicity of my mind. I am a
young man, not yet thirty years old, a minister of
the Gospel; I am and shall remain employed in
the cause of Christ as long as I live. I have written
something on the happiness of the future life. O,
if I could exchange letters with you on this sub
ject, or rather converse !
" I add some writing : you shall know my soul.
" One thing I beg of you, Divinely inspired
man ! I beseech you by the Lord not to refuse me !
" In the month of March, 1 768, died Felix Hess,
my best friend, a youth of Zurich, twenty-four
years of age, an upright man, of a noble mind,
252

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
striving after a Christian spirit, but not yet clothed
with Christ. Tell me, I pray, what he is doing.
Paint to me his figure, state, etc., in such words
that I may know that God's truth is in you. . . .
" I am your brother in Christ. Answer very
soon a sincere brother ; and answer the letter I
have sent in such a manner that I may see what
I am believing on the testimony of others.
" Christ be with us, to whom we belong, living
or dead.
"John Casper Lavater,
"Minister at the Orphan Asylum.
" Zurich in Switzerland
"Sept. 24, 1769."
Matthius Claudius, a third of Kurtz's five faith
ful sons of the Church, a poet and religious writer,
had no personal acquaintance with Swedenborg,
but reflected the esteem of others.
" Now," he says, " after Swedenborg had made
himself acquainted with all the erudition of his
time, and after the greatest honors had been be
stowed upon him by individuals and whole socie
ties, he began to see spirits. . . . He was always
a virtuous man, and one who was interiorly af
fected with the beauty and majesty of the visible
253

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
world. . . . We cannot help thinking that there
are spirits, and Swedenborg often affirmed in his
lifetime with great earnestness, and even on his
death-bed . . . that he was able to see spirits, and
had seen them. Now as the new world really ex
isted long before Columbus found it out, though
we in Europe were ignorant of its existence, so
perhaps there may be a means to see spirits. . . .
In the opinion of many wise people there lies a
great deal of truth hidden perhaps close by us."
And Father Oberlin, of Ban-de-la-Roche,
fourth of Kurtz's five most brilliant and best-
known names of the faithful sons of the Church,
held in reverence everywhere for his love and
piety, was asked by an English visitor, the Rev.
J. H. Smithson, whether he had read any of the
works of Swedenborg.
"He immediately reached a book, and clap
ping his hand upon it, expressive of great satis
faction, told me that he had had this treasure a
great many years in his library, and that he knew
from his own experience that everything related
in it was true. This treasure was Swedenborg's
work on Heaven and Hell." In answer to inquiry
how he came to this conviction, " he replied that
254

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
when he first came to reside as pastor among
the inhabitants of Steinthal, they had many su
perstitious notions respecting the proximity of
the spiritual world, and of the appearance of va
rious objects and phenomena in that world which
from time to time were seen by some of the
people belonging to his flock. For instance, it
was not unusual for a person who had died to
appear to some individual in the valley. This
gift of second sight, or the opening of the spirit
ual sight, to see objects in a spiritual state of ex
istence, was however confined to a few persons,
and continued but a short period and at different
intervals of time. The report of every new oc
currence of this kind was brought to Oberlin,
who at length became so much annoyed that he
was resolved to put down this species of super
stition, as he called it, from the pulpit, and ex
erted himself for a considerable time to this end,
but with little or no desirable effect. Cases be
came more numerous, and the circumstances so
striking as even to stagger the scepticism of
Oberlin himself. About this time, being on a
visit to Strasburg, he met with the work on
Heaven and Hell, which a friend [probably Jung-
255

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Stilling] recommended him to peruse. This work,
as he informed me, gave him a full and satisfac
tory explanation of the extraordinary cases oc
curring in his valley, and which he himself was
at length, from evidences which could not be
doubted, constrained to admit. The satisfactory
solution of these extraordinary cases afforded
great pleasure to his mind, and he read the
'treasure,' as he called it, very attentively and
with increasing delight. He no longer doubted
the nearness of the spiritual world ; yea, he be
lieved that man by virtue of his better part —
his immortal mind — is already an inhabitant of
the spiritual world, in which after the death of
the material body he is to continue his existence
forever. He plainly saw, from the correspondent
relation existing between the two worlds, that
when it pleased the Lord, man might easily be
placed by opening his spiritual senses in open
communication with the world of spirits. This,
he observed, was frequently the case with the
seers mentioned in the Old Testament ; and why
might it not be so now, if the Divine providence
saw fit, in order to instruct mankind more fully
in respect to their relation to a spiritual state of
256

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
existence, and to replenish their minds with more
accurate and copious views respecting heaven,
the final home of the good, and hell, the final
abode of the wicked? . . . From seeing, as ex
plained by Swedenborg, that the Lord's kingdom
is a kingdom of uses, Oberlin resolved all the
exertions and operations of his life into one ele
ment — use. He taught his people that to be
useful, and to shun all evil as sin against the
Lord in being useful, is the truly heavenly life."
Carl Robsahm, who was intimate with Swe
denborg in his later years, left memoirs of him,
from which we take the following details : —
"Swedenborg's property [in Stockholm] was
about a stone's cast in length and in breadth.
The rooms of his dwelling-house were small and
plain ; but were comfortable for him, though
scarcely for any one else. Although he was a
learned man, no books were ever seen in his
room except his Hebrew and Greek Bible, and
his manuscript indexes to his own works, by
which, in making quotations, he was saved the
trouble of examining all that he had previously
written or printed.
" Swedenborg worked without much regard to
257

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
the distinction of day and night, having no fixed
time for labor or rest. 'When I am sleepy,' he
said, 'I go to bed.' All the attendance he re
quired from his servant, his gardener's wife, con
sisted in her making his bed and placing a large
jug of water in his anteroom, his housekeeping
being so arranged that he could make his own
coffee in his study ; and this coffee he drank in
great abundance, both day and night, and with a
great deal of sugar. When not invited out, his
dinner consisted of nothing but a roll soaked in
boiled milk ; and this was his meal always when
he dined at home. He never at that time used
wine or strong drink, nor did he eat anything in
the evening ; but in company he would eat freely,
and indulge moderately in a social glass.
" The fire in the stove of his study was never
allowed to go out, from autumn through the
whole of winter until spring ; for as he always
needed coffee, and as he always made it himself,
without milk or cream, and as he had never any
definite time for sleeping, he always required to
have a fire.
" His sleeping-room was always without fire ;
and when he lay down, according to the severity
258

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
of the winter, he covered himself with three or
four woollen blankets. But I remember one win
ter which was so cold that he was obliged to
move his bed into his study.
"As soon as he awoke, he went into his study,
where he always found glowing embers, put wood
on the burning coals and a few pieces of birch
bark — which for convenience he used to pur
chase in bundles so as to be able to make a fire
quickly — and then he sat down to write.
" In his drawing-room was the marble table
which he afterward presented to the Royal Col
lege of Mines ; this room was neat and genteel,
but plain.
" His dress in winter consisted of a fur coat of
reindeer skin, and in summer of a dressing-gown ;
both well worn, as became a philosopher's ward
robe. His wearing apparel was simple, but neat.
Yet it happened sometimes that when he prepared
to go out, and his people did not call attention to
it, something would be forgotten or neglected in
his dress; so that, for instance, he would put
one buckle of gems and another of silver in his
shoes — an instance of which absence of mind I
myself saw at my father's house, where he was
259.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
invited to dine, and the occurrence greatly amused
several young girls, who took occasion to laugh
at the old gentleman.
" It was difficult for him to talk quickly, for he
then stammered, especially when he was obliged
to talk in a foreign tongue. Of foreign languages,
in addition to the learned languages, he under
stood well French, English, Dutch, German, and
Italian ; for he had journeyed several times in
these countries. He spoke slowly, and it was
always a pleasure to be with him at table, for
whenever Swedenborg spoke, all other talk was
hushed ; and the slowness with which he spoke
had the effect of restraining the frivolous remarks
of the curious in the assembly. At first he used
to talk freely about his visions and his explana
tions of Scripture ; but when this displeased the
clergy, and they pronounced him a heretic or a
downright madman, he resolved to be more sparing
of his communications in company, or at all events
to be more on his guard, so as not to offer an op
portunity to scoffers of inveighing against what
they could not understand as well as himself.
"I once addressed the pastor of our parish, an
old and esteemed clergyman, and asked him what
260

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
I ought to think of Swedenborg's visions and of
his explanations of the Bible. This honorable man
answered me with the spirit of true tolerance :
'Let God be the judge how these things are in
reality! But I cannot pass the same -judgment
upon him that many others do ; I have spoken
with him myself, and I have found in company
where he was with me that he is a pious and
good man.'
" The chaplain of the Imperial Russian Lega
tion, Oronoskow, who was in Stockholm during
the time of the ambassador, Count Ostermann,
was a monk of the Alexander-Newsky order, and
led an orderly and pious life — quite differently
from the other Russian priests who had been here
before him. He became acquainted with me and
I lent him Swedenborg's books, which he said
he read with the greatest delight. He desired to
see Swedenborg and to talk with this remark
able man. I complied with his desire, and invited
Swedenborg and him to dinner, in company with
the late President of the Royal College of Com
merce, Mr. von Carleson, and the Councillor of
Chancery, Mr. Berch, together with several of my
relatives. During dinner the chaplain asked Swe-
261

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
denborg, among other things, whether he had seen
the Empress Elizabeth. Swedenborg answered,
' I have seen her often, and I know that she is in a
very happy state.' This answer brought tears of
joy into the chaplain's eyes, who said that she
had been good and just. ' Yes,' said Swedenborg,
' her kind feeling for her people was made known
after her death in the other life ; for there it was
shown that she never went into council without
praying to God and asking for His counsel and
assistance, in order that she might govern well her
country and her people.' This gladdened the chap
lain so much that he expressed his joyful surprise
by silence and tears. . . .
" When he [Swedenborg] left Sweden for the
last time, he came of his own accord to me at the
bank on the day he was to leave, and gave me a
protest against any condemnation of his writings
during his absence ; which protest was based on
the law of Sweden, and in which he stated that
the House of the Clergy was not the only judge
in matters of religion, inasmuch as theology be
longed also to the other Houses. On this occasion
I asked him the same question as before, namely,
whether I should ever see him again. His answer
262

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
was tender and touching : — ' Whether I shall
come again, that,' said he, ' I do not know ; but
of this I can assure you, for the Lord has promised
to me, that I shall not die until I have received
from the press this work, the Vera Christiana
Religio, which is now ready to be printed, and for
the sake of which I now undertake this journey ;
but if we do not meet again in the body, we shall
meet in the presence of the Lord, provided we
live in this world according to His will, and not
according to our own.' He then took leave of me
in as blithe and cheerful a frame of mind as if he
had been a man in his best of years ; and the same
day he departed from Sweden for the last time.
" I asked Swedenborg once whether his expla
nations would be received in Christendom. 'About
that,' said he, ' I can say nothing ; but I suppose
that in their proper time they will be received, for
otherwise the Lord would not have disclosed what
has heretofore lain concealed.'
" He was never ill, except when temptations
came over him, but he was frequently troubled
with toothache. I came to him once on such an
occasion, when he complained of a severe tooth
ache, which had continued for several days. I re-
263

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
commended a common remedy for soothing the
pain ; but he answered at once that his tooth
ache was not caused by a diseased nerve, but by
the influx of hell from hypocrites who tempted
him, and who by correspondence caused this pain
which, he said, he knew would soon cease and leave
him. " Respecting his temptations, I collected in
formation from his modest servants, the old gar
dener and his wife, who told me with sympathizing
and compassionate words that Swedenborg often
spoke aloud in his room, and was indignant when
evil spirits were with him. This they could hear
the more distinctly because their room was near
his. When he was asked why he had been so
restless during the night, he answered that per
mission had been given to evil spirits to revile
him, and that he spoke to and was indignant with
them. It often happened that he wept bitterly,
and called out with a loud voice, and prayed to
the Lord that He would not leave him in the
temptation which had come upon him. The words
which he cried out were these : ' O Lord, help
me 1 O Lord my God, do not forsake me ! ' When
it was all over, and his people asked him about
264

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
the cause of his lamentation, he said, ' God be
praised ! it is over now. You must not trouble
yourselves about me ; for whatever happens to me
is permitted by the Lord, and He does not suffer
me to be tempted more than He sees that I can
bear.' " Once it was very remarkable that after such
a lamentation he lay down and did not rise from
his bed for several days and nights. This caused
his people much uneasiness ; they talked with one
another and supposed that he had died from
some great fright. They thought of having the
door forced open, or of calling in his intimate
friends. At last the man went to the window,
and to his great joy saw that his master was still
alive, for he turned himself in bed. The next day
he rang the bell, and then the housekeeper went
in and told him of her own and her husband's
uneasiness at his condition ; whereupon he said
with a cheerful countenance that he was doing well,
and that he did not need anything. She was sat
isfied with this answer, for neither of his servants
dared to interrogate him, since they had the same
opinion of him as the old clergyman in my parish ;
and they added that such a wise and learned man
265

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
would never distress himself with work and temp
tations if he did not know whence they came."
At another time Robsahm quotes the gardener's
wife as saying —
'"I can see when he has spoken with heavenly
spirits, for his face has then an expression of
gentleness, cheerfulness, and contentment which
is charming ; but after he has conversed with evil
spirits, he looks sad.' .
" During the session of the Diet he was inter
ested in hearing news from the House of Nobles,
of which he was a member by virtue of his being
the head of the Swedenborg family. He wrote
several memorials ; but when he saw that party-
spirit and self-interest struggled for mastery, he
went rarely to the House of Nobles. In his con
versations with his friends he inveighed against
the spirit of dissension among the members of
the Diet ; and in acting with a party he was
never a party man, but loved truth and honesty
in all that he did.
" I asked Swedenborg whether in our times it
was worth while to pay attention to dreams ; upon
which he answered that the Lord no longer at
the present day makes revelations by dreams;
266

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
but that nevertheless it may happen that one who
understands correspondences may derive advan
tage from his dreams — just as a person that is
awake may examine his own state by comparing
his own will with God's commandments. . . .
" Whatever Swedenborg wrote was printed from
his own manuscript, and he never needed the
help of an amanuensis. His handwriting was dif
ficult to read when he became older ; but he said
to me, 'The Dutch printers read my handwrit
ing as easily as the English do.' There is one
thing to be observed with regard to most of his
spiritual writings, that the proof-sheets were cor
rected very badly, so that errata occur very often ;
the cause of this, he said, was that the printer
had undertaken the proof-reading, as well as the
printing. " As Swedenborg in his younger days did not
think of the work which was to occupy him in
his more advanced years, it can easily be imagined
that in his time he was not only a learned man,
but also a polished gentleman ; for a man of such
extensive learning, who by his books, his travels,
and his knowledge of languages had acquired dis
tinction both at home and abroad, could not fail
267

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
to possess the manners and everything else which
in those so-called serious or sober times caused a
man to be honored and made him agreeable in
society. He was accordingly, even in his old age,
cheerful, sprightly, and agreeable in company ; yet
at the same time his countenance presented those
uncommon features which are seen only in men
of great genius."
Robsahm's vivid picture of his friend may be
supplemented by the slighter sketches of some of
Swedenborg's visitors, with less intimate acquaint
ance. The royal librarian in Stockholm, Gjorwell,
called on him in 1764 to request for the Royal
Library a copy of the works he had lately pub
lished. His account of his visit to Swedenborg is
simple, and pleasant to read : —
"I met him in the garden adjoining his house
in the Sodermalm [southern part of Stockholm],
where he was engaged in tending his plants, at
tired in a simple garment. The house in which
he lives is of wood; it is low and looks like a
garden-house; its windows also are in the direc
tion of the garden. Without knowing me or the
nature of my errand, he said, smiling, ' Perhaps
you would like to take a walk in the garden.' I an-
268

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
swered that I wished to have the honor of calling
upon him and asking him, on behalf of the Royal
Library, for his latest works, so that we might
have a complete set, especially as we had the
former parts he had left with Wilde, the royal
secretary. 'Most willingly,' he answered; 'be
sides, I had intended to send them there, as my
purpose in publishing them has been to make
them known and to place them in the hands of
intelligent people.' I thanked him for his kind
ness, whereupon he showed them to me and took
a walk with me in the garden.
"Although he is an old man and gray hair
protruded in every direction from under his wig,
he walked briskly, was fond of talking, and spoke
with a certain cheerfulness. His countenance was
indeed thin and meagre, but cheerful and smil
ing. By and by he began of his own accord to
speak of his views ; and as it had been in reality
my second purpose to hear them with my own
ears, I listened to him with eager attention, not
challenging any of his statements, but simply
asking him questions, as if for my own enlighten
ment." The substance of his statements, and of what
269

V

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
I drew from him by polite questions, consists
mainly in what follows : —
" His doctrinal system of theology, which he
in common with other Christians bases upon our
common Revelation, the Sacred Scripture, con
sists principally in this — that faith alone is a
pernicious doctrine, and that good works are the
proper means for becoming better in time, and
for leading a blessed life in eternity. That in
order to acquire the ability or power to do good
works, prayer to the Only God is required, and
that man also must labor with himself, because
God does not use compulsion with us nor does
He work any miracles for our conversion. As
regards the rest, man must live in his appointed
place, acquiring the same learning, and leading a
life similar to that of other honest and modest
persons who live temperately and piously."
The Rev. Nicholas Collin, in 1820 rector of the
quaint old Swedish church in Philadelphia — the
same that was built in 1700 under Bishop Swed-
berg's charge — lived when a young man three
years in Stockholm, at a time when " Swedenborg
was a great object of public attention in that metro
polis, and his extraordinary character was a fre-
270

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
quent topic of discussion. Not seldom he appeared
in public and mixed in private circles ; therefore
sufficient opportunities were given to make obser
vations on him." Mr. Collin was not a follower
of Swedenborg, but obligingly gave public infor
mation about him on several occasions. Of a visit
of his own, he writes as follows : —
" In the summer of 1766 I waited on him at
his house, introducing myself, with an apology for
the freedom I took, assuring him that it was not
in the least from youthful presumption (I was then
twenty), but from a strong desire of conversing
with a character so celebrated. He received me
very kindly. It being early in the afternoon, deli
cate coffee, without eatables, was served, agreeably
to the Swedish custom : he was also, like pensive
men in general, fond of this beverage. We con
versed for nearly three hours, principally on the
nature of human souls and their states in the in
visible world, discussing the principal theories of
psychology by various authors — among them the
celebrated Dr. Wallerius, late professor of Natu
ral Theology at Upsal. He asserted positively,
as he often does in his works, that he had inter
course with spirits of deceased persons. I presumed
271

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
therefore to request of him, as a great favor, to
procure me an interview with my brother, who
had departed this life a few months before, a young
clergyman officiating in Stockholm and esteemed
for his devotion, erudition, and virtue. He an
swered that, God having for wise and good pur
poses separated the world of spirits from ours, a
communication is never granted without cogent
reasons, and asked what my motives were. I con
fessed that I had none besides gratifying brotherly
affection and an ardent wish to explore scenes
so sublime and interesting to a serious mind. He
replied that my motives were good, but not suffi
cient ; that if any important spiritual or temporal
concern of mine had been the case, he would then
have solicited permission from those angels who
regulate such matters."
In another letter Mr. Collin said —
" Swedenborg was universally esteemed for his
various erudition in mathematics, mineralogy, etc.,
and for his probity, benevolence, and general vir
tue. Being very old when I saw him, he was thin
and pale ; but he still retained traces of beauty in
his physiognomy, and a dignity in his tall and erect
stature." 272

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
And to a good friend of ours Mr. Collin said —
" Swedenborg was of a stature a little above the
common size, of very perfect form, erect and easy
in his carriage, with a placid expression of dignity
beaming from his countenance ; he was affable in
his manners, easy of access, and always ready to
converse freely on subj ects relating to either world,
but singularly unapt to obtrude his ideas on others,
either in conversation or by his writings, though
firm and unwavering with regard to the truth of
his relations. His history from very early life was
reputed to be such as evinced great purity, as well
as strength, of mental character." Speaking of
the affair of the Queen of Sweden, which her libra
rian had told him from her mouth, and of other
similar occurrences, Mr. Collin said that he be
Ueved " no one at Stockholm presumed to doubt
of his having some kind of supernatural inter
course with the spiritual world in all these cases,"
and this, he said, was not strange, " for at that
time occasional communication between this and
the invisible world was believed to exist by many
of the most learned men in Sweden."
We have seen that at his home in Stockholm
— a simple one-story house in his loved garden —
273

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Swedenborg was cared for in later life by his
gardener and wife. Of these good friends this
pleasant story is told by one who paid them a
visit after their employer's decease. As they
themselves told him —
" One day the old man and the old woman, the
modest gardener-folks [who had been disturbed
by meddling neighbors] dressed in their holiday
suits, entered Swedenborg's silent study, the room
with the brown panel-paintings, the gable windows,
and a view out on the lilac bushes.
" Swedenborg sat with his head resting upon
both hands, poring over a large book. Surprised
by the unusual noise, he raised his head and
looked toward the door. There stood the good
gardener -folks, though but the middle of the
week, both dressed in their holiday clothes, bow
ing and curtseying. On Swedenborg's grave but
cheerful countenance, there played an inquiring
smile. " ' Why dressed up so, Andersson and Marga
ret ? ' he said. ' What do you want ? '
" This was not in truth easy to say, and, instead
of an answer, Margaret began to cry, and her hus
band crushed his hat into a thousand wrinkles, and
274

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
in his heart wished himself more than a thousand
miles away.
" ' Is there any care that lies upon your hearts,
any distress which has suddenly come over you ? '
said Swedenborg — ' then speak out plainly, and,
with God's help, it will all go well again.'
" • Yes,' at last said the old gardener, ' yes, we
wish to leave the Assessor's service. "
" Swedenborg seemed surprised. ' Leave me !
and why ? ' he asked, with his penetrating, friendly
look, which pierced them to their very heart ; ' I
thought, as we were growing old together, we
should to our very end remain faithful to one an
other, and never separate in this life.'
" ' Yes, so also we thought ourselves,' burst out
the housewife, almost overcome with tears ; ' for
thirty years we have served you, and I thought it
would be God's pleasure that we should die in your
garden, and under your eyes ; but, but — '
" ' Speak out, woman ; what lies so heavily
upon your heart ? I know that both of you think
a great deal of me. Is it not so ? '
" ' Yes, before God it is so,' said both of them
together. " ' Speak out then,' said Swedenborg, with a
275

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
smile, • and then we may be able to help the mat
ter.' "The housewife, whose strong emotion gave
her courage to speak, and words to express her
thoughts, at last began : — ' Yes, people say we
ought not to serve you any longer, because you
are not a right Christian.'
" ' Nothing else, my good woman,' said Sweden
borg quietly ; ' nothing else ? Well, let the world
judge so ; but why should you think so ? '
" ' You see you never go to church ; for years
you have never been inside of St. Mary's church.'
" ' Have you never read,' replied Swedenborg
solemnly, ' that, where two or three are gathered
together in the Lord's name, there is His church
and meeting-place ? Do you believe that it is the
steeple and copper roof which makes a holy place
of it ? Do you believe that it is holy for any one
else but him who has in his heart Christ's
church? Do you believe that it is the walls,
organ, and pulpit, which constitute its holiness ? '
" ' No, no ; I know that well enough.'
" ' Well, then, here at home, in this room, in
the arbor, in the garden, wherever a man or
spirit lives within or without space and time,
276

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
wherever a prayer is either thought or read,
wherever a voice of thanksgiving is sent up to
Him who is the Giver of all good, there is His
church ; and it is consequently here where I live
sheltered from the world.'
" Both the faithful servants bowed their heads
and said — « But this is not the way of the
world.' " ' The way of the world, my friends ? ' replied
Swedenborg, ' I suppose the way of the world is
Christian, is it not ? '
" ' Yes, it is.'
" ' In name it is, but not in spirit and in truth.
Faith without works is a dead faith : a flower
which does not live is nothing but lifeless dust ;
and faith which does not live in every action of
man is a dead faith — it is no faith at all. Here,
my friends, see what this Christian world really
does. They call indeed upon Him, the only Son,
in their times of need, but they forget both His
teaching and His life. Like an obstinate child
who despises warning, they rush into all manner
of lusts, into pride and wickedness, which are
like a thin, frail covering over an abyss ; and over
this yawning abyss they scoff at their Teacher,
277

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
and act foolishly and madly until this covering
breaks. Then they call out for help, but in vain,
for they have long since forfeited it ; sometimes
they are dragged up again, but in their foolish
pride they let go the Saving Hand, they spurn
the healing repentance, and continue their course
of vain talk and idle sport. So does the Christian
world, and they think that all that is necessary
for them is to have a priest to speak to them a
few hours in the week about God and the Sav
iour ; and they do not think that any more is re
quired of them than to hear and to forget. They
therefore believe that it is outward gesture, the
singing of psalms, and the tones of the organ,
together with the empty sound of recited prayers,
which penetrate to the Lord in heaven. Truly
when the people prostrate themselves in the
churches, then it is the voice of a few only that
penetrates to the Lord.
" ' Let me tell you something. To-day there
was a little child sitting in the street, a little
blind girl, who folded her little hands upon her
lap, and turned her darkened eyes towards
heaven ; and when I saw her, and asked her,
" What makes you look so happy, although you
278

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
are blind ? " — the little girl said, " I am thinking
of God, our Father, who will some day take me
to Him, and show me all His splendor." Truly,
my good people, it was only at the corner of the
street that she sat, yet I took off my hat, and
bowed my head, for I knew that God was near,
and that this was a holy place. . . . And now,
my friends, look back upon these thirty years
during which you have followed me almost daily
with your eyes, and then judge whether it is I
or others who are Christian. Judge for your
selves — I submit myself to your judgment —
and then do what you deem to be right.'
"He beckoned with his hand and they went
away; and then quietly, as if nothing had hap
pened, he continued his reading.
"The next day they stood again, in their
week-day clothes, in the presence of their master,
who asked them with a friendly smile — ' Well,
how did the examination turn out ? '
" ? Oh, master Assessor,' said both of them, ' we
looked for a single word, for a single action, which
was not in agreement with what the Lord had com
manded us, yet we could not find a single one.'
« < Very well,' said Swedenborg ; ' but it is not
279

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
quite so ; many thoughts have been, and many
an action has been, not perfectly straight ; yet I
have tried to do as well as I could. And as a
child, who in the beginning spells out his words,
and stumbles often before he can read, provided
he goes to work lovingly and cheerfully and
strives hard to do better, is loved by his father,
so also it may have been with me ; at least I
pray and hope that it may be so. But you will
remain with me ? '
" ' Yes, master Assessor, until our death.'
" ' Thank you, my friends ; I knew it would
be so. Let people say what they please about
my teachings, but do you judge them by my life :
if they agree, then all is right ; but if there is
the least disagreement between them, then one
of the two must be wrong.'
" When the little old woman had finished her
story, which she had told after the manner of
her people, by constantly repeating 'said the
Assessor,' and ' said I,' her eyes were glistening
with emotion, and she added — ' God, indeed,
must have forsaken us when He allowed us to
go astray so far as to suspect our own Assessor
of not being a Christian.'

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
"The good old woman took us through the
garden, which was decked in its greatest autum
nal splendor, and was loaded with berries and
fruits ; and as we were walking along, with a side
glance at me, she said that the Assessor never
allowed children in his garden ; ' but sometimes,'
she added, ' he lets one or the other slip in, but
not before he has looked at him and has said —
" Let the child pass, he will not take anything
without leave," and he has never made a mistake.
This he sees from their eyes.' " *
It was in London that Swedenborg's last days
were passed, in the house of Richard Shearsmith,
a respectable wig-maker, with whom he had lived
two years during a previous stay in that city. He
liked this quiet home because he found peace
and harmony there, while, according to Mr.
Shearsmith, his lodger was "a blessing to the
house, for they had harmony and good business
while he was with them." He added that "to a
good man, like Swedenborg, every day of his
life is a Sabbath," and that " to the last day of
his life he always conducted himself in the most
rational, prudent, pious, and Christian-like man-
* Altartafian, by Dr. Wetterbergh.
281

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
ner." Being then at the close of his eighty-
fourth year, near Christmas, Swedenborg had a
paralytic stroke that deprived him of speech and
caused him to lie in a lethargic state for more
than three weeks, in which he took no other
nourishment than a little tea or cold water from
time to time. By the last of February he told
Mrs. Shearsmith what day would be his last, and
with "a sound mind, memory, and understand
ing " to his last hour, on Sunday evening,
March 29, 1772, about five o'clock, pleased to
find the hour had come, this Sunday child
thanked his friends, asked God to bless them,
and with a gentle sigh yielded his last breath.
Friendly Swedes in London took charge of the
last services, at which their pastor, Arvid Fere-
lius, officiated, and the body was deposited in the
vault of the Swedish Ulrica-Eleonora church. In
this little church which had often welcomed
Swedenborg as a worshipper, his remains reposed
until the building itself was no longer required
in its location and was to be taken down. Then
at the request of the Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences the Swedish Government, having ob
tained permission of the English Government,
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LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
in April, 1908, transported these remains in a
Swedish frigate to their native land. There by
vote of the Swedish Parliament they are to have
their final resting-place in a suitable sarcophagus
in a chapel of the cathedral at Upsal, near their
early home. The general interest exerted by this
public restoration in Europe and America, with
the gratification of the Swedish people at the
honors bestowed on their illustrious compatriot,
may be mainly due to his increasing celebrity as
a scientist and philosopher. But those who accept
Swedenborg as their Divinely appointed teacher
recognize in it an extending preparation in the
world for his acceptance in that capacity.
Do we ask for a sign of the truth of Sweden
borg's mission as the Divinely appointed inter
preter of the Holy Scriptures, and as the harbin
ger of the new age of the Lord's Church, even
that foreseen in vision by John as the Holy City
descending from God out of heaven ? The sign of
this second coming of our Lord was to be the
clear vision of the Son of Man in the clouds of
heaven — that is, in the clouds of obscurity
through which men looked toward the Sun of
283

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
heaven — clouds drawn from the ill-understood
and misinterpreted letter of the Word. The proof
of Swedenborg's mission will be found in the
fulfilment of this sign — to each one in the clearer
vision that by the interpretation of Swedenborg
he now obtains of the Lord of heaven throughout
His Holy Word. This sign no one can see for
another, but every one must see for himself, and
in very truth only by the aid of the Holy Spirit.
But though this special enlightenment is to be
found in the interpretations of Swedenborg as no
where else, the coming of the Son of Man was
to be as the light that shineth out of the east
even unto the west. And while none but students
of Swedenborg's writings can recognize in him
the harbinger, the Christian world perceives that
new light is being diffused. The historians point
to the middle of the eighteenth century as the
date of the breaking of the light. Soon after that
date apprehension of the impending judgment
began to subside. The Church began to feel new
life. As century after century the time for judg
ment is left behind and the new life of the Church
becomes better established, more and more gen
erally will be recognized the truth of Sweden-
284

LATER PERIOD OF LIFE : CONCLUSION
borg's description of the spiritual accomplishment
of the judgment, and of its effect in dissipating
the clouds of heaven.
In deducing from the Word under guidance
of the Holy Spirit the doctrines of the New Jeru
salem, the tabernacle of God among men, Swe
denborg contemplated no new outward church
organization. He describes orderly church gov
ernment, but in no new form. His expectation
seems to have been that the light of the new
heaven, such as had been revealed to him, would
gradually permeate the whole Christian Church
and regenerate it. Such is the expectation of all
who are so happy as to be familiar with his theo
logical works. But naturally those who accept
these doctrines as Divinely revealed through
Swedenborg, unless specially attached to some
existing church, believe it most suitable and
most useful to organize together as a distinct
body. This they have done first in England, then
in America, and in smaller numbers in various
parts of the world, under the title of the New
Church, the New-Jerusalem Church, or the
Church of the New Jerusalem — known more
generally as Swedenborgians. In England the
285

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
several congregations unite in a General Confer
ence, embracing between six and seven thousand
members. In America the principal larger or
ganization is called the General Convention, of
nearly the same membership.
Little effort is made by these several bodies
to increase their numbers, none to induce any to
leave the churches to which they belong. But
efforts are continually made to keep the theo
logical works of Swedenborg in abundant supply
and within the reach of all who care to learn
from him the True Christian Religion, as set
forth in his last great work, under that title.

INDEX

INDEX

Figures refer to pages.

Abbey and Overton, quoted,
'S-
Adam and Eve, the Most An
cient Church, 5, 6.
Anatomy, studies in, 92.
Atheism in 18th century, 14.
Baglivius, referred to, 66.
Barnard, Sir John, quoted, 15.
Behm, Sara, 25.
Belgium, visited, 76.
Bengel, quoted, 14.
Benzelius, Ericus, Archbishop,
26, 48, 56-73, 92.
Benzelius, Ericus, the younger,
38, 45, 58, 63.
Bishops, friendly and other
wise, 218, 228, 237.
Brain, study of, 113, 125-128.
Brunswick, Duke of, 76.
Canaan, perhaps home of Most
Ancient Church, 8.
Canal, between North and
Baltic seas, 58, 61, 62.
Candlesticks, representation
of, 192.
Carlyle, quoted, 16.
C ensor of books, 67.
Change of heart, necessary, 24.
Charity, come again, 20.
Charles XI, friendly to Swed
berg, 24.
Charles XII, appointed Swed
berg bishop, 25 ; returned to
Sweden and employed Pol
heimer and Swedenborg, 51 ;
appointed Swedenborg As

sessor, 51, 54 ; interested in
Daedalus, 57, 62 ; in salt
works, 57 ; in canal, 58, 61.
Christianity, regarded as mere
prejudice of infant race, 16.
Church, Most Ancient, repre
sented by Adam, 6. An
cient, 6-8. Hebrew, 9, 10.
Christian, new age, 1, 283-
285 ; error of first age, 1 2-
18. Reformed, error, 13, 14.
New, of whom formed, 195 ;
when to come, 227, 228, 285 ;
organization, 285, 286.
City of God, the end of crea
tion, 115, 116, 123, 131,132.
Claudius, Matthius, quoted,
253. 254-
Coleridge, quoted, 117.
College of Mines, Swedenborg
appointed to, 51, 52; com
position, 55; records, 55;
duties, 56, 90.
Collin, quoted, 270-273.
Consummation of the Age,
chapter 1.
Creation, its order that of spir
itual development, 5.
Creator, highest conception of,
2 ; man in His image, 2 ;
knowledge of is supreme end
in view, 29, 70, 93, 94-105,
122, 131.
Cuno, quoted, 230-237.

Daedalus, 46, 50-53, 56-62, 65.
Deism, in 18th century, 14.
Descartes, 60, 61.

289

INDEX

Diet, Swedish, 68, 79-84, 211-
217, 266.
Disciples, of the Lord, looked
for reward, 12.
Doctrine, to be drawn from
the Scriptures, 142.
Dorner, quoted, 15.
Dreams, no revelation by, 266.
Dumas, quoted, 79.
Elfvius, Professor, 43, 50.
Elizabeth, Empress of Russia,
262.
Emerentia Polhem, 63, 64.
England, visited, 31, 162.
Enlightenment, from love of
truth for truth's sake, 141-
143-
Esberg, nephew of Benzelius,
62.
Faith, above all demonstration
and most happy, 119, 158-
161 ; faith alone, doctrine of,
195-199; this doctrine per
nicious, 270 ; of new heaven
and new church, 204.
Fire, in Stockholm, 244-246.
Fires of hell, remorses of con
science? 70.
France, condition in 18th cen
tury, 16; visited, 38, 92.
Frederic, King, 91.
Garden, Swedenborg's, 210,
217, 281.
Gardener and wife, 274-281.
Genesis, spiritual content of
first chapter, 4.
Gentiles, receive the light, 10,
11.
Germany, condition of in 18th
century, 16; visited, 76.
Gjorwell, quoted, 268. 2

Gospel, first accepted through
hope or fear, 12; preached
anew in world of spirits,
200.
Halley, consulted, 35, 36.
Heaven, speculations about,
132-134; the new, of whom
formed, 193, 194, 201.
Hebrew, nation and language
prophetic, 9; maternal ser
vice for Christianity, 10.
Holland, visited, 38, 76.
Holy Spirit, the second com
ing with, 1, 191; experience
with, 145-147, 169.
Holy Supper, attendance at,
147, 163.
Hopken, favored by Sweden
borg, 215; quoted, 219-224.
Infinite, The, argument for,
95-io5-
Isaksson, Daniel, 23.
Italy, visited, 93.
John, representing the love of
the Church, 19, 191; his vi
sion, 20, 192.
Judgment, of the Christian
Church, 17-20; in the world
of spirits, 21, 193; Sweden
borg's part in, 200 ; effect
of, 200.
Jung-Stilling, quoted, 237-243.
Kant, his results, 93, 94 ; quot
ed, 244-248.
Lavater, quoted, 251, 252.
Lecker, Archbishop, quoted,
16.
Leibnitz, quoted, 15.
Lewis, publisher, quoted, 209.
90

INDEX

Lord Jesus Christ, predic
tions of second coming, i,
20; in Him first seen man
in image of God, ii; first
did the will of the Father
on earth, 1 1 ; seen by dis
ciples in glory, 18 ; His com
ing needed for conjunction
of man with God, 100-105;
and for the Head of human
society, 133, 134; how He
now shows Himself, 171,
186; His first coming the
beginning of permanent
dwelling with men, 189; dis
tinction between the human
and the Divine in Him, 206-
208.
Luther, revolt against the Ro
man church, 13 ; his error,
13. 14-
Man, primeval, little known, 5.
Metals, study of, 73, 74, 79,
89 ; recommendations to
Diet about, 83, 84.
Muses, referred to, 50.
Nathorst, Professor, quoted,
68.
Newburger, quoted, 128.
Nexus, need of, the Son of
God, 100-105.
Oberlin, Father, quoted, 254-
257-
Oetinger, letter to, 141 ; quoted,
249-251.
Peter, representing the faith
of the Church, 19.
Philosophy, elemental, 60, 61,
66, 77-79, 86-88, 90 ; spirit
ual, 95-105. *9

Pierce, Professor, quoted, 135.
Polheimer, 44, 49, 51, 54, 56.
Proofs, printer's, not well cor
rected, 267.
Purpose, the Divine, mirrored
in the universe, 2 ; revealed
in Scripture, 3; is man in
the image of his Creator, 5.
Reason, relation to Revelation,
105 ; use and enjoyment of
the faculty, 108-112, 121;
impaired by self-love, no-
112, 120.
Receipt, lost and found, 246-
248.
Regeneration, nature of, 137—
175; need of the world to
learn, 150; deep, of Sweden
borg, 173-175.
Representations, and corre
spondences, 124, 125.
Retzius, quoted, 129.
Roberg, Dr., 53, 61.
Robsahm, quoted, 170-172,
257-268. t
Rules of life, 137, 138.
Russia, war with opposed by
Swedenborg, 211.
Russians, approach of, 45.
Sacred Scripture, reveals the
Divine will in man's thought
and speech, 3,22; a ladder
of ascent into the Divine
presence, 3 ; inwardly full of
Divine wisdom, 3, 22 ; to be
interpreted rationally by aid
of the Holy Spirit, 22 ; phi
losophy can never be con
trary to, 95 ; the only resort
when reason fails, 105 ; be
lief in most happy, 1 19 ; un
sealing of, 175-188, 192;

INDEX

everything in it has refer
ence to the Lord, 178, 179;
became flesh, 190 ; light now
seen therein, 284.
Saint Paul's church finished,
32-
Salt works, 57.
Sandel's eulogy, 64.
Schlegel, quoted, 8, 9.
Series and Degrees, 113, 115.
Shearsmith, Richard, Sweden
borg's stay in his family,
281, 282.
Ships, carried overland, 64.
Son of Man, sign of, 18, 106,
283, 284.
Spirits, presence perceived first
without sight, 144 ; first
spoken with, 170.
Springer, quoted, 226.
Spurgin, quoted, 1 1 7.
Stiernhjelm, referred to, 50.
Sun of Heaven, darkened, 14,
1 7 ; Divine presence in, 70 ;
God the Sun of wisdom,
120; dependence on its light,
1 37 ; the Divine face to be
seen in, 152.
Sunday child, Jesper Swedberg
and family, 27.
Swedberg, Anna, 26, 31, 32,
44- 53-
Swedberg, Hedwig, 38.
Swedberg, Jesper, 23-26; at
Upsal, 24, 25; Brunsbo, 25;
revised Swedish Bible, 24;
age, preaching, marriage, 25 ;
family ennobled, 27, 68; au
thor and in charge of mis
sions, 27, 28 ; sense of heav
enly protection, 28, 29 ;
death, 91.
Swedenborg, Emanuel, pa
rentage, 23; childhood, 24

29 ; birth and name, 26 ; edu
cation, 30 ; plans of life, 30
et seq. ; learns book-binding
and music, 31 ; travels, 31,
75. 76, 85, 90, 92, 93, 209,
210, 228; studies Newton,
31, 32 ; visits Flamsteed, 32 ;
love for his family and
home, 32 ; immoderate de
sire for study, 33 ; learns
trades, 33,40; maies globes,
33, 34 ; his method for de
termining longitude, 34-36,
48, 49, 77; new methods in
astronomy, 34 ; study of
English poets, 35, 43, 44;
lacks money abroad, 35 ; con
sults Halley, 35 ; study and
practice of poetry, 36, 220 ;
mathematical ambition, 36,
38, 40 , goes to France, 37,
92 ; describes microscope
and clock, 37, 38 ; visits dis
tinguished men, 39; inven
tions, 41-43, 46, 47 ; interest
in Polheimer's, 44, 49; wants
to form a Society for Learn
ing and Science, 44 ; seeks
employment from Govern
ment, 46; writes letters in
French, 48 ; appointed As
sessor, 5 1-54, 75, 85 ; assists
Polheimer, 54, 56 ; declines
professorship of astronomy,
59 ; early essays, 59, 60, 65 ;
tires of working for nothing,
70-72; plans in 1718, 71-
73; betrothed to daughter
of Polheimer, 63, 64 ; trans-
portsships overland, 64, 220 ,
writes on tremulations, 66 ;
agrees with Baglivius, 66;
geological studies, 67 ; first
signature as " Swedenborg,"

292

INDEX

67, 68 ; seat in Diet, 68 ;
studies in metallurgy, 73, 74,
79, 88, 89 ; salary as Assessor,
75, 85, 91 ; favored by Duke
of Brunswick, 76 ; addresses
to the Diet, 79-84, 211-217,
266 ; magnetic theory, 90 ;
attendance at College of
Mines, 55, 56, 79, 85, 90-92 ;
studies anatomy, 92 ; uses
experiments of others in
preference to his own, 107,
108; discoveries, 128-130;
faculty of reflection, 108;
rules of life, 138 ; spiritual
experience, 137-175; knew
only later what he was being
prepared for, 140, 141, 160,
162, 172; enlightened by
love of truth for truth's sake,
143 ; instructed by dreams,
143—166; perceives presence
of spirits but without seeing
them, 144; temptations, 146
-166,264,265 ; learned to be
led not by spirits or angels,
but by the Lord alone, 149,
187 ; was a mild Lutheran,
150 , found himself most un
worthy, 152, 163 ; new motto
— I am Thine and not mine,
157; fainting fit, 167; ap
peared to write a fine hand,
167 ; habit of abstraction,
168 , tacit respiration, 168 ;
knew nothing at first of spir
its, 168, 169; learned about
different kinds, 169; first
spoke with them, 170 ;
warned against over-eating,
171; told what his work was
to be, 172; deep regenera
tion, 1 73 ; full preparation I
for his work, 175, 186; in |
=93

open company with spirits
and angels many years, 180;
suffering from spirits, 196;
first affixes his name to theo
logical works, 203 ; manner
of later life, 209-248 ; food,
227, 258 ; gave receipts from
Arcana to propagation of
the Gospel, 210; opposed
war with Russia, making of
whiskey, and Bank loans on
other than real estate, 2 n ;
defended the Government,
212-214 ; favored alliance
with France, 215; was of
the constitutional party, 2 1 5
-217; fond of his garden
and of children, 217, 223;
on friendly terms with royal
family, bishops, and all men
of standing, 218 ; authority
on finance, 220 ; predicts his
arrival, 228 ; knew Spring
er's secret affairs, 229 ; so
ciety manners, 234, 267 ;
learns subject of talk with
deceased friend, 240 ; learns
death of Emperor Peter, 1 1 1 ,
242 ; tells of fire in Stock
holm, 244-246 ; where to
find lost receipt, 246-248 ;
understood French, English,
Dutch, German, and Ital
ian, 260 ; protested against
judgment of his books by
House of the clergy ; hand
writing, 267 ; declined to ob
tain interview without suffi
cient reason, 272 ; appear
ance, 272, 273; his commu
nication with other world
easily believed at Stock
holm, 273 ; talk with gar
dener and wife, 274-280 ;

INDEX

tells of little blind girl, 278,
279; predicts time of death
as it proved, 282 ; burial,
recent removal of remains,
282, 283.
Trinity, error concerning, 14.
Tuxen, quoted, 219.
Ulrica Eleonora, 68.
Ulrica, Queen Louisa, 224-
226.
Wilkinson, J. J. G, quoted,
77-
Wolf, Christopher, letter from,
92.
Works of Swedenborg,
Scientific : — Principles of
Chemistry, 77 ; Miscellane
ous Observations, 77; Philo
sophical and Mineral Works,
85-90,94,251; Economy of
the Animal Kingdom, 93,

106-118; Infinite and Final
Cause of Creation, 95 ; Ra
tional Psychology, 113, 130:
Animal Kingdom, 1 18-132,
162, 163, 167 ; Worship and
Love of God, 166, 172.
Theological : — Heavenly
Arcana, 177-188, 209, 210 ,¦
Spiritual Diary, met seq.;
Apocalypse Explained, 193-
208; Final Judgment, 194,
202 ; Heaven and Hell, 194 ;
Earths in the Universe, 194 ;
The New Jerusalem and its
Heavenly Doctrine, 194 ;
Apocalypse Revealed, 194,
202 ; Doctrines of the Lord,
Sacred Scripture, Life, and
Faith, 202 ; Divine Love
and Wisdom, Divine Provi
dence, Marriage Love, 202 ;
Summary Exposition, 203 ;
True Christian Religion,
203, 263.