ll-IILl I IT I II ^¦WlllllHl, M Jl" ¦ ¦¦ -- ^¦«- rt^ *¦«¦ if' If (" ¦. ' • " rt "' ' ' ¦ ^i.%: i' I 1 I ' / I. • >-. I,' r '* - F- 1 .-r 4 4- 'I- ^,r-^' CHEISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY: THE SOUL AND THE BODY IN THEIR CORRELATION AND CONTRAST. BEINQ A NEW TEANSLATION OP SWEDENBORG'S TRACTATE DE COMMERCIO ANIM^ ET CORPORIS, &c., LONDINI, 1769. WITH preface anii Elltistratibe Notfs. T. M. GOEMAN, M.A., HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD ; SOME TIME OUBATB OF 3T. MARY ABMOTTS, KENSINGTON. Et formavit Jehovah Deus hommem, pulverem ex humo, et inspiravit in nares ejus Spiraculum vitarum, et factus homo in animam viventem, ffen. ii. 7. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, READER AND DYER, PATEENOSTEE EOW. 1875. LONDON : BRADBURV, AOKEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIAR9. ti-nz32. C7 air Ollerum. NoTUM non potest intrare, ubi falsa prius ingenerata sunt, nisi haec eradicentur, quod fiet apud Clenhm, et sic apud Lai- cum. — Vera Christ. Belig. § 784. TEANSLATOE'S PEEFACE. The small work, a new version of which is here presented to the reader, may be regarded, from a general point of view, as a highly condensed, yet suffi ciently lucid, summary of the primary truths which the other voluminous writings of the author were specially designed to teach and illustrate. Its contents are, for the most part, of a strictly philosophical character, although it evidently contains several distinct indications of hav ing been written with a definite theological aim. It sets forth in plain and simple terms, and in a spirit and style of transparent sincerity and candour, a statement of the author's peculiar position and claims, both as -a philosopher and as a theologian. It was his own inti mate and sacred conviction, that he had been entrusted with a Mission, of a most extraordinaiy and unprece dented character, to the moribund Christian Church of the benighted eighteenth century. Owing to its brevity and clearness, as well as to the vast range of thought implied in a study of the high and noble subject of which it treats, the little Tractate referred to seemed, on the whole, to be well adapted to serve as a general introduction to the methodical study of TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. a body of writings in which, it is believed, will be found a complete system of reasoned and demonstrated truths, in the closely allied spheres of philosophy and theology. It may, perhaps, be said without offence, that up to the present time little if anything is accurately known, even among the more studious portion of the reading public, respecting the new and wonderful forms of truth herein brought to light. The extensive and varied results of rigidly consecutive thought, on subjects so profound and so far removed from common apprehension, cannot be expected to possess any real and living interest for that large, and, in the present day, probably increasing class of readers who 'never exercise their judgment on what comes before them, in the way of determining whether it be conclusive and holds.'* Not only in essence but even in form, the author's works are such as to repel all readers who are not sedu lously intent on attaining to clearer and higher aspects of truth. They will be found replete with analyses of transcendant sublimity, and disquisitions of exqui site subtlety and beauty, on the most exalted and sa cred of all themes of human contemplation. They treat of the being, essence, and attributes of the one supreme Author and Upholder of the universe; of man as created and made- in the image and likeness of God • * Bishop Butler, Preface to Sermons. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. of the eternal and immutable laws of the Divine economy and government from age to age ; of the inti mately conjoined and correspondent worlds of mind and matter, with their amazing variety of causes, forces, and phenomena. In breadth and depth of mental grasp, in comprehensiveness of plan, and in the consistent and continuous development of first princi ples and truths, these remarkable writings may be said to stand apart, and to be without parallel, in the his tory of human speculation. There is too much reason to apprehend, that many for whom the investigation of subjects so truly akin to the highest and noblest faculties of the mind, possesses a special and peculiar attraction, have been hitherto de terred, by the influence of prevailing misconceptions and prejudices, from forming an acquaintance at first hand with writings which will be found, on examination, to be well worthy of the most careful study, in these days of increasing scepticisms, religious indifference, and woiidliness.* * An unhappy instance of the grave injustice often inflicted upon great and good men, with what deserves to be called culpable heed lessness, by the too common practice of procuring information on certain subjects at second hand, is afforded by a recently published Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology, edited by the Eev. J. H. Blunt. The account of the 'system' of Swedenborg with which the readers of that work have been furnished, is pervaded by errors and misrepresentations so strangely absm-d, that were it not TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. To those who from mere curiosity, if from no higher and worthier motive, may wish to obtain, to a cer tain extent, trustworthy information on a subject of the very first importance in its own domain, it is hoped that the present imperfect endeavour may furnish some small amount of help. An attempt has been made to point out, in a general way, a few of the more obvious relations, and even affinities, which appear to exist between the clearly established conclusions of modern research, in various departments of human for the sacredness of the subjects involved, they could eicite no other feeling than that of ridicule. How such statements came to be made, can only be imagined, apart from the supposition of unworthy motives, by charitably believing that the writer of the article had never read a line of the author with whose ' system ' he undertook to make his readers superficially acquainted. It becomes a duty, then, to remind the reader that the misleading compilation in question, is allowed to appear in a publication (in other respects of much merit and value), the professed object of which is expressly declared in the following terms : — ' The writers of aU the Essays have endeavoured to make them suffici ently exhaustive to render it unnecessary for the majority of readers to go further for information,'' &c. And as to the principles according to which the work was to have been conducted, the Editor and his coad jutors declare that they 'have carefully avoided any party bias.' To what cause, then, is it allowable to attribute the extraordinary dis regard of accuracy evinced by this writer ? Instead of facts, easOy obtained by dhect reference to the original sources, he has preferred to give his reader a travesty of the subject in question so absurd as to excite a strong impression, that his object was to create merriment rather than afford instruction. This is certainly not the part of a sin cere and conscientious compiler, especially when the subject involved happens to be, as in the present case, of paramount importance to the interests of Eevealed Eeligion. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. inquiry, and the complete system of rational truth taught by this pre-eminently Christian philosopher. The brochure on the Comrrieree between the soul and the body, modestly styled by its author a ' brief lucubra tion,' would appear to have been intended as a reply to certain pressing inquiries made by the once celebrated Kant. The special point, on which information was so eagerly desired, had reference to a remarkable occur rence alleged to have taken place between the Queen of Sweden and Swedenborg, the reality of which, according to the united testimony of the most com petent and truthful witnesses, could not be called in question. The alleged extraordinary incident was only one of several of a similar kind which went to prove conclusively the Swedish Assessor's power of com municating with the unseen world. In the words of Kant himself, after a careful scrutiny of the facts, this evidence ' was sufficient to set the assertion respect ing Swedenborg's extraordinary gift beyond all possi bility of doubt.' The reply, if indeed it be such, here given to the inquiries of the Konigsberg metaphysician, is a plain, artless, and lucid statement of the author's views touching a problem well known to the ancients and still keenly discussed in certain modern schools of philosophy in which the serious and conscientious study of philosophical truth still finds a place. Our author. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. moreover, claims to be heard on such subjects, from a vantage-ground peculiar to himself. He brings into one view within the compass of a few quarto pages, the primary truths on which the entire question rests ; and in doing so, presents a sketch in miniature, so to say, of the chief features by which his voluminous writings are characterised. The outline is drawn with the utmost clearness and precision. It was printed for the author in London, in the year 1769, when he had attained the mature age of eighty-one. It was not published. In his last great work. The True Christian Religion (§ 608), it is referred to as a Codicillum. A translation appeared in the year 1770, from the pen of the Rev. Thomas Hartley, Rector of Winwick in Northamptonshire, who was Swedenborg's intimate and attached friend. This eminently pious and exemplary Anglican priest, in a spirit of modesty and diffidence, which those who have most deeply studied the subject will be best able to appreciate, thus refers to the little work in the preface to his own rather paraphrastical trans lation : — 'As our highly distinguished author, who is also eminent in the school of human literature, writes to men of understanding ; so his humble translator follows his steps in this address to the honourable and learned universities of this realm ; as the hand of a mean mes senger may be allowed to bear a rich present to his TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. superiors ; for by that name I must call everything that comes from our author's pen. ' And as this little lucubration, though printed, was never published, so it might never have come to their knowledge but for this translation, which I offer to the public chiefly to introduce the knowledge of his other Latin works, which, though long ago printed, remain yet as a treasure hid in a field ; but I have found it, and having enriched myself thereby, am desirous that others may partake of the benefit. And should any of the worthies in these our celebrated seminaries of learn ing and philosophy be led by this our information to dig in the same mine, and then, like scribes instructed to the kingdom of heaven, draw out of their , treasure things new and old for the benefit of their brethren, I shall rejoice to be found even as an under-servant to men of superior talents so profitably employed.' * More than a century has passed away since these simple earnest words were written. They evince a high degree of moral courage, if the time and the circum stances be duly taken into account. No response of any kind seems to have followed the warm and homely appeal of this courageous pioneer of the New Light, who thus proved himself to be far in advance of the current notions and prejudices of his age, and a faithful watchman on the walls of Zion. * A Thccsjphic Lucubration on the Nature of Influx, p. xi-iii. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. In the mean while changes, full of significance for the future, have taken place in the two great national seats of learning, in the country at large, in its habits and manners, in its very spirit and life. The entire Christian world has also silently and rapidly undergone a mighty and marvellous transformation. During the period of a single century, in the respective spheres of social, political, and religious life, all things have been made new,* in a certain very,, real sense, and to a degree never before witnessed in the history of the world. Amid the varieties and fluctuations of public opinion, which have arisen on almost every subject during the past eventful century, it was not to be expected that the voluminous pages of our author's indefatigable pen should receive much attention. They were the pro ductions of one who was looked upon by all but a very few, as the mystic ;par excellence, a dreamer, a fanatic, a madman, or an impostor. Nothing was, apparently, more likely, than their being allowed speedily to pass into utter oblivion. Far otherwise, however, has been their fortune. Possessing, as they do, an inherent intellectual and spiritual power, it was impossible wholly to suppress them. In the face of almost every kind of obstacle they have succeeded in • Ebv. xxi. 5. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. securing some share of public attention. Men of in telligence, candour, and real breadth of mind are beginning to mention them with some degree of res pect. The reckless and scornful mode of speaking both of them and their author, once in vogue, is now con fined chiefly to the ignorant, the uncharitable, or the dishonest. The tide of fanatical opposition is on the turn. The works of learned scholars, brilliant wits, famous philosophers, and popular poets of the last century, have had their full share of public esteem and applause. They seem, with a few notable exceptions, on the eve of being forgotten. Not so the vast labours of the Swedish philosopher and theologian. The true character and purpose of his mission is slowly but surely emerging into clearer light. The actual results of his gigantic researches into almost every department of human inquiry are gradually unfolding themselves, in a more distinct and intelligible form to the public eye. Veritas initio premitur, sed nunquam opprimitur.* In an age of intense mental activity, and restless in quiry, like the present, it is not a little remarkable that no serious and systematic attempt should have been made to submit the contents of the following, or any other of Swedenborg's works, to a careful and minute * Christian Wolf, Preface to Cosmologia. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. examination, or to illustrate hispeculiar and characteristic teachings, by a comparison with the speculations of the more eminent philosophers of ancient or modern times. And yet, something of this kind was manifestly needed to smooth the way of the ordinary reader, and aid him in the endeavour to form a just and adequate notion of the real meaning and value of principles and doctrines which, on first view, appear so strange and remote from ordinary modes of thought. One chief aim of the present undertaking is to show, that not a few of the highest and most clearly established results of recent scientific in vestigations, are essentially in accord with conclusions, which by a profound analysis of facts, Swedenborg had clearly established, previous to the middle of the last century ; a period in which (to use the words of Lord- Bacon) 'the inquisition by induction was wonderful hard.' The intrinsic value of the following brief essay, on the now generally discarded subject of The Commerce between the Soul and the Body, is much greater than might appear on a first hasty perusal. Brief though it be it, nevertheless, covers a wide and wonderful field of speculation. When carefully studied it will be found to evince a just and adequate estimate of the most diffi cult questions in ancient philosophy and in modern science. A clear conception of its true character and aim, therefore, cannot be attained without the aid of TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. certain prerequisite knowledges. At least a general ac quaintance is presupposed on the'part of the reader, with the best thoughts of the most eminent thinkers of past ages, as well as with the chief results reached by experi mental science during the first half of the last century. The whole subject wiU be found, after due investigation, to be raised far above the sphere of a criticism, much too common in the present day, which lacks intelligence, sagacity, and those sentiments of veneration and awe, with which every honest and sober-minded inquirer feels conscientiously bound to approach the investi gation of truth, in its more exalted and sacred forms. The problem in question is one which is beset with difficulties on all sides. It is, indeed, generally sup posed to defy solution. It is dogmatically declared to be an inscrutable mystery, both by Christians and non-Christians, who, however widely they may differ in other respects, present a remarkable unanimity in the attempt to prescribe limits to philosophical research. Both alike display an utter want of faith in 'the un tried capacities of the human mind.' Happily, however, speculations concerning the essence and quality of the human soul, and its mysteriou-s relations to a future and eternal state of being, still possess a deep and living interest for a considerable number of earnest-minded men, belonging to widely different schools of intellectual and religious thought. They continue to be investigated .with a daily increas- b TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. ing ardour. Notwithstanding several appearances to the contrary, the interest taken in researches which stand in a most intimate relation to the true welfare and highest destiny of man, as a spiritual being, keeps pace with the rapid progress of human knowledge. As the field of observation and thought widens, the desire to know becomes more eager and intense. The faculty of true philosophic insight, even in these days of in creasing devotion to the study of the physical sciences, appears to be in no danger of becoming extinct. Facts and principles within the domain of natural knowledge, which border upon the region of the supernatural proper, still possess a paramount interest for the highest order of minds. More especially is this the case, at present, in all that relates to what may be called empi rical Psychology. The last result of analysis, whether from the side of science or metaphysic, always conducts the inquirer to the confine's of that mysterious border- ground which lies between what, in strictness of speech, is to be regarded as the spiritual and the corporeal in man. As in the past, from the very dawn of philo sophy, so now, attempts of various kinds are being made to throw fight upon what has always been con sidered the darkest of enigmas. The old yet always new problem of the soul, its origin, essence, and destiny, still presents itself for investigation, but under wholly new aspects. One chief purpose, of the present work is to direct TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. attention to writings which profess to give a complete solution of the problem of the reciprocal connection existing between the soul and the body. The bare announcement of the fact will, doubtless, be sufficient to excite, in the mind of some readers, the strongest pre judices against any further consideration of the subject. In others, the mere suggestion of such a notion is likely, perhaps, to provoke ridicule and scorn. In reference to such predispositions it may be observed that they are totally opposed to a true philosophic spirit, and in compatible with a fair and honest examination of any subject. In reply to criticisms coming from such sources, it will be enough to say, in the words of one of the most cautious and rigid of reasoners,* ' it is self-evident that the objections of an incompetent judgment must be frivolous.' It would, indeed, be too much to expect that the principles which constitute the basis of the solution here offered, are likely to be understood, much less meet with acceptance, in the condensed form in which they are presented in the following exposition. At least some general acquaintance with the author's previous extensive philosophical researches, is necessary to obtain a clear notion of the real question in issue. Such knowledge, however, implies the careful examination of a mass of writings, in which the most arduous problems of science and philosophy have been subjected to an * Bishop Butler, Analogy. 62 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. analysis, to which for breadth and depth of intuition no parallel can be found in any age. These writings present in a clear light, for the first time in the history of human speculation, all the facts and principles essen tial to the construction of a Psychology, which shall be at once truly rational and pre-eminently Christian. This result, which justly deserves to be characterised as stupendous, has been accomplished, not by divination, nor by mystical contemplation, nor by an imaginary inspiration, but by the laborious process of carefully collecting the choicest experiences of sixty centuries ; by unwearied industry and intense mental labour, in co ordinating and subordinating these various experiences ; and by deducing from them first principles, according to the rules of a rigidly inductive method, in other words, by the legitimate exercise of the rational faculty.* The principles of a complete Pyschology have at length been discovered. The most shifting and shadowy of all human subjects of investigation has been brought * As an exanaple of the strange mistakes made on the above-men tioned point, even by the more enlightened and moderate of Swe denborg's critics, see Morell's Eistory of Philosophy, (vol. ii., pp. 259, 260), where the foundation of our author's philosophy and theolooy is confidently declared to be a 'direct intuition, gi-anted by special revelation.' Whereas the true state of the case is: — (1), that the philosophy in question is the reasoned result of a vast induction from known and tuiquestionable facts in the domain of experience ¦ and (2), that the theology is a complete system of Christian doctrine, con sisting of pure spiritual truths which, although supernaturally re vealed, have nevertheless been so delivered, that they can be rationally comprehended by the intellect of man, when duly enlightened by education and uultuie. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. within definite and intelligible limits. The steady and continuous pursuit of this truly noble science has thus been rendered comparatively easy, in all future time, for those who are disposed and prepared to engage in it, with an honest determination to seek for the truth, and accept it thankfully, under whatever unexpected form it may present itself The term comparatively is here used advisedly ; for, especially in the case of Psycholo gical science, does the ancient maxim hold good, xc^^^'O' TO, (caAa. It has thus come to pass, that in the very age in which a gross and reckless form of materialistic science, began to wage open war, with new and hitherto un heard of weapons, against the very existence of the supernatural, the domain of Christian philosophy was immensely widened, and its fences rendered secure against the assaults of the enemy, for all future time. After midnight, the dawn. It is now possible to demonstrate to the unsophisti cated reason, that clear and definite boundary lines between the various human sciences and cognitions, have at length been drawn, by the steady and powerful hand of the greatest master in philosophy the world has ever seen. Within the limits of these lines the rational faculty has free and boundless play. Beyond them lies the dismal and unhallowed region of mere phantasms and shadows, where the bewildered imagi nation, amid the Egyptian gloom which envelopes TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. the aimless and hopeless ' philosophy of the un known,' 'Finds no end, in wandering mazes lost.' It is unfortunate that the reputation of Swedenborg as a mystical Theologian, a dreamy ecstatic, or a mad-' man, according to the various modes of estimating his character, has almost wholly concealed his astonishing labours as a philosopher. In the following pages an attempt has been made to direct the reader's attention, in some measure, to the character and extent of these labours, and to signalize some of their principal results, more especially in i-elation to the subject of Psychology. Our author's writings exhibit throughout, to an amazing degree, that stamp of unity which is so charac teristic of truly original minds. In the hands of a candid and intelligent reader they will be found to be their own best interpreter. They everywhere exhibit one pure and exalted aim — the acquisition of genuine truth, and its diffusion among men, as beincv a most powerful means of promoting their highest happiness. As a Christian philosopher, he studied most deeply, and most thoroughly understood, the actual character of the age in which he lived. He clearly saw not only its downward tendencies, in all matters, social, civil, TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. intellectual, and religious, but he also clearly discerned, that amid its varied and complex movements, it carried within its bosom, in the course of Divine Providence, the germs of a new order of things. In one of his works, while engaged in describing an analytical method, by means of which he hoped to discover truths then deeply hidden under a veil of hypotheses ; and while rejoicing in the prospect of the rich store of experience which had been gathered together in the lapse of centuries, sufficient, as he says, ' to build a palace,' he significantly observes : — ' Nor do I think we ought to wait any longer, lest haply experimental knowledge should be overtaken by age, night, and oblivion ; and the arts and sciences be carried to the tomb ; for unless I mistake the signs of the times, the world's destinies are tending thitherwards.'* Elsewhere he remarks : — ' We have advanced so far that at the present day (1740) we have skill enough to exalt the sensations of the ear and eye far above them selves, or above their natural acumen, by artificial in struments; it now remains for us correspondingly to exalt the mind, or the rational hearing and sight. But the only way to accomplish this is by the philosophy we have pointed out. This philosophy, however, must be deduced from a perpetual intuition of causes, in causes and effects ; a work truly requiring an immense exercise of the rational faculty, and a profound abstraction from * Prologue to Animal Kingdom, § 14. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. those things that, as superinduced, affect the lower faculties.' * Again he says : — ' I do not undertake this work for the sake of honour or emolument ; both of which I shun rather than seek, because they disquiet the mind, and because I am content with my lot : but for the sake of the truth, which alone is immortal, and hcts its por tion in the most perfect order of nature ; hence, in the series only of the ends of the universe from the first to the last, which is the glory of God ; which end He promotes : thus I know Who it is that must rewai-d me.'t Passages like these, which might be quoted in abundance, show the spirit in which Swedenborg entered upon the investigation of the most arduous problems the human mind has ever attempted to solve. No radical inconsistencies have as yet been discovered in the bulky and elaborate productions of his fertile pen ; no instance of essential divergence from those few first principles with which his philosophical labours seem to have formally commenced, and which he gave to the worid, in his forty-sixth year, in a small but golden treatise, entitled Prodromus PhilosophicB ratio- cinantis de Infinito, et Causa Finali Creationis : deque Mechanismo operationis Animce et Corporis.^ * OSconomy of Animal Kingdom, Part ii. § 207. + lUd. § 218. + Dresdae et Lipsiae, sumptibns Friderici HeTcelii, Bibliopol. Eegi' MDOOXXXIV. ' ^ '¦ TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Everywhere throughout his philosophical writings, as they successively appear, there is evidence of growth and development, of progress and actual elevation of thought ; but no interruption or break in the orderly series of his rational researches has ever been proved to exist. The record of his speculations presents a close, continuous, coherent, and self-consistent evolution of philosophical principles, altogether unique in the history of human thought. How is such a phenomenon to be psychologically accounted for % There is one, and only one satisfactory theory on the subject, which any rational mind, adequately acquainted with the facts, can by possibility adopt. It is this. Our author most solemnly , avers, that from his earliest youth, (unknown to himself at the time,) his mind had been subjected to a gradual process of preparation for a sacred office to which, in the full maturity and highest vigour of his mental powers, he received a special Divine caU. If this theory be rejected, Swedenborg becomes the most inexplicable of psychological puzzles. If it be admitted, every difficulty disappears. A system of Philosophy given to the world under cir cumstances so singular, must be expected to present to the general reader numerous difficulties of no ordinary character. The above-mentioned essay on the Infinite, for example, is a unique attempt to unloose what the author aptly names the nodus Philosophioe. To the mass of readers it must appear unintelligible. The TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. momentous topics of which it treats, are presented under forms which cannot but appear strange, and even unmeaning, on a first perusal. The coldness and indifference hitherto shown to wards this and other wonderful productions of our author's pen, is thus easily explained. They are too profound in their subject-matter, they discuss ques tions too recondite, too exalted, too far removed from the sphere of ordinary investigation, to .fall in with the general taste and humour, even in its loftier and more contemplative moods. It is by the disclosure of such new and unusual forms of thought on subjects of the deepest interest, and yet confessedly amongst the most obscure, that the genuine philosophic spirit is put upon its trial. Whatever is far removed from common modes of conception, however true it may be in itself, usually excites doubt and perplexity, if not open hostility, in the minds of those who are wholly possessed by their own pre-conceived notions. They instinctively resist any violence done to their fa vourite and long-cherished convictions. New forms of truth demand not only close and continuous ' review and attention,' but also unusual freedom from pre judice, and, above all things, a transparent candour. Conditions so essential to the fair and honest exami nation of any new and difficult subject, are found in combination only in a comparatively small number of minds. To require from the great majority of readers TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. the cultivation and employment of these purer and higher forms of mental activity, would be, in the homely and expressive language of Bishop Butler, ' to put them quite out of their way.' Nearly a century has elapsed since Swedenborg passed into the eternal world. During this period the indifference or hostility at first shown towards his name and writings have been slowly but surely giving place to intelligent curiosity, and a certain qualified respect and admiration.* Much, however, remains to be done in this direction, A dense mass of unreasoning prejudice must be removed, before anything like an adequate and just estimate of the man and bis mission can find its way into otherwise intelligent and cultivated minds. That his vast intellectual efforts have received scanty consideration at the hands of the phi losophers — especially those of the extreme naturalistic type — is disappointing, though not surprising. But it * The gradual but mauifest change, on this subject, which has taken place of late years among the representatives of the more enlight ened public opinion, recalls the following remark of an eloquent and sagacious philosophical critic: — 'When an inveterate prejudice is destroyed by extii'pating the casual associations on which it was grafted, how powerful is the new impulse given to the intellectual faculties of man ! Yet how slow and silent the process by which the effect is accomplished ! Were it not for a certain class of authors, who, from time to time, heave the log into the deep, we should hardly believe that the reason of the species is progressive.' — Duuald Stbwakt, Preface to Prelim. Dissert, to Encyc. Brit. p. 11. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. is painful to be obliged to confess that his most bitter and unscrupulous enemies have ever been the parti sans of the various theological schools. An impartial examination of the more or less un friendly reviews and notices of our author that have appeared during the last ten years (to go no farther back) would reveal an amount and variety of error, misrepresentation, and even wilful perversion of the plainest facts, that could not fail to excite feelings of astonishment and indignation in any fair and honest mind. The attitude assumed by such of the clergy as have thought the name or writings of Swedenborg worth their notice, does no credit, to say the least, either to their sense of justice or to their philosophic insight. Their reckless hostility serves to show, in a striking manner, to what an extent men of great na tural parts and varied learning, can sometimes allow their better judgment to be warped by the subtle power of prejudice. A few examples will suffice to place this point in a clear light. Some years ago a 'voice'* emanated from the Vicar of Frome-Selwood on what he denominates ? The. Church's Broken Unity. On Methodism and the Sweden- borgians, (London, Hayes.) The errors and misrepresentations of fact contained in the part treating of ' Swedenborgianism ' have been ably and thorougUy exposed in a small work zrAit\&di Swedenborg' s Writings and Catholic Teaching, by the Eev. Augustus CUssold, M.A. (Second Ed. Longmans.) TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. ' Swedenborgianism.' With the latter, whatever it may mean, these pages are in no way concerned. Their specific purpose is to place before their readers Swedenborg himself; and, as far as possible, to make him his own expositor. It is but the merest justice, however, to remark here, that, with respect to the principles of Church Order, Polity, and Unity, the deepest wrong is done to Swedenborg by confounding him, as is almost universally done, with the small sect founded in the year 1787, under most unhappy aus pices, by a certain Robert Hindmarsh, of Clerkenwell Close, Printer-Extraordinary to the then Prince of Wales, a layman, and formerly a member of Mr. Wesley's Communion.* As to the Vicar of Frome's diatribe, it may suffice to observe that it labours under one radical defect. It displays, throughout, an entire want of acquaintance with what Swedenborg has actually taught. The original sources do not seem in any case to have been * In its origin and progress, this small sect presents several features without a parallel in the curious annals of Nonconformist eccentricity and wilful waywardness. In reality, it is one of the most cruel of calumnies to identify the reverent, conservative, and truly Catholic Churchmanship of Swedenborg, with a movement marked throughout by proceedings so utterly at variance with the laws and life of that Holy City, whose light is the Lamb (Eev. xxi. 23.) It is fortunate that the founder of the new community can be judged with complete impartiality 'out of his own mouth.' See Hindmarsh's History of the Rise and Progress of what he falsely and arrogantly styles "The New Jeru salem Church.' (London, 1861.) See, also, A Eemembrancer and Be- cOrder, dbc. By Thomas Eobinson (Manchester, 1864;. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. consulted. Thus the process of proof against Sweden borg's 'orthodoxy' is pervaded by a fatal flaw — the fallacy known as Mutatio Elenchi. The real point in question is altogether ignored, namely, the actual teachings of Swedenborg, whether right or wrong. For these, the strange and absurd misconceptions of the Vicar of Frome have been substituted. Thus his readers are made the dupes of his fallacies. The ' voice,' therefore, in the present case, is a ' cry ' without meaning.* It is a false alarm. A careful and more conscientious re-consideration of the whole ques tion, will doubtless convince him that he has been more frightened than hurt, by the apparition of the New Theology, the true character and purport of which he has entirely failed to comprehend. It is but just to observe, however, that the Essay in question is only to a slight extent disfigured by the coarse and offensive common-places, so frequently to be foimd in religious polemics. It also stands in marked contrast to most of * It may be a relief, and prove as 'the entrance of light' into the Vicar's mind, to state the fact that in no place has Swedenborg con cluded that 'the first eleven chapters of Genesis are nothing but an allegory.' (GhurcKs Broken Unity, ji^. 212, 21!,^.) This may be the language of untrained and unauthorised 'Swedenborgian' expositors, but it is not that of the Swedish theologian. Nowhere has he so much as hinted a doubt respecting the ti-ue historical basis underlying these Divinely inspired and accurately preserved Records of the primaeval Church ; but he proves, incontestably, from the text itself that this portion of the Holy Word is written in a style pecuUar to the most ancient inhabitants of this earth. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xxxi the hostile notices of Swedenborg that have hitherto- appeared, inasmuch as it handles a solemn and sacred subject, in that spirit of kindly courtesy, gravity, sin cerity, and reverence, which are imperatively required at the hands of a Christian critic. Owing to several causes, which cannot here be speci fically characterized, a total misapprehension prevails, even amongst the more thoughtful and educated clergy, on the subject of the New Dispensation, of which Swedenborg claims to be the Divinely prepared and commissioned herald. In his theological writings, the terms Bew Church and Old Church are of constant occurrence. Chiefly owing to their novelty and deep spiritual significance, they have been ignorantly, and in some cases perversely, wrested from the meaning they were originally intended to convey. Nothing can be more certain than the fact, that as used by Sweden borg, they invariably mean, respectively, a new state and an old state* of Church principles and life in Churchmen. They expressly refer to a new or renewed state of Church doctrine and life in all ' who profess and call themselves Christians ; ' a state to be brought about, gradually, and in a peaceful and orderly course and manner, through the medium of the Ministri docentes, that is, the Clergy duly appointed, under * On the theological use of the term, state of the Church, see Theophilus Anglicanus, p. 257. (Ninth Ed.) TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. pubHc and lawful authority, by Episcopal consecration, to their Sacred Office. This, and no other, is the position expressly taken by Swedenborg as a Church man, throughout his entire theological works. Not a single passage can be found in his voluminous pages, in which the remotest allusion is made to the duty or necessity of separating from the external Communion of the Church, unless by ignorantly or dishonestly distorting the meaning of his words to a sense he manifestly never intended. On the contrary he repeatedly teaches, in plain and most carefully chosen language, that the principle of separation, on merely doctrinal grounds, involves the fundamental heresy and falsity, that truth is the essential principle of the Church.* Whereas he demonstrates that good- 'ness is the essential principle of the Church, f He elsewhere expressly denies that matters of doctrine constitute the Church, and as expressly asserts that the sole ground of Church life and membership is love and charity. | But, to place this point beyond the possibility of doubt or cavil in any unprejudiced mind, Swedenborg has .defined, with the utmost distinctness, what that New Chuech really is, the commencement of which it was part of his sacred mission to announce to the Church * See Arcana Coelestia, § 4925. + See Ibid. % 5536. J Ibid. S 809. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. of his own day. ' What,' he exclaims, ' is a Church without faith ; and what is faith without charity : and so, what is the Church without the marriage of faith and charity. This marriage is the very Church itself It is also the New Church which is now [anno 1769) being raised up by the Lord. * It is in this sense, and no other, that the New Jerusalon is the Lord's Kingdom in heaven and on earth, -f It is to be noted, however, that the question of the lawfulness or expediency of originating a fresh schism in the Church, is not here under discussion, as being altogether irrelevant to the special subject of these pages. The purpose of the foregoing remarks is to forewarn the general reader that the notion of a separate sect finds no favour, much less sanction, in Swedenborg's theological writings. To employ them as a pretext for such a pro ceeding is to gravely misrepresent them. Like all enlightened Church Reformers, Swedenborg has evinced his moderation and practical wisdom in his desire ' to see a Reformation of the Church within the Church, and proceeding from the Church,' | and a consequent realization, in the future, of 'that renewed state of the Christian Church which all prophecy leads us to look forward to.' § The true character and quality of this * Summaria Expositio, § 68. t Arcana Coelestia, § 935, 1066, 2853. t Bishop of Lincoln, in Preface to the Eev. A. E. Pennington's Life of Erasmus, p. vii. § The Prophetical Character and Inspiration of the Apocalypse con- TRANSLATORS PREFACE. state, it was one of Swedenborg's special functions, to reveal to the Church, for the first time, in clear rational light. The following observations of the Archbishop of Canterbury, indicating the duties devolving on the Anglican Clergy in the present day, may seiwe to illustrate the point under consideration. They are in essential accord with the teachings of Swedenborg, although the coincidence of view is, of course, unde signed. His Grace is reported to have said, that ' What they (the Clergy) had to do was to make inroads against ungodliness. He felt confident that they had no reason to be afraid of the influence of the Old Church to which they belonged. . . . Whenever he was present at any great gathering he saw new schools rising in all directions in connection with it ; he saw old churches, one after another, being restored; and he felt convinced that these signs of a material revival were but the outward signs of a spiritual revival, and an increased energy and zeal among both the Clergy and laity of the Church of England,' * These words of hope and encouragement convey a fairly accurate general notion of the true sense in which Swedenborg uses the terms old state of the Church and neiu state of the Church, in other words, Old Church and New Church. .sidered. By G. Pearson, b.d. Quoted in the Eev. A. Clissold's Allmnadus, Sabellius, and Swedenborg, p. 178. * The Times, Dec. 19th, 1S73. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. In connexion with the injurious misconception of Swedenborg's teaching on a point of the greatest im portance, above referred to, it becomes necessary, in the interests of truth, justice, and even our common humanity, to direct attention to the merciless calumnies in which certain hostile critics of Swedenborg have allowed themselves to indulge. The unwary reader needs to be put upon his guard against placing the least reliance on these scandalous and malicious productions. They abound in the most reckless mis statements of fact, and the most cruel aspersions against the intellectual and even the moral character of a man distinguished, throughout a long life, for public probity and the faithful discharge of duty, in positions of the highest honour and trust ; and beloved by his countrymen of all ranks for his honesty, sincerity, piety, and spotless purity of life. It is not easy to characterise, in measured language, the iniquitous attempts that have been made, from time to time, in certain reviews, to defame and blacken the re putation and name of one who, in consequence of the vast and varied services he has actually rendered. to the cause of intellectual and spiritual truth, is justly entitled to the highest regard and honour of all honest men. Certain misguided persons have had recourse to the meanest and most malignant subterfuges, in the vain TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. endeavour to fasten upon the object of their contempt or- hatred, the offensive and slanderous epithets of visionary, enthusiast, madman, heretic, spiritist, and even impostor. So true is it that Be thou as pure as ice and as chaste as snow. Thou shalt not escape calumny. Among those who have most shamefully distinguished themselves, in these most unchristian and unmanly attempts, may be mentioned Dr. Maudesley and Dr. (now Cardinal) Manning. Among the calumniators of Swedenborg, these two persons may be regarded as fitly representing the ' schools of thought ' to which they respectively belong. Dr. Maudesley ranks among the most daringly un scrupulous and pertinacious of those who, blinded b}' self-conceit and regardless of facts, have most grossly and maliciously slandered the great name of Sweden borg. To those who possess any real acquaintance with the subject, his ' criticisms ' present a tissue of foul misrepresentations, arising in part from his having, in his eagerness to speak evil of one whose teachings he did not Hke, allowed himself to become the dupe of a wicked forgery, the so-called 'Book of Dreams,' fraudulently attributed to Swedenborg. * * The full title of this bestial fabrication is Swedenborg's DrSmmar, 1744, jemte andra ham antecknigar. Efter original-handskrifter medellade- o/G. E. Klemming, Stockholm, 1859. Among those who were soonest and most easily befooled by this gross and palpable ft-aud TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. This fiippant, and (regarded from a strictly Christian point of view) sometimes profane writer has, in the present instance, perpetrated a most discreditable blunder. His easy credulity, when he wished to be lieve, has become the occasion of furnishing a most instructive example of the folly of trusting too imphcitly the opinions of ' Experts.' Did not the common sense of mankind act, generally, as a countercheck to such hap-hazard modes of judging in grave and difficult cases, the class to which Dr. Maudesley belongs, would soon become a dangerous and intolerable social nuisance. So much, then, for the hallucinations respecting Swedenborg, of which certain apostles of mere Natu ralism, and ' Specialists ' in matters of Lunacy, are the unhappy victims. A few words must suffice to show how intimately allied in spirit and purpose, it is possible for two libellers of an illustrious Christian philosopher to be, who, in other respects, stand before the world so far apart. ' was the author of a so-called ' Life of Swedenborg,' which in common justice must be pronounced to be a farrago of egregious folly and vanity, literary blunders, garbled quotations, and coarse calumnies, 'deserving of the hearty execration of all who cherish the least regard for common honesty and candour, in literary matters. This is obviously not the place to expose in detail the stupid and disgusting exhibition of ignorant and malignant mendacity in question. It will suffice to have thus called attention to the subject, apparently for the first time ; and to have indicated to the reader the true character of the so-called ' Dream-book.' TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Dr. (now Cardinal) Manning, by the violence and malignity of the language he has deliberately em ployed, has made himself a fitting representative of Swedenborg's most bitter and unscrupulous enemies, among religious zealots. This astute and ardent champion of the most recent of the many modern evolutions of Papal fanaticism, and who so lately To his own new deity sacrificed And was himself the victim and the priest, has had the hardihood to write thus concerning one of the most gifted of human beings : — ' There have been claimants to supernatural power, who have appealed to their miracles in proof of their mission, and who have taught otherwise than the Church. They are impostors ; and their wonderful works are either mere deceptions, or they are done through the co-operation of the enemy of God and of the human race. These remarks apply to such pretenders to Divine communications as Montanus, Mahomet, Swedenborg, the Jansenists, and modern spiritists.' * Considering the principles, spirit, and motives of the 'faction' to which this writer has so ardently attached himself in the Church of his choice, the epithet he here deliberately employs to characterise Swedenborg, con veys a slander of the deepest dye. The charge of * Essays on Religion and Literature, p. 310. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. religious imposture, involves the most odious and awful form of human guilt. And yet this most horrible charge is unblushingly preferred by a victim of modern Vatican spiritual sorcery, in manifest violation of truth and charity, against one who in reality, ranks among the most upright, pure-minded, and marvellously gifted of human beings, and who was specially endowed with ' a spirit divinely touched to fine issues.' It ill becomes Cardinal Manning, under any circum stances, to make use of the term 'impostor,' seeing that he has blindly delivered himself over, soul and body, to the service of a religious system, undeniably based on known and confessed forgeries and imposture.* In the case of Swedenborg, the Cardinal's language transgresses the limits of all decent and honourable con troversy. His violence stands in striking contrast to the moderation and justice of other enlightened members of the great religious Communion of his adoption. + Im pelled by a fierce spirit of proselytism, blinded by the false glare of his own perverse imaginings, and led by fal lacies which have their origin in one of the most malig nant forms of religious prejudice, this wily propagandist and champion of ' Vaticanism,' or the new form of Chris tian Gentilism, may plume himself on having obtained a * See Ja/nus, Chap. III. s. iv. Forgeries (and passim). Cf also The Present State of Christendom, by the Eev. A. Clissold, pp. 20, 44, 45, 63-67. t Vid. Eman. Swedenborg, seine Visionen und sein Verhaltniss zur Kirohe. Gorres., Strasburg, 1827. xl TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. complete victory over the absent object of his false and slanderous aspersions. But Swedenborg, also, has something to say concerning religious imposture. Like another Abel, in presence of another Cain, ' he being dead yet speaketh.' * The irresistible retorsion of his own deadly malice, upon this would-be moral assassin, shall be given in Swedenborg's own clear and vigorous language. Like his own honest Dalecarlian country men, to use the words of one who knows them well, ' he wrote as he thought, and his words remain.' In his exposition of the Divine Commandment, Thou shalt not steal, he says i — ' They who teach what is false and heretical, and per suade the vulgar that they are true and orthodox, and nevertheless read the Word, whence they have it in their power to make themselves acquainted with what is false and what is true ; and they also who, by means of fal lacies, confirm the falsities of religion and lead others astray ; may be compared with impostors and imposi tions of eveiy sort.' . . f Again : in treating of the natural sense of the com mand. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour, he teaches that (1.) ' By bearing false witness against the neighbour, * Hebrews xi. 4. + True Christian Eeligion, § 320. Cf. § 309, his exposition of the command Thou shall not kill, which is not reproduced here, as it might be thought unduly severe. The reader, however, may consult it with ere. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xli is meant, in the natural sense nearest to the letter, to bear false witness either before a judge, or, in extra judicial cases, before other persons, against any one, accused on a groundless charge ; and to corroborate such evidence by the name of God, or by an appeal to any thing else that is holy, or by himself and such things as pertain to his own name and fame. (2.) By this commandment, taken in a more extended sense, is meant falsehoods, and political hypocrisy of every kind, which have an evil end in view ; as also traducing and defaming one's neighbour, whereby his honour, name, and fame, on which the character of the whole man depends, become utterly ruined.' . . * The following description of the Papacy, in its prin ciples and practice, which recent events, with almost miraculous minuteness, have verified to the letter, well deserves the serious attention, not merely of Cardinal Manning and his credulous partisans, but especially of those conscientious Roman Catholics who have had the courage to stand fast by the more humane and Scrip tural traditions of the old Galilean Church in its palmiest days ; and who, like the good Pere Gratry, regard with "feelings of humiliation and horror, the recent insanities perpetrated at Rome under the deadly influence of the Curia ; — Quantum hallucinantur illi, qui in solo sensu Literae * True Christian Religion, § 321. xlii TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. manent, nee exquirunt Sensum Internum ab aliis locis, ubi ille in Verbo explicatur,* constare manifesto potest a tot haeresibus, quarum unaquaevis suum dogma ex literali sensu Verbi confirmat ; imprimis ex magna ilia, quam vesanus et infernalis amor sui et mundi induxit, ex Domini verbis ad Petrum : — Ego tibi dico, quod tu sis Petrus, et super hac petra aedificabo meam Ecclesiam et portae inferni non praevalebunt ei : et dabo tibi claves regni coelorum, et quicquid ligaveris super terra, erit ligatum in coelis, et quicquid solveris super terra, erit solutum in coehs. (Matt. xvi. 1.5 — 19.) Qui sensum Literae premunt, putant quod haec dicta sint de Petro, et quod illi tanta potestas data sit ; tametsi norunt, quod Petrus fuerit homo admodum simplex, et quod ille nusquam talem potestatem exercu- erit, et quod exercere illam contra Divinum sit ; usque tamen, quia ex vesano et infernali amore sui et mundi, sibi arrogare volunt summam potestatem in terra et in coelo, et se decs facere, hoc secundum hteram explicant, et acriter defendunt; cum tamen sensus internus eorum verborum est, quod ipsa Fides in Dominum, quae solum est apud eos qui in amore in Dominum et in charitate erga proximum sunt, illam potestatem habeat, et usque non Fides, sed Dominus a Quo Fides. Per * These few words contain the rule of Scripture interpretation from which Swedenborg, in no single instance, has departed. It is almost needless to observe that his superficial or hostile critics universally entertain an entirely different opinion. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xliii Petram ibi intelligitur ilia Fides, ut ubivis alibi in Verbo. Super ilia aedificatur Ecclesia, et contra illam portae inferni non praevalent : et illi Fidei sunt Claves regni coelorum. Claudit ilia coelum, ne mala et falsa intrent, et aperit ilia coelum pro bonis et veris. Hie est sensus internus horum verborum.* Lastly: Swedenborg was an unostentatious but a profound and far-seeing statesman. He well knew the danger to the safety of peoples and Commonwealths, the obstacles to human freedom and progress, that lay hidden under the mask of this pretended ' Power of the Keys.' In a memorial presented to the Swedish Diet in the year 1761, which contains 'General views respecting the maintenance of the State and the preservation of its freedom,' Swedenborg, then in his seventy-third year, makes some observations which, in presence of the strange and unexpected events now taking place in the principal kingdoms of Europe, can hardly be denied to have in them a genuine prophetic ring. Alluding to the misfortunes and frightful consequences likely to arise in the North of Europe under a despotic govern ment, he confines himself to the single all-important topic of Papal darkness. 'We know from experience,' says he, 'how the Baby lonian harlot fascinated and bewitched the reigning princes of Saxony, Cassel and Zweibriicken, also the * Arcana Coelestia, Prsef ad Lib. Genes, c. xxii. xliv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. king of England, shortly before the House of Hanover was called to the British throne, and how it is still dallying with the Pretender. How in Prussia, likewise, it tampered with the present king, when Crown-Prince. through his own father : not to mention King Sigismund and Queen Christina, in Sweden. We are well aware, too, how this harlot is still going her rounds through the courts of Reformed Christendom. If, there fore, Sweden were an absolute monarchy, and this harlot, who understands so well how to dissemble, and adorn herself like a goddess, were to intrude herself into the cabinet of a future monarch, is there any reason why she should not as easily delude and in fatuate him, as she did the above-mentioned kings and princes of Christendom % What opposition would there be, what means of self-protection, especially if the army, which is now upon a standing footing, were at the disposal of the monarch ? What could bishops and priests, together with the peasantry, do, against force, against the determination of the sovereign, and against the crafty cunning of the Jesuits? Would not all heavenly light be dissipated? would not a night of barbarian darkness overwhelm the land ? and, if they would not be martyrs, must not the people bow down the neck to Satan, and become worshippers of images, and idolaters ? ' The dread of this and every other kind of slavery, which I need not here describe, must hang over us for TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xlv the future, should there take place any alteration in our excellent Constitution, or any suspension of our in valuable liberty. The only guarantee and counter check against such calamities would be oath and con science. Certainly if there were an oath, and the majority were sufficiently honest to respect it, civil and religious liberty, and all that is valuable, might, indeed, in every kingdom remain inviolate : but, on the other hand, we must bear in mind that the Papal chair can dissolve all oaths, and absolve every conscience, by virtue of the keys of St. Peter.'* It is no small relief to be able to turn from the utterly corrupt religious system above described, ' the inevitable result ' of the policy of which ' is to propagate, from generation to generation, lies, hypocrisy, and deceit, by wholesale ; ' a system cunningly devised to foster a profound hatred of free institutions and all that deserves the name of constitutional ; a system which preserves unchanged its ancient animosity to 'the noble mother of European constitutions, the English Magna Charta,'t to what, with all its defects and shortcomings, must be called the greatest and most powerful branch of the Church Catholic, the Anglican Church spread over the world. In its fundamental * Documents concerning the Life and Character of Em. Swedenborg, &c., p. 176 (Ed. New York, 1847). t Janus, pp. 17, 22. xlvi TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. principles, combined with its Apostolic Order, it is still the most powerful bulwark, existing in the present day, against the two arch-enemies of the true Christian Religion, superstition and infidelity. And it may not be without advantage to reproduce here a noble de scription of what it ought to be, as given in the words of one of the -wisest and most upright of British statesmen, who was also a sincere Christian, Edmund Burke : — 'I wish,' he says, 'to see the Established Church of England great and powerful ; I wish to see her founda tions laid low and deep, that she may crush the giant powers of rebellious darkness ; I would have her head raised up to that heaven to which she conducts us. I would have her open wide her hospitable gates by a noble and liberal comprehension ; but I would have no breaches in her wall. I would have her cherish all those that are within, and pity all those who are with out. I would have her a common blessing to the world, an example, if not an instructor, to those who have not the happiness to belong to her. I would have her give a lesson of peace and happiness to mankind that a vexed and wandering generation might be taught to seek for repose and toleration in the maternal bosom of Christian charitj^ and not in the harlot lap of in- fidehty and indifference.' The holy desire, here expressed in such noble language, TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. xlvii may fairly be taken as setting forth, in general terms, the primary end of the New Theology, to which the New Philosophy serves for a stepping-stone. This end is no other than the complete renovation of the Universal Church of God on earth ; a new state of spiritual perception and life in each one of her true members, to be brought about by the- gradual revival and spread of pure and undefiled religion, through the medium of a closer and more real conjunction, with her one Divine Source and Head, the Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Kensington, Easier, 1875. LIST OF AUTHORS CITED. AcLAND, H. W. (M.D., &c., &c.) The Harveian Oration. London, 1865. Addison. The Spectator. Argyll, DtrKE of. The Eeign of Law. London, 1867. Aristoteles. Opera, ex recensione Imman. Bekkeri. Ed. Oxon : 1837. AuGUSTiNUS, S. Opera, Ed. Benedict. Bassani, 1807. Bain, Alexander (M.A). The Senses and the Intellect. 3rd Ed., 1868. Mind and Body. London, 1873. Bacon. Works, Ed. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath. Baynes, Thomas Spencer. The Port Eoyal Logic, 2nd Ed. Edin burgh, 1861. Beale, L. S. (M.B., F.E.S.) Bioplasm. London, 1872. Protoplasm, 3rd Ed. London, 1874. BB^fNBTT, Eev. W. J. E. On Methodism and the Swedenborgians. Loudon, Hayes. Bernard, Claude M. Lejons sur les proprietes des Tissus Vivants. Paris, 1866. Blampignon, L'Abbe E. A. Etude sur Malebranche. Paris, 1862. Blunt, Eev. J. H. Dictionary of Doctrinal and Histoi;ical Theology. Eivingtons. BoETHlus. De Consolatione Philo.;ophiae. Parisiis, 1783. De Bonald, M. Les Vrais Prineipes. Avignon etMontpellier, 1833. Bkewstek, Sir David. Life of Newton. London, 1861. BlJ(5HNBR. Force et Matifere. Ed. SeptiJme, Bruxelles, 1863. Burmeister, Dr. Hermann. A Manual of Entomology. London, 1836. Burke, Eight Hon. Edmund. Works. Eivingtons, London, 1826. Hui'LEB, (Bishop of Durham.) Works. Edition, Oxford, 1849. d I LIST OF AUTHORS CITED. Carpenter, W. B. (M.D., &c., &c.) Principles of Mental Physi ology. London, 1874. Chalus, Eev. Prof. Notes on the Principles of Pare and Applied Calculation. Cambridge, 1869. Channing, Dr. Works, vol. i. Also, Correspion(3ence with Miss Aikin. Cicero, De natura Deorum, Clarke, Samuel, D.D.(Eeetor of St. James's, Westminster.) Works, in Four Volumes, folio. London, 1738. Clissold, Eev. A. (M.A. Oxon.) Spiritual Ejxposjtiqn of Apocalypse. 4 vols., 1851. Swedenborg, and Catholic Teaching. 2nd Ed., 1867. Athanasius, Sabellius, and Swedenborg. 2nd Ed., 1873. CoNDiLLAC, L'Abbe de. (Euvi-es. A Paris, 1793. Le Correspondant. 2° Livraison, 25 Octohre, 1865. Cousin, Fragmens Philosophiques. Par V. Cousin. Troisifeme Edition. Paris, Ladrange, 1838. Cudworth. Intellectual System. Ed, 1820. Descartes. The Meditations and Selections from the Principles of Philosophy. Edinburgh, 1853. Des-Cartes. Principia PhUosophiae. Amstelodami, 1656. Delitzsch, Franz (D.D.) A System of Biblical Psychology. Edin burgh, 1867. DMOW.SKI, Institutiones PhUosophicae, Edi Lovan. 1840. Epitome of the History of Philosophy, Aberdeen, 1849. Fabre, M. L'Abbe Jule,?, Ddfeqse da I'Ontologisme. Paris and Tournai, 1862. Espouse aux Lettres d'un Sensualiste contra Ontologisme. Paris, 1864. Cours de Philosophie, t, i. and ii., 8vo. Paris, 1863 and 1866. Gbrdil, Cardinal. Institutiones Philosophicae. Eoinae, 1867. Gbatry, Le PiSRE. Une Etude sur la SophiStique Contemporaine. Troisieme Edition. Paris, 1863. Griffith an See Appendix, Note R. 74 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. the medium of these affections the very being (esse) of life has its existence.^ The influx of life from God bears along with it these joys and charms, just as the influx of light and heat in the spring season brings with it corresponding affections into the minds of men, and also into birds and beasts of every kind — yea more into the subjects of the vegetable , kingdom which put forth buds and become fruitful. For the (higher) joys of love and charms of wisdom open and enlarge the feelings and emotions of the natural mind and adapt them to its reception, just as joy and mirth (in the natural order) expand the features, and adapt them to receive the gladdening influx of the soul. The man who is deeply influenced by the love of wisdom, is, as it were, a Garden in Eden, in which are two trees — the one of Life, the other of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The tree of life is the reception of love and wisdom from God, and the tree of the know ledge of good and evil is the reception of love and wisdom from man himself^ In the latter case the ' See Appendix, Note S. 2 "In the Word, the expression to eat signifies to appropriate ; and the Tree of Life signifies the Lord with reference to the goodness which is of love. Hence it is that by eating of the Tree of Life is signified appropria tion of the goodness of love which is from the Lord. The reason why to eat signifies to appropriate is, that in like manner as natural food,|when eaten, is appropriated to the life of man's body, so spiritual food, when it is received, is appropriated to the life of his soul. By the Tree of Life is signified the Lord as to the goodness which is of love, because nothing save this is meant by the Tree of Life iu the Garden of Eden ; and also because man is in possession of celestial and spiritual life by virtue of that good ness which has its source in the love and charity that are by and from the WISDOM AND ITS OPPOSITE. 75 man is insane, and yet he thinks that he is as wise as God is. The former, however, is truly wise. He also believes that there is none wise but God alone, and that man is wise only in so far as he holds this belief ; and the more so, in proportion as he feels within himself that this is the genuine expression of his will. This subject, however, has been considered more in detail in the Spiritual Record to be found in the Treatise on Conjugial Love (§§ 132—136). I will here add, in support of these statements, a truth not hitherto revealed. All the angels of heaven Lord. Tree is mentioned in many places, and by it is signified the Church man ; and also the Church itself, taken in a universal sense. And by the fruit of a tree is meant goodness of life. The ground and reason of all this is that the Lord is the Tree of Life, from whom comes every good which is in the Churchman, and in the Church." (Apocalypse Revealed, § 89.) " The worldly and corporeal man says in his heart, ' If I am not instructed concerning faith and what belongs to faith, by the things of sense, so that I may see them, or by the things of science, so that I may understand them, I wUl not believe. ' In this he confirms himself from the circumstance that what is natural cannot be contrary to what is spiri-"' tual. He is therefore desirous of being instructed in what is celestial and Divine, from the things of sense. This, however, is as impossible as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. " The more he desires to grow wise from such things, the more he bUnds himself, till at length he comes to beUeve nothing, not even in the existence of anything spmtual, nor iu such a thing as eternal Ufe. This result flows from the principle he assumes. And this is to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evU, of which, the more a man eats, the more he becomes a dead mau. " On the other hand, he who wishes to grow wise from a -wisdom not of this world, but which comes from the Lord, says in his heart, that he ought to believe the Lord, that is to say, those things which the Lord has spoken in the Word, because they are traths. And from this principle he thinks. He confirms himself in this view by things rational, scientific, sensual, and natural ; and what does not confirm this position, he removes from his mind," (Arcana Ccelestia, § 128.) 76 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. turn the forehead to the Lord as a Sun; and all the spirits of hell turn the back of the head to Him, The latter receive an influx into the affections of their will — which in themselves are evil desires — and cause the understanding to become favourable to these affections ; but the former receive an influx into the affections of their understanding, which causes the will to incline to them. Hence it is that the angels of heaven are in a state of wisdom, and the evil spirits of hell in a state of insanity. The human understanding, indeed, has its abode in the cerebrum, that division of the brain which lies beneath the forehead ; and the will in the cerebellum, that part or portion situate at the back of the head.^ Who does ' "Sensation in general, or the common faculty of feeling, is distin guished into voluntary and involuntary. The voluntary sense is proper to the cerebrum. The involuntary sense is proper to the cerebellum. These two orders of general sensation are united together in man ; but they are, nevertheless, distinct. The fibres which issue forth from the cerebrum present to view, in general, the voluntary sense ; and the fibres from the cerebeUum exhibit, in general, the involuntary sense. Fibres derived from this two-fold origin become joined together in the two appendices named, respectively, the medulla oblongata and the medulla spinalis, and by means of these pass into the body, and enter into the formation of its members, viscera, and organs. Those portions which encompass the body, as, for example, the muscles and the skin, as also the organs of the senses, receive for the most part fibres from the cerebrum. Hence it is that man is endowed with sense, and consequently -with motion in accordance with his wUl. But those things which are contained within that cincture or enclosure, and are called the viscera of the body, receive fibres from the cerebeUnm. Hence it is that man has no feeling of these parts ; nor are they under the control of his will. From these facts it may to some e.xtent be evident, what the faculty of sensation in general is ; in other words, what is the common voluntary sense, and the common involuntary sense, with which man is endowed. " (Arr.ana Ccelestia, § 4325.) The above is one of the numberless passages to be met with iu the theo- MIND AND BRAIN. 77 not know that a man who is in an unsound state of mind owing to false principles, favours the appetites and desires of his own evil state, and by reasons drawn from the intellectual faculty, gives them strength and sup port ? Who, again, does not also know that a wise man from the light of truth, sees the real character of those appetites and desires which proceed from his will, and logical expositions of our author, which imply, by necessary consequence, thti truth of principles previously established in his philosophical treatises ; and demonstrate that, however distinct from each other these two classes of his works may be, they are, notwithstanding, intimately connected, and ought to be studied in conjunction. With the physiological doctrine sum marily stated in the above, compare the following, from the Animal King dom (vol. ii. pp. 453 — 455) : — ' ' The cerebrum and cerebeUum not only dweU under distinct septa and tents, and Uve without famiUar intercourse within the bony walls of the skull ; but they have their separate provinces beyond these boundary walls in the body also, whither they put forth their fibres. The cerebrum, or the fibre of the cerebrum, occupies the very ultimate boundaries, or the muscular and sensorial circumference of this kingdom ; but the fibre of the cerebellum has for its lot the whole interior field circumscribed by these boundaries, where the viscera of the thorax and abdomen live. The fibre, propagated as an offspring by derivation from its parent cerebrum or cere bellum, when sent out to its goals, and determined to uses in the extremes, carries with it only that character, breathes only that power, and exercises only that force, which it has obtained from its parent ; thus the fibre sent fi'om the cerebrum involves whatever the mind of the cerebrum appoints to be executed in ultimates as a matter of choice and will ; but the fibre from the cerebellum involves whatever its mind or soul deems advisable to be done as a matter of nature. The former takes the reasons of its choice or will from the sensoria disposed in the boundary of the kingdom ; the latter, the reasons of its administration, from the papiUre set -within the viscera. In this way we see that the kingdom is divided between the cerebrum and cerebeUum, or between the wUl and nature ; and this, in such wise, that nature, which manages the domestic, intimate, and secret affairs of the kingdom, is environed and beset by the will, which attends to the external business that is common to the body with the smrounding world . . . ." 78 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. puts a curb upon them 1 The -wise man does this because he turns his face to God. In other words, he believes in God, and not in himself On the other hand, the man who is devoid of sound reason, acts in the manner above stated, because he turns his face away from God ; that is to say, he believes in himself and not in God. When a man believes in himself, he believes that he is in the state of loving and being wise from himself, and not from God. This is also what is meant by eating of the tree of the knowledge of Good and EvU. On the other hand, to believe in God (as in the case of the wise man), is to believe that his state of loving and being wise is from God, and not from himself : and this is to eat of the tree of Life, (Rev. ii. 7.) From the foregoing, a perception of the truth may be obtained — but still faint and as it were in moonlight — that the reception of the influx of life from God is according to the state of love and wisdom which exists in man. This influx is susceptible of still further illustration by means of the influx of light and heat into the sub jects of the vegetable kingdom,^ in that these come into ' From the above illustration the reader cannot fail to obtain a clear and definite notion of the sense in which the author uses the now somewhat obsolete philosophical term influx. When appUed to phenomena of the intellectual and spiritual orders, in a con-espondent sense, it is perfectly intelligible to all who believe that such phenomena are real things, and not imaginary entities or mere figures of speech. Just as vegetable substances are subjects of the inflow of natural heat and light from the sun of this earth, so the soids of men, which are spiritual substances, are the subjects of the inflow of spiritual heat and light, that is to say, of love and wisdom, from the Sun of Righteousness. Compare the following, from the INFLUX ILLUSTRATED. 79 flower and bear fruit according to the manner in which the fibres which enter into their formation are inter- Vi^oven and compacted, and so, according to the mode of reception. Another illustration is afforded by the influx of the rays of light into precious stones, which modify the rays and thus impart to them the quality of colours, according to the peculiar position of the parts consti tuting their contexture, thus again, according to the mode of reception. Lastly, an illustration may be derived from the phenomenon of the prismatic spectrum as presented by optical glasses and rain-drops, according to the degrees of incidence and refraction, thus accord ing to the various modes in which the light is received.' Human minds are similarly circumstanced with re spect to spiritual light which proceeds from The Lord as a Sun, and flows into them without intermission. The mode of reception, however, varies. True Christian Religion (§ 34) : — "The Divine Life, that by means of its influx from the sun of the angelic heaven, gives activity to man, may be compared with the light which is from the sun of this world, and with its influx into a transparent object. The reception of this life, in the highest degree, is like the influx of light into a diamond ; in the second degree, like that into a crystal ; and in the ultimate or lowest degree, like that into a glass or a transparent membrane. If, however, this last degree be closed, as to its spiritual part — which happens when God is denied and Satan worshipped — then the reception of life from God may be compared with the influx of light into opaque earthy objects, such as rotten wood, the green sod of a swamp, abominable filth, &c. For in such case, man becomes a spiritual corpse." ' See Appendix, Note T. CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. XII. The understanding in man is such that it can be raised into the light, that is to say, into the wisdom in which the angels of heaven are, according to the degree of culture and development of the rational faculty. His will also can be elevated imto heavenly heat, in other words, into love of a like kind, according to the deeds of his life. Lt is to be observed, however, that the love which pertains to his will, is not thus elevated, except in so far as man wills and does what the wisdom, which belongs to his understanding, teaches him, to do. By the Human Mind are to be understood its two faculties called, respectively, the understanding and the ivill. The understanding is the receptacle of the light of heaven, which, in its essence, is wisdom ; and the will is the receptacle of the heat of heaven, which, as already shown, is, in its essence, love.^ ' This definition of the term mind, which, owing to its apparent simpli city, a superficial reader might readily overlook, demands and deserves most careful study. It is admirably clear and precise ; and when once it has been fully grasped, much of what appears at first sight dark or unmeaning in Swedenborg's Psychology becomes easy of comprehension to those who possess any adequate acquaintance with the fundamental facts of that science. The contrast between ancient and modem thought on the subject in question is striking and instructive. Nothing could be more confused, vacUlating, and incongraous than the manner in which the term ' mind ' is employed in modern metaphysical treatises. While, on the other hand, the eminent philosophers of antiquity invariably make use of the terms if'i/x^ and yovs, animus and mens, with a definite and distinct THE NEW CREATION. ¦ These two principles, namely, wisdom and love, pro ceed from the Lord as a Sun and flow into heaven universally and individually. Hence it is that the angels have their wisdom and love. They also flow into this world universally and individually. It is owing to this that men have wisdom and love. More over, these two principles proceed, in a united form, from the Lord, and likewise flow, in a united form, into the souls of angels and men. They are not, however, in this united form received in their minds. For, first of all, is received there the light which constitutes the understanding, and then, little by little, the love which forms the will. This order is also providential, because every man must be created anew, that is to say. he must be reformed ; and this takes place by means of his understanding. The reason is, that man is designed to imbibe, from infancy, such knowledge of goodness and truth as shall teach him to live well — in other words, to will and act in the right way ; thus the will receives its form by way of the understanding. For the sake of this end, man is gifted with the. faculty of raising his under standing almost into the light in which the angels of heaven are, that he may see what it behoves him to will and hence to do, so as to be prosperous in this world for a time, and also blessed after death to eternity.^ Man signification. (See note on p. 24 of the present work.) The fact may be adduced as one of many proofs to show "that the ancients surpassed us in wisdom, in the art and perfection of distinguishing things, and in the shrewdness of their conjectures respecting the occult." {(Econ. An. King dom, vol. i., p. 13.) ^ See Apocalypse Revealed (§ 424), where the nature of the sensual part 82 . CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. comes into a state of prosperity and blessedness, if he procure for himself wisdom, and keep his will in obedi- of man, and its relation to the spiritual part, are referred to, and numerous jjassages of the Arcana Ccelestia quoted as proving (1), that elevation of the mind above the things of sense was well known to the ancients ; and (2) that man, in his own spirit, is able to bring under his observation what takes place in the spiritual world, provided only he could be withdrawn from the things of sense, and be elevated into the light of heaven by the Lord. It must be evident to every candid and intelligent reader that the condition here so definitely laid down, under which alone man is permitted to exercise that faculty of open spiritual vision wherewith he was endowed at creation, differs toto coelo from the delusive or unlawful methods adopted by mystics, visionaries, and ' spiritualists. ' That between genuine spiritual enlightenment, and every form of mysticism or phantastical illuminism there is ' a great gulf fixed,' may be clearly seen from a careful study of what follows : — "With respect to man, he is said to be elevated when he makes a nearer approach to things heavenly. The reason of this is, that heaven is believed to be elevated or on high. It is so said owing to the appearance. For heaven, and accordingly those things which pertain to heaven — to wit, things celestial and spiritual — are not on high but in what is internal. . , . Wherefore man is in heaven, a& to his interiors, when in a state of spiritual love and faith." (Arcana Ccelestia. % 41()3. ) " As regards the elevation of traths and their respective affections, as also their orderly arrangement in general principles, the case stands thus : — Traths and affections are elevated when a preference is given to those things which belong to Ufe eternal and the Lord's kingdom, above those things which pertain to a life in the body and the kingdom of this worid. When a man acknowledges the former to be principal and primary, and the latter to be instrumental and secondary, then truths and their respec tive affections are elevated in him. For in so far as he is translated into the light of heaven, iu which is intelligence and wisdom, to the same extent those things which pertain to the light of the world are to him images and, as it were, mirrors, in which he sees the former. The con trary happens when he prefers those things which belong to the life of the body and the kingdom of this world, above those which are of eternal life and the Lord's kingdom. As in the case where he believes that these latter have no being, because he does not see them, and because no one has come from that other world and declared their existence. As also in the case where he believes that, if there be such things, he will not fare worae than others, and confirms himself in these piinciples, and lives a worldly HEREDITARY EVIL. 83 ence to its dictates. On the other hand, he falls into adversity and misfortune when he permits his under standing to become subject to his will. The cause of this is that the will of man, from birth, inclines to evils, even to those which are enoimous.^ Wherefore unless life, and entirely despises charity and faith. In such a man truths and their affections are not elevated, but are either suffocated, or rejected, or perverted. For he is in natural light, into which nothing of heavenly light flows. Hence it is clear what is meant by the elevation of truths and their respective affections. " (Ibid. 4104.) " Man has been so created that through him, as a medium, the Divine things of the Lord may descend even to the ultimate or lowest things of nature, and from these again ascend to the Lord ; thus that man might be a medium capable of uniting the Divine Being with the world Of nature, and also of uniting the world of nature with the Diviue Being, and thu-', through the instrumentality of man, as through an uniting medium, the very last or lowest principle of nature might live from the Divine Being ; and this would have been the case if man had lived according to the Divine order. That man was so created, is clear from the fact that as regards his body he is a Uttle world. For all the mysteries which are in the world of nature are treasured up in it : that is to say, whatever of hidden and mys terious there is in the sether and in its modifications, the same is stored up in the eye, and whatever of a similar kind is in the air, the same is in the ear. And whatever invisible thing floats and acts in the air, this is in the organ of smell where it is perceived, and whatever invisible thing there is in waters and other fluids, is perceived in the organ of taste ; also the very changes of state are everywhere perceived in the sense of touch. (See Animal Kingdom, Index s. v. Totica, uhi abundance of physiological facts concerning this most marvellous sense.) That man was so creaited is, moreover, evident from the feet that things which are still more recondite would be perceived in his interior organs, were his life according to order. Hence it is manifest that there would be a descent of the Divine Being through the medium of man into the ultimate of nature, and an ascent from the ultimate of nature to the Divine Being, if only man were to acknowledge the Lord as his last and first End, with a faith which is of the heart, that is to say, with lova" (Arcana Ccelestia, § 3702.) ' On man's original inclination or hereditary tendency to evil, see the Ninth Article of the Church of England, which treats of ' Original or Birlh-siH.' Like aU the other Articles, it is worded with the utmost i,aj-e a 2 .84 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. that will were put under restraint by means of the understanding, man would rush headlong into unspeak- and caution, so as to exclude ' private interpretation, ' and preserve the mean between excess and defect in stating the fact and general intent of Holy Scripture. Theologians, in their attempts to explain this difficult subject, have fallen into the most grievous errors. Expositors of the Arti cles rarely imitate the wisdom and prudence of those who framed"them. Nothing can be more evident, as a matter of fact, than the transmission of evil from parents to children. On the other hand, it is difficult to con ceive anything more repugnant to the most elementary notion of tmth and justice, as well as to every right conception of the Divine Being and Attri butes, than many of the theological expositions which have received such wide acceptance, touching the origiu, nature, and consequences of the ' evil and corrupt affections ' that man inherits from parents and fore fathers. Swedenborg alone has thoroughly explored and rationally explained, in accordance both with reason and Revelation, the doctrine of original evil. The following passages sufficiently indicate the character of his teaching on this subject : — " As to hereditary eVil the case stands thus. Every one who commits actual sin, thence induces on himself a certain nature. The evil, also, arising from this source is implanted in his children, and becomes heredi tary. It thus proceeds from any one whomsoever ; from a man's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and ancestors in snceessdve order. Thus it is multiplied and grows in his descending posterity ; thus it remains in every one, and is increased in every one, by his actual sins. Nor does it ever become dissipated, so as to lose its power to hurt, in any others save those who are regenerated by the Lord. Every one who attends to the subject may know this from the fact that the evil inclinations of parents remain vtsibly in their children, so that one family, yea, one generation, may in this way be distinguished from another." (Arcana Ccdestia, § 313.) " The evils attendant on mau have several origins. The first origin is from the hereditary principle by continual derivations from grandfathers and great-grandfathers to the father ; and from the father, in whom evils are thus accumulated, into the man himself. Another origin is from the actual evil in him, that is to say, what he acquires to himself by a life of evU. This evil man takes, in part, from what is hereditary in him, as from an ocean of evils, and puts into act ; and, in part, he superadds several things from himself ; whence comes that proper (nature), which man acquires to himself. But this actual evil, which man makes his own ¦proper (nature), has also divers origins; in general, two:— firstly, in that MAN CONJOINED TO GOD. 85' able wickedness — yea more, from an inherent brutality of nature, he would proceed to rob and murder, for the sake of himself all without exception who should be unwilling to treat him with favour and indulgence. Besides all this, unless it had been so provided that the understanding could be perfected, in a separate manner, and then the will by means of it, a man would not be a man at all, but a beast. The fact is, that without such a separation, and without an actual ele%''ation of the un derstanding above the will, man would not have been able to think, and from thought to speak, but merely to give expression to his feelings by certain sounds. Nor would he have been able to act from reason, but merely from instinct ; much less would he have been able to acquire those knowledges which relate to God, and by means of which God is known, and thus to be con joined with God and live for ever. In truth man thinks and wills as if from himself; and this as if from him self is the reciprocal principle of conjunction.^ For conjunction without a reciprocal principle is impossible, just as there can be no such thing as the conjunction of an active with a passive force without some kind of reactive principle. God alone acts.^ Man also suffers himself to be acted upon, and, moreover, reacts in all appearance as if from himself Nevertheless, this reaction, regarded as to its interior source, is of God. he receives evils from others without any fault of his own ; secondly, in that be receives them from himself, thus, by his own fault." (Ibid, § 4171.) ' See Appendix, Note U. 86 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. From what has been said, if rightly perceived, it may be seen what is the character of the love constituting a man's will, when it is elevated by the understanding, and also of what kind it is when this does not take place. Hence it may be seen what is the character of the man himself. This last-mentioned point, namely, the character of the man himself, when the will is not thus elevated, may be illustrated by comparisons. He is like an eagle flying aloft, which, as soon as it sees , beneath such food as is suited to its appetite, for ex ample, poultry, some dusky brood of swans, yea even tender lambs, in an instant it swoops and devours them. Such a man is also like an adulterer, who con ceals beneath in a cellar the object of his sin and shame, and ascends at times to the uppermost chamber of the house and converses with those who are staying there as a wise man would, respecting purity of life, and then by turns hurries off from the assembled guests, to the indulgence of his M-icked passions. He is also like a robber placed on a watch-tower, where he pre tends to keep guard. As soon, however, as he sees an C)bject of plunder below, he quickly makes his way down, and secures it as his prey. Finally he may be likened to marsh flies which hover in a column over a horse's head as he gallops along, but as soon as the horse stops, they fall down into their native swamp. Such is the character of the man whose will or love is not elevated by his understanding; for in that case he continues to live a merely natural life, immersed in the impurities of nature and the unhallowed desires of THE SOULS OF BRUTES. 87 sense. Absolutely different is the life of those who, by wisdom resulting from the due exercise of their under standing, keep in subjection the allurements of those unholy desires which have their seat in the will. With such the understanding enters (so to speak) into a marriage contract with the will, consequently so also does wisdom with love, and in a higher sphere they both dwell together in the enjoyment of every dehght. XIIL The case 'is absolutely different with the brute creation. §15. Those who judge from the mere appearances pre sented by the bodily senses, come to the conclusion that beasts have will and understanding just as men have, and thence further infer that the sole difference between them consists in the fact that a man is able to speak, and to express his thoughts and desires by words ; while, on the contrary, a beast is able to signify such things only by inarticulate sounds. Nevertheless, the truth is that beasts do not possess will and understand ing, but only a certain similitude of both, called by the learned an analogue.^ Man is man because his intel lect may be raised above the desires of his will. It is thus that man is enabled to become cognisant of those desires, to see them, and also to restrain them within their proper limits. On the other hand, the beast is a 1 See Appendix, Note V. CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. beast because its desires impel it to do what it doe."?. Whence it follows that a man is a man by virtue of the fact that his will is kept in obedience to his under standing ; but that a beast is a beast by virtue of the fact that its understanding is in subjection to its will. From all this is deduced the following conclusion, that the understanding of man inasmuch as it receives the inflowing light from heaven, and not only appre hends and perceives it as its own, but also thinks from it analytically with all possible variety, and absolutely as if from itself, is living. Hence it is a real and genuine understanding. It also follows that his will, in that it receives the inflowing love of heaven, and acts from this as if from itself, is also livi/rig. It is likewise, therefore, really and truly a will. The reverse, however, is the case with beasts. Wherefore those who think from the unrestrained desires of the will, are likened to beasts ; and in the spiritual world at a distance, they also appear as beasts.^ They even act in a similar manner, with this only difference, that they are capable of acting otherwise if they will. Those, on the other hand, who curb the evil inclinations of their will by means of their understanding, and, in consequence, act rationally and wisely, appear in the spiritual world as men, and are angels of heaven. In a word, the will and the understanding in beasts are always intimately united ; and as the will, in itself, is blind (for it owes its origin to heat and not to light) it renders the uuder- ' See Appendix, Note W. INSTINCT. 89 standing blind also. Hence it is that a beast neither knows nor understands what it does, and yet it acts ; for it acts from an influx out of the spiritual world : and an action of this kind is instinct.^ Some believe that a beast from understanding ex ercises thought upon what it does. This, however, is not in the least the case. Its action is owing merely to the natural love which is inherent in it from crea tion, the senses of the body meanwhile supplying aid. That man thinks and speaks is solely and entirely to be ascribed to the fact that his understanding is capable of being separated from his will, and of being elevated into the light of heaven : for the understand-' ing thinks, and thought speaks. Beasts act according to the laws of order inscribed on their nature ; and some, indeed, to all appearance in a rational and moral manner, which is more than can be said of many men. The cause of this is that their understanding is in a state of blind 'obedience to the desires of their will ; and therefore they are not able to pervert those desires by vicious reasoning, as is the case with men. It is to be noted that by the terms will and under standing, in the statements just made in reference to beasts, is meant merely a resemblance and analogue of these faculties. They have been designated analogues^ and so have received their name according to appear-, ance. The life of beasts may be compared with that of ai ' See Appendix, Note X. 53 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. somnambulist, who by the power of his will walks and acts, his understanding meanwhile being buried in sleep ; and also with that of a blind person who pro ceeds on his way led by a dog. It may also be com pared with that of an imbecile who, from custom and a habit thence contracted, performs his work according to prescribed rules. In like manner it may be compared with that of a person devoid of memory, and hence de prived of understanding, who, nevertheless, knows or at least learns how to dress himself, to partake of delicacies, to pay attention to the other sex, to walk through various streets from house to house, and to engage in such things as tend to soothe the senses and gratify the bodily appetites, by all the enticements of which he is borne along, although he does not think, and hence is unable to .speak. From all this it is plain how greatly they err who believe that beasts are in the enjoyment of rationality, and that they are to be distinguished from men merely by their outward shape, and by the fact that they are unable to clothe in language things of a rational kind which they store up within them. From these fallacies many even infer that if a man live after death so will a beast ; and, vice versa, that if a beast do not live after death, neither will a man ; not to mention many other day-dreams arising from ignorance respecting the will and the understanding, and, also, touching the steps or degrees, by which the mind of man, as if by a ladder, mounts up to heaven. DOCTRINE OF DEGREES. 91 XIV. There are three Degrees, or Grades of being, in the spi ritual world, also three Degrees, in the natural world, according to which all influx takes place. §16. It is a truth which may be ascertained by the in vestigation of causes as seen in their effects, that there are degrees of a two-fold order ; one in which are con tained things prior and posterior, another including the greater and the less. Those degrees which involve the distinction between what is prior and posterior are to be called degrees of altitude, and also discrete de grees. On the other hand, degrees by which the gi-eater and the less are distinguished from one another, are to be called degi-ees of latitude, and also continuous degrees.^ Degrees of altitude, or those of the discrete order, are like the generations and compositions of one thing ' from another. Let one of the nerves be taken for an example. It is a product and compound of fibres. Take, again, any one of these fibres you please, it will be seen to be a product and compound of little fibrils. It is the same with stone, wood, or metal. They are made up of parts ; and these parts are composed of still smaller portions, or particles. As to degrees of latitude, or continuous degrees, they ' See Appendix, Note Y. 02 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. are as the variations of increase and decrease which occur in the same degree of altitude, with respect to breadth, length, height, and depth ; as in the case of greater and less volumes of water, air, or sether ; and also larger and smaller masses of wood, stone, or metal. The things of which both the natural and the spiritual worlds are constituted, all and each, are, by creation, in degrees of this two-fold kind. The whole animal king dom, in general and in particular, is in these degrees ; likewise the whole vegetable kingdom, and the whole mineral kingdom ; as is also the atmospheric expanse from the sun to the earth. There are, consequently, three atmospheres^ distinctly or discretely separated ' The following on the subject of atmospheres deserves to be carefully studied in connection with some of the latest discoveries in Physical Science : — ' ' There are always two forces which .... keep everything in its connexion and in its form, namely, a force acting from without, and a force acting from within. In the midst of these is the tbing thus con tained. In this manner, also, man as to every individual portion of him, even the most minute, is held together in connexion and form. That it is the atmospheres which keep the entire body in its connexion by their continual pressure or incumbence from without, and by the active force thence arising, is a thing well known : and, also, that the aerial atmo sphere, by its influx, performs the same office for the lungs, and in like manner for their special organ, the ear, together with the various forms within it, constructed as they are for the purpose of modifying that atmo sphere. The sethereal atmosphere, in like manner, preserves the connexion of the interior parts of the body. For the aether flows in freely through all the pores, and keeps, in their several forms, the entire viscera of the body unseparated, by an almost similar pressure or incumbence, and by the active force thence arising. . . . Now, unless there were certain internal forces which corresponded to these external forces and reacted against them, and in this manner contained and preserved in a state of equilibrium tlie intermediate forms, they would not subsist even for a moment. Hence it is clear that there must needs be two forces, in order that anything whatever may exist and subsist. The forces which flow in and act from A TMOSPHERES. 93 from one another, according to degrees of altitude, and that too in the spiritual as well as in the natural world, since in each world there is a sun. The atmo spheres of the spiritual world, however, derive, from their spiritual origin, the character of being substantial ; and the atmospheres of the natural world, in accord ance with their origin, are by nature material. Now since the atmospheres descend, according to these degrees, from their respective origins, and are also continents of light and heat, as well as vehicles by which these are transmitted, it follows that there are three degrees of light and heat. Moreover, since light, in the spiritual world, is, in its essence, wisdom, and heat there is, in its essence, love (as shown above in its proper Section), it follows, also, that there are three degrees of wisdom and three degi'ees of love, and so, three degrees of life. For wisdom, love, and life are formed into their respective threefold degrees by the media through which they pass. Hence it is that there are three angelic heavens : the within, are from heaven, and through the medium of heaven, from the Lord ; and, in themselves, they have life. This is sufficiently plain and evident from the organ of hearing. Unless there were interior moditica- tioris which have their origin in Ufe, to which the exterior modifications pertaining to the air corresponded, hearing would have no existence. The same may be said of the organ of sight. Unless there were an interior light originating in Ufe, to -which corresponded the exterior light which belongs to the sun, sight would never have an existence. And so it is with all the other organs and members of the human body. "There are forces acting from without which, being natural, are in themselves not living ; and there are forces acting from within, and these in themselves aUve, which hold in their grasp every single thing, and cause them to live -and, indeed, to live according to such a form as has been assigned to them for use." (Arcana Ccdestia, § 3628.) 94 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. highest, which is also called the third, where dwell the angels of the .highest degree ; the middle, also called the second, where are the angels of the intermediate degree ; and the lowest, called also the first, the abode of the angels of the lowest degree.^ These heavens are also distinguished from each other according to degrees of wisdom and love. Those who dwell in the lowest heaven are in the love oi knowing what is true and good ; those in the middle heaven, are in the love of understanding them ; and those in the highest heaven are in the love of possessing wisdom, that is, of living according to what they know and understand. Now forasmuch as the angelic heavens are distin guished into three degrees, therefore the human mind is also distinguished into three degrees, because it is an image of heaven — in other words, it is a heaven in the ¦ least form. Hence it is that man is capable of be coming an angel of one of these three heavens. This also comes to pass according to his reception of love and wisdom, which proceed from the Lord. A man becomes an angel of the lowest heaven if he receive only the love of knowing what is true and good ; an angel of the intermediate heaven, if he receive the love of under standing them ; and an angel of the highest heaven, if he receive the love of being wise, that is, of living in accordance with them. That the human mind is distinguished into three regions after the manner of the heavens, may be seen ' See Appendix, Note Z. INSANITY OF NATURE-WORSHIP. 95 in the Record of a spiritual experience inserted in the work on Conjugial Love (§ 270). From what has been said it is clear that all spiritual influx towards man and into man descends from the Lord by these three degrees, and is received by him in accordance with the degree of wisdom and love in which he is. A knowledge of these degrees is at this day of the greatest use, inasmuch as many persons, from not being acquainted with them, take their stand and remain fixed in the lowest degree in which are contained their bodily senses ; and owing to ignorance, which is in tellectual darkness, they are incapable of being elevated into that spiritual light which is above those senses. From this source Naturalism} as of its own accord, rushes in, as soon as such persons engage in any inquiry or investigation which has relation to the soul, the human mind, and its rational endowments. Tliis is still- more the case if the subject of inquiry be heaven and a life after death. Hence they become, comparatively, like those who stand in places of public resort, with telescopes in their hands ; and when they have scanned the heavens publish unmeaning prognostications.^ They are also like those who indulge in trivial talk and fall to reasoning about every object they see and everything they hear, except that in what they say and think there is still a remnant of reason derived from their under- ^ See Appendix, Note AA. = It is probable that aUusion is here made to the itinerant astrologers of the time. 95 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. standing. Such persons, however, are like butchers who fancy themselves skilled in anatomy, because they have made an outward survey of the entrails of oxen and sheep, although they possess no knowledge whatever of their internal conformation. It is a truth, notwithstanding, that to think from an influx of natural light which is not at the same time illustrated by an influx of spiritual light, is nothing else but to dream, and to speak from thought such as this is merely to play the part of a fortune-teller. Respecting these degrees, however, the reader may see several other particulars in the work On The Divine Love, and Divine Wisdom, published at Am.sterdam in the year 1763 (§§ 173—281.) XV. In the first of these degrees are Ends ; in the second Causes ; and in the third Effects. §17. Who does not see that an end is not a cause, but that it produces the cause ; and that a cause is not an effect, but that it produces the effect ; consequently, that they are distinctly three things which follow each other in order. An end, such as it is in man, is the love which belongs to his will : for what a man actually loves, this he pro poses to himself, and strives to attain. A cause, in man, MAN JUDGED BY HIS WORKS. qj is the faculty of reason which pertains to his understand ing; for by means of reason the end makes inquiry into mediate or efficient causes. And, lastly, an effect is an operation of the body arising out of, and done in ac cordance with, the antecedent end and cause. There are thus three things in man which follow each other in order in a manner similar to the above-men tioned degrees of altitude. As soon as these three things are definitely established, then the end is in wardly in the cause, and also the end, by means of the cause, is in the effect. Wherefore all the three exist together in the effect. Hence it is that it is said, in The Word, that every one is to be judged according to his- works : for the end, or in other words, the love, which belongs to a man's will, and the cause or the reason,. which pertains to his understanding, are both together in the effects, which are the deeds done in and by his. body. Thus it is that in works resides the real cha racter of the whole man.^ ' There is, perhaps, no point «>a whidi Swedenborg insists so earnestly and continuously, throughout his writings, as on that of good works. With him, they constitute the very essence and- life of all true religion under whatever form it may present itself- The ram-pant Solifidianism and Antinomianism, of his day, he placed among the infallible signs of a Church in ruins. He never loses an opportunity of exposing, with unsparing hand, the deadly character of these heresies — deadly, because they conceal, under reasonings- subtle and false, evil principles desti-uctive of man's spiritual life. What works really are may be clearly understood from the foUowing passages : — "Works are often mentioned in the Apocalypse, but few know vAat is meant by works. This fact, ho-wever, is well known. Ten men may do works which outwardly appear alike, but which, nevertheless, are unlike in aU the ten, inasmuch as they proceed from different ends and (lifl'erent causes. The end and the cause render the works either good or b.id. For every work is a work of the mind- Consequently sudi as is the 98 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. Those who are not acquainted with these principle.s, and do not, in this manner, make a distinction between the objects presented to the rational faculty, cannot pos- quality of the mind, such is that of the work. If the mind be charity the work becomes charity ; but if the mind be not charity, the work is not charity. These works may, nevertheless, both appear alike in externals. Works appear to men in their external form, but to angels in their internal form : and to the Lord they appear such as they really are from their inmost to their extremes. Works, in their external form, appear no other wise than as fmits do on their outward surface ; but works, in their internal form, appear as fruits do beneath their suiface, where there are numberless edible portions, and in the midst seeds, in which again there are things .without number, that are far removed inwardly, from the keenest glance of human eyes, yea, which are above man's inteUectual sphere. " (Apocalypse Revealed, § 76. ) " It is to be noted that in deeds or works the whole man is presented to view ; and that his will and thought, in other words, his love and faith, which constitute the interiors of man, are not complete previous to their being in deeds or works, which are the exteriors of man. For these latter are the ultimates or extremes, in which the former are brought to au end ; and without such terminations they are as things without bounds, which as yet have no existence, and which therefore, so far, have no place of abode in man, Thinking and willing, without doing when it is in one's power, is as if something of the nature of flame were enclosed in a vessel, and thus extinguished. It js also like seed cast upon sand, where it fails to grow up, and perishes together -with its prolific principle. On the other hand, to think and to will and to follow these up by action or deed, is like something of the nature of fiame which emits on all sides heat and light. It is, also like a seed sown in soil that grows up into a tree, or a flov/er, and so comes into existence. Every one may know that to will, and not to do when it is in one's power, is the same thing as not to wUl ; and also that to love, and not to do good when it is in one's power, is, in fact, not to love it. Thus it is merely to think that one wUls and loves ; and conse quently it is thought separated from the affections of willing and loving, and such thought disappears and comes to nothing. Love and wUl are the very soul of deed and work. This soul forms its body in those sincere and just actions which a man performs. The spiritual body, or the body which belongs to a man's spirit, comes fronj no other source. That is to say, it is formed from nothing whatever but those things which man does from love or wiU In a word, all that pertains to man and to his spirit, is in his deeds or works." (^Heaven and HeU, § 475.) PSYCHOLOGICAL FIGMENTS. 99 sibly do otherwise than bring the ideas of their thought to a termination in the atoms of Epicurus, or in the monads of Leibnitz, or in the simple substances of Wolf Thus it is that they close their understanding as it were with a bolt, so as not to be- able even to think rationally on the subject of spiritual influx. No further advance of thought is possible ; for this author asserts concerning that simple substance of his, that, when divided, it is reduced to nothing. Thus, then, it comes to pass that the understanding is brought to a sudden pause, on the flrst dawning of its own borrowed light, which is derived purely and simply from the bodily senses. It is for this reason that no other notion on this subject is entertained than that the order of being called spiritual, is a more subtle form of what is natural ; also that the principle of rationality be longs to the brute creation, as well as to man ; and, lastly, that the soul is a mere breath of wind such as is that which a man breathes forth from his breast when he dies. These and several others of a like kind are the common notions on this subject ; and they have their source, not in light, but in darkness.^ Now since all things, as well in the spiritual as in the natural world, make their progressions according to degrees, as described in a previous Section, it is clear that to have an accurate knowledge of these degrees, to distinguish and separate them, and also to see them in their order, is intelligence properly so called. Moreover ' See Appendix, Note BB. H 2 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. the quality of every man is known by means of these degrees as soon as a knowledge is obtained of his love ; for, as already stated, the end which belongs to tl>e will, and the causes which pertain to the understand ing, also the effects which have relation to the body, follow in succession from his love, as a tree from its seed, and as fruit from a tree. States of love are, in general, of a threefold kind ; (1) the love of heaven; (2) the love of the world; and (3) the love of self The love of heaven is spiritual, the love of the world is material, and the love of self is corporeal. When the love is spiritual, all things that follow from it, derive, as forms from their essence, the quahty of being spiritual. In like manner, if the principal love be that of the world, or of worldly wealth and estate, and thus material, then all that follows from it, as results from their first principle, also acquires a material cha racter. It is equally true that if the principal love be the love of self, or of superiority over all others, and thus corporeal, the issues of such an affection partake of what is corporeal. In the last-mentioned case the reason is that a man who is in this state inwardly re gards himself alone, and so comes to immerse the thoughts of his mind in the concerns of the body. Wherefore, as just now above stated, he who is cognisant of the ruling love of any one, and at the same time, of the manner in which ends proceed to causes, and causes to effects (which three things follow in order, according to degrees of altitude), the same THE PROBLEM SOLVED. acquires a knowledge of the whole man. Thus it is that the angels arrive at a knowledge of every one with whom they speak. They perceive his love from the sound of his speech ; from his face they see his inner form ; and from the gestures of his body, his outward demeanour and bearing.' XVI. From the foregoing it is plain what the quality of spiritual infiux is, when traced from its origin to its effects. §18. Up to the present time philosophers have inferred the existence of a spiritual influx proceeding from the soul into the body ; but they have not hitherto investigated the subject of an influx from God into the soul, and thence by the way of the soul into the body. This has been owing to the fact that no one knew anything of the spiritual world, or of the Sun there, from which, as from their primal fountain, all things spiritual issue in a con tinuous stream. Thus it has come to pass that nothing was known touching the influx of things spiritual into what is natural. Now, forasmuch as permission has been granted tome to be in the spiritual world and in the natural world, at one and the same time, and in this way to be enabled to see both worlds and both suns together, I feel bound * See Appendix, Note CC, 102 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. by my sense of duty, to make these things publicly known. For of what advantage is it to have know ledge, if what one knows, another does not also know What is the former without the latter 1 What is it but to heap up riches and store them away in a chest, and then at times merely to gaze at them and count them over without the least intention of rendering them useful to others. This is nothing else but spiritual avarice. In order, however, that it may be fully known what spiritual influx is, and also its distinguishing character, it is necessary to have a knowledge of the three following subjects; — (1) What, in its essence, is the thing called spvritual ; (2) What is the thing called natural ; (3) lastly. What is that which is called the human soul. Lest, therefore, the present brief lucubration should prove deficient in clearness and force, owing to igno rance on these points, it is of importance to consult certain Records of spiritual experience on the subject, inserted in the work on CONJUGIAL Love. With respect to what the spiritual is, see the Record contained in that work, §§ 326 — 329 ; on the human soul, § 315 ; and on the influx of spiritual things into natural, § 380 ; and still more in detail, §§ 415 —422. §19. To the preceding I will subjoin the following spiritual Record.^ ' What is here termed a spiritual Record, is one of those remarkable narratives of spiritual scenes and events which, imder the name of ilf eiiioro- MEMORABILIA. 103 After the above was written I prayed to the Lord to be permitted to speak with the disciples of Aristotle, hilia (airo^vij^ovev^Ta, commentarii, mcmxyi'anda, reminiscences, memoirs), form so striking a characteristic of the author's theological writings. Owing to the extreme novelty and strangeness of their contents, they have hitherto proved ' a stone of stumbling and rock of offence ' to not a few who have attempted, with more or less earnestness of purpose, to study the new Theology. A steady determination to persevere in the endeavour to comprehend their true meaning and purport, seems to be the only effectual mode of overcoming this serious impediment to the reception of spiritual truth. It is, moreover, to be noted, that as to their publication, Swedenborg had no option. He was not at liberty to suppress what, in obedience to a special Divine mandate, it was his duty to make known to the CJiurch. (See True Christian Religion, § 188.) The authenticity of these records, as in all other cases touching a, matter of fact, is purely a question of evidence. Nothing is easier than to hastily prejudge and discard them as fictions or hallucinations. But it will be found that nothing is more difi&cult than the proof of such charges, provided the evidence be fully and fairly studied. A judgment which ignores this evidence is more than a mere impertinence. It is, in a greater or less degree, a culpable error. Swedenborg was by no means unaware of the kind of reception which these Memorabilia were likely to meet with at the hands of Churchmen (not to mention scoffing sceptics and atheists) immersed in the clouds and dai-kness of the last century. Accordingly, in his most systematic and mature Theological treatise. The True Christian Religion, published in his eighty-third year, he makes the foUowing solemn averment concerning these compendious statements of sayings and doings in the region of the spiritual : — " I foresee that many who read the Memorabilia annexed to each chapter of this work, wiU believe them to be the inventions of my imagina tion. But I solemnly affirm, in aU truthfulness, that they are not inven tions, but were verily and indeed seen and heard ; not seen and heard in any state of mind during sleep, but in a state of fuU and entire wakeful ness. For it has pleased the Lord to manifest himself to me, and to send me to teach those things that shall belong to His New Church which is understood by the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation. To this end He has opened the interiors of my mind or spirit, from which time it has been granted me to be in the spiritual worid with angels, and at the same time in the natural world with men, and this now for the space of twenty- seven years." (§851.) Swedenborg, moreover, in a letter to the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, I04 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. and, at the same time, with those of Descartes and Leibnitz, to the intent that I might elicit the opinions which they entertained in their mind on the subject of the commerce between the soul and the body. When my prayer was ended, there were present nine men. Three were Aristotelians, three Cartesians, and three Leibnitzians. They took their places around me. On has placed beyond doubt the trae character and purport of the Memo rabilia. He has therein declared that they are not to be regarded as miracles, but merely as evidences, attestations, proofs (testimonia) of the fact that he had been permitted, by the Lord, to enter into the spiritual world, as to his spirit, and to speak with angels. Such an asseveration, by whomsoever made, the thoughtless reader may, indeed, regard with iudifference, ridicule, or; scorn. Nevertheless, its trae value will sooner or later be recognised. Those who have been at the pains to understand these narratives will have no difficulty in accepting them as being all that they profess to be — trustworthy reports of things really heard and seen in the spiritual order, properly so called. It will scarcely be denied by those who are guided by reason and not ruled by prejudice, that they are remarkable monuments of the spiritual experiences of a mind endowed with marvellous intellectual and spiritual gifts. But whether regarded as mere creations of fancy, or as authentic statements of actual facts be longing to a higher order of existence than the present, they, nevertheless, serve to convey to an inteUigent and humble-minded reader profound and precious lessons, bearing intimately on man's spiritual and eternal well- being. If patiently and candidly scrutinised, in connexion with Sweden borg's immense intellectual acquisitions, his deep and solid estimate, as a Christian philosopher, of the spirit of the age in which he appeared, his far-reaching forecast of the Church's future, and the stupendous body of spiritual truths revealed to him iu and by the Word of God alone, these Memorabilia wiU be found to afford an altogether unique illustration of a truth which the greatest of poets, with his usual matchless insight, has thus dimly indicated : — " There is a history in all men's lives. Figuring the nature of the times deceased ; The which observ'd a man may prophesy. With a near aim, of the main chance of things, As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnings Ue intreasiwed," SCHOLASTICISM. lo; the left, stood the devotees of Aristotle ; to the right the followers of Descartes ; and behind, the partizans of Leibnitz. At a considerable distance, and separated from each other by intervals, appeared three men, as if crowned with laurel wreaths : and from an inflowins: perception I became cognisant that these were the very Champions and Head-masters of their respective schools. Behind Leibnitz appeared one who, it was said, was Wolf, holding in his hand the skirt of Leibnitz's garment. These nine men, when they had each in turn looked upon one another, at first accosted each other in cour-* teous and friendly terms. They then entered into con versation. Just at that moment, however, a spirit rose to view from hell, bearing in his right hand a small torch. This he shook before their faces. Thereupon they became enemies, three against three, and stood regarding each other with stern and haughty looks, owing to a strong desire for wrangling and contention which seized them. Forthwith the Aristotelians, who were also Schoolmen, began, by saying : — " Who does not see that objects flow into the soul through the medium of the senses, just as one enters a room by the door, and that the soul exercises thought according to the mode of the influx ? Is it not so when a lover sees a beautiful maiden or a wife ? His eye sparkles, and conveys a passion for her into his soul. When a miser sees bags containing money, does not an ardent longing for them arise in every bodily sense, whence this feeling is conveyed into the soul, and there stirs up the io6 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. strong desire of making them his own? When the proud man hears himself praised by another, does he not listen, so to say, with ears erect ? Do not these organs transmit the praises to his soul? Are not the senses of the body so many entrance-halls and passages by which alone admission to the soul is effected ? From these and similar phenomena without number who is able to arrive at any other conclusion than that the influx comes from nature, in other words, is physicalV'^ The followers of Descartes, who, meanwhile, had stood with the fingers pressed on the forehead, now with drew them, and said in reply, " Alas ! ye speak from appearances. Know ye not that the eye doth not love a maiden or a wife from itself, but from the soul. Equally true is it that the bodily sense doth not lust after money in a bag, from itself, but from the soul. Again : it is in this way, and in no other, that the organs of hearing eagerly lay hold of the praises which proceed from flatterers. Is it not perception which causeth a person to be sensible of a thing ? and doth not perception belong to the soul, and not to the bodily ' With this conclusion of the Scholastic phUosophy the modern System of Sensualism is in the most com'plete accord. Both alike teach that the only source of human cognitions are the senses. "The only primitive and irreducible psychological fact is sensation." {English Psychology, p. 324.) From this, the transition to the naturalistic dogma that the phenomena of mind and matter are merely different phases of the same material subject, is easy and obvious— especially to scientificaUy trained ' imaginations.' Thus freedom, religion, morality, the supematural, the Church, a future life, a Divine Being, come to be regarded as so many figments of an effete superstition, by the deluded victims of this philo sophical ' abomination of desolation.' CARTESIANISM. 107 organ ? Declare, if ye are able, what else it is that causeth the tongue and the lips to speak, if it be not thought, or what other than the will it is which maketh the hands to work. Moreover, thought and will are proper to the soul, but not to the body. What, then, maketh the eye to see, the ears to hear, and the remaining bodily organs to feel, if it be not the soul \ From these and numberless other facts of a like kind he who hath any relish for what is above and beyond the mere sensuous sphere of the body, concludeth that there is no such thing as an influx of the body into the soul : but that there is an influx of the soul into the body, namely, that which we call occasional, and also spiritual, influx." ^ ^ This use of the term ' occasional, ' on the part of the Cartesians, as synonymous with ' spiritual ' manifestly involves a special reference to the hypothesis of Occasional Causes or Divine Assistance, elaborated with so much ingenuity and learning by the Ulustrious Oratorian, Malebranche. Nor is it less evident, for the same reason, that the true theory of Spiritual Influx, as demonstrated by Swedenborg in his philosophical wiitings as well as in the present work, agrees with the Cartesian Occasionalism, at least quoad partem. With respect to the history and fortunes of the philosophic movement inaugurated by Descartes, it is deeply interesting to the thorough-going student of Swedenborg's writings to note, that not withstanding the wicked intrigues and mercUess persecutions of the Jesuits against every modification of the new philosophy, the spirit of the movement then begun is far from being extinguished. It is still vigorous and active, under the new and more suitable name of Ontolo- gism. Apart from the teaching of Swedenborg, it is the only existing school of Christian Philosophy, properly so-caUed. When examined from the point of view afforded by the perfect and complete system worked out by the philosopher of Stockholm, it wiU be found to have a firm grasp of inteUectual and spiritual truth in some of its most important aspects — but still, only the truth as seen in shade : Veritas, in umbra rationis, in qua sunt Hypotheses. The Ontologism of to-day is, virtually, the Occa sionalism of Malebranche, placed ou a still mora secure basis, and pre; to§ CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. When these words were heard, the three men who had been standing behind the previously-mentioned groups of three, and who were partizans of Leibnitz, raised their voice, and said : — " We have listened to the arguments advanced on both sides, and have compared them together. We have noticed that, in many respects, the arguments just now advanced alternately prevail. Whereupon, with your permission, we will adjust the points in dispute." On being asked in what manner this was to be done, they replied thus : — "There is, in fact, no influx of the soul into the body, nor yet of the body into the soul. There is, however, a unanimous and instantaneous operation of both together, which a distinguished author has designated by a very expres sive and appropriate name. He calls it Pre-established Harmony." ^ sented in a more connected and purer form. Its relations with the tbeory of Spiritual Influx have, consequently, become more numerous and in timate. Its trae principles lead, logically, to the ' perfect day ' of genuine truth. There is good reason to hope that the words of one of the most eloquent and spiritually- minded living advocates of what may be called the reformed Christian Philosophy, in reply to the attacks of his not over scrupulous Jesuit opponent, will be realised in a sense far wider and deeper than the writer himself intended, or could have imagined : — " Un beau r&le est reserve k cette magnifique theorie de rintelligenoe humaine, eft c'est bien certainement dans cette th&rie que la philosophie trouvera sou unitl" (D'efense de I'Ontologisme, cfcc.,par M. I'Abb^ Fabre, Pref. p. xi.) 1 Tennemann, iu his History of Philosophy, has signalised that spirit of toleration which led Leibnitz "always to discover some favourable point of view in what he criticised — something even in the most obscure systems, which might suggest matter for research " . . . . ' ' a capacity fruitful in ingenious hypotheses and in improvements or accom modation." "His object," he elsewhere remarks, "was so completely to reform Philosophy that it might possess a strictness of demonstration analogous to that of Mathematics, and to put an end to aU disputes INFLUX IS SPIRITUAL. 109- As soon as all these observations came to an end, the spirit appeared once more with the little torch in his hand (but this time in his left band), and shook it immediately behind their heads. Thereupon the ideas- of all became confused, and they cried out together : — " Neither our soul nor our body knoweth which side to take in this question. Wherefore, let us decide these disputes by lot : and we -will solemnly declare in favour of the lot that presents itself first." Then they took three small pieces of paper, and on one of them they wrote the words Physical Influx, between its factions, as weU as aU differences supposed to exist between it and Theology ; with the hope of diminishing the principal difficulties- belonging to some great questions, and at the same time, the causes of dispute, by improving the method of philosophy, and ascertaining, if possible, some positive and invariable principles. " (pp. 352, 354.) The writer of the Second Dissertation prefixed to the Eighth Edition of the Encyclopcedia Britannica justly observes, with respect to the Leibnitzian philosophy, that "while it widely deviates from the most general principles- of former philosophers, it is ready to embrace their particular doctrines under its own generalities, and thus to reconcile them to each other, as well as to accommodate itself to popular or established opinions, and compromise- with them, according to his favourite and oft-repeated maxim, ' that most received doctrines are capable of a good sense ; ' by which last words our philosopher meant a sense reconcileable with his own principles. " — (p. 353.) A briUiant and accomplished philosophical critic, who was himself the author of a vain attempt to reconcile experience and reason on a philoso phic basis, has, by a wonderful coincidence of thought, thus succinctly stated, iu terms of history, a principal point of the lesson contained in the- above Memorabile : — " Le g6nie vaste et conciliafeur de Leibnitz essaie de r^unir Locke et Descartes, Aristote et Platon; mais, malgre son impartialite, il penche pour ce dernier. Le combat s'^chauffe, la querelle se compUque et s'etend. Toutes les phUosophies qui s'glivent aboutissent, en demiere analyse, ?» Locke ou Ji Descartes, ou S, Leibnitz, qui forme une ecole separee, laquelle h(5rite ?i pen pres du cartSsianisme, qui n'a plus de disciples en Franc® apres FontencUe." (Cousin, Fragments Philosophiques, t. i p. 232.) no CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. on the second, Spiritual Influx, and on the third, Pre-established Harmony. They next placed the three in a cap, and selected a person to draw them, who, on putting in his hand, laid hold of the piece on which was written Spiritual Influx. As soon as they had seen and read it, they all declared — some, however, in a clear and flowing voice, others in an obscure and subdued tone — "Let us give our solemn assent to th^JS, inasmuch as it came out first.'' But just at that moment an angel suddenly stood near and said : ¦" Do not believe that the small piece of paper came out, in favour of Spiritual Lnflux, by chance. On the contrary, it was of Divine Providence : for inasmuch as your ideas of the subject are in a state of confusion, you do not see its truth. Nevertheless, the very Truth itself has presented itself to your hand, in that form, that you might give it your favourable consideration." ^ ' In the spiritual exposition of Exodus xxi. 13 (Arcana Ccelestia, § 9010), the ancient and true doctrine of chance and Providence is thus given: — "And God caused it to come to his hand. This signifies, ap pearing as if it were chance ; which is manifest from the idea of chance that obtained among the men of old time. Their idea was that it hap pened from God. Wherefore they described chance accordingly by saying that God caused it to come to the hand. For they v,fho belonged to the Ancient Churches were aware that the Providence of the Lord was in all and everything, and that things contingent, that is to say, things that ap peared as if they were chance events, were of Providence. Wherefore the simple-minded, who were unable to distinguish between those occurrences which arose from permission and those which were done of good pleasure, attributed to the Lord evil as well as good : good, inasmuch as they were aware that from Him comes aU good ; but evil, on account of the appear ance. For when a man does what is evil, and by that means turns him- FISHERS OF MEN. in 20. Once on a time I was asked how it came to pass that from being a philosopher I became a theologian ; I answered thus : — " In the same way in which fisher men were made disciples and apostles by the Lord." I also added that, from my earliest youth, I had been a spiritual fisherman. On hearing this he inquired what a spiritual fisherman might be. I replied, " that fisherman, in the Word, when understood in its spiri tual sense, means a man who thoroughly investigates and teaches truths pertaining to the natural order, and afterwards truths of the spiritual order, in a rational •manner." In reply to a further question, how this could be shown, I said, it may be shown from the following places in the Word : — " And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up The fishers also shall moum, and all they that cast angle in the brooks shall lament." (Isa. self away from the Lord, it appears as if the Lord turned Himself away. For then the Lord appears to him from behind, and not from before." The beautiful observations of Boethius on this subject seem worthy of being quoted in this connexion : — ' ' Nihil ne est quod vel casus vel fortuitum jure appellari queat ? An est aUquid, tametsi vulgus lateat, cui vocabula ilia conveniant ? Aristotelts meus id, inquit, in Physicis brevi ac veri propinqua ratione definivit. Quonam, iuquam, modo ? Quoties, ait, aliquid cujuspiam rei gratid geritur, aliudque quihusdam de causis, quam quod intendebatur, obtingit. Casus vacatur : ut si quis, colendi agri caus4 fodiens humum, defossi auri poudus inveniat. Hoc igitur fortuit5 quidem creditur- aocidisse, vcrhm non de nihilo est. Nam proprias causas habet, quarum improvisus inopinatusque concursus Casum videtur operatus . . . Licet igitur Casum definire inopinatum ex confiuentibus causis in his, quae db aliquid geruntur, eventum. Concurrere verb atque confluerere causas facit ordo ille inevitabili connexione procedens, qui de Providentiae fonte descendens cuncta suis locis temporibusque disponit." (Cons. Phil. Lib. v.) 112 CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY. xix. 5, 8,) In another place it is thus written : — " Upon the river whose waters were healed, the fishers shall stand from En-gedi They shall be a place to .spread forth nets ; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many." (Ezek. xlvii. 9, 10.) And again : — " Behold I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them " (that is, the children of Israel). (Jer. xvi. 16.) From these passages it is plain why the Lord chose fishermen for His disciples, and said : — " Follow Me, and I will make yon fishers of m,en " (St. Matth. iv. 19 ; St. Mark i. 16, 17) ; and to Peter, after he had taken a multitude of fishes — " From henceforth thou shalt catch men." (St. Luke v. 9, 10.) After this I demonstrated, from the Apocalypse Revealed, the origin of the signification here given to fishermen: to wit, that water signifies truths of the natural order (§§ 50, 932) ; that a river has a similar meaning (§§ 409, 932) ; a fish, those who are in natural truths (§ 405) ; and that hence fishermen came to signify those who investigate and teach truths. On hearing this, my friend who questioned me, raised his voice and said : — " Now, I can understand why the Lord called and chose fishermen to be his disciples ; and, therefore, I am not surprised that He also called and chose thee, since, as thou hast said, thou hast been a fisherman, in a spiritual sense, from thy earliest youth ; in other words, thou hast been a diligent searcher after truths of the natural order. That thou art now become a searcher after truths of the spiri- PRESENT DAY THEOLOGY. tual order, is owing to the fact that spiritual truth is based on natural truth." To this he added (inasmuch as he was a man en dowed with reason) that the LoRD alone fully and perfectly knows who is a suitable person for perceiving and teaching whatsoever pertains to His New Church. For, said he, " some fitting person was to be found among the Prelates, or if not, then among their servants." "Besides," said he, "what theologian is there among Christians who has not studied in the schools of Philo sophy, previous to his being solemnly invested with the office of Theologian? From what other source could he obtain the requisite intelligence ? " Lastly, he said : — " Seeing that thou hast become a Theologian, disclose to me in what thy Theology con- sisteth." I replied : — " The two following are its first principles. I. There is one God : II. And there is a conjunction of charity WITH faith." To which he rejoined — "Who denieth this?" I an swered, " The Theology of the present day, when sub mitted to a searching internal examination.'" ' See Appendix, note DD. APPENDIX. The main purpose of the following notes is twofold : to furnish some further illustration of the text ; and to indicate a few relations of agreement or opposition which appear to exist between certain speculations which have obtained con siderable currency in the present day, and some of the more important principles taught in our author's writings more than a century ago. NOTE A., p. 1. THE THREE OPINIONS OR HYPOTHESES : PHYSCCAL INFLUX, OCCASIONAL CAUSES, AND PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY, The preceding Tractate opens with a few brief introductory sentences which merit, first in order, the reader's attentive consideration. Some general notion of their meaning and scope is obviously necessary to any intelligent and pro fitable study of its contents. They strike at onee the key note of the entire subject. They state precisely what the problem of Infiux is. They bring before the reader, at the outset, and in language of the utmost clearness and precision, the chief points which characterize the three principal methods by which a solution of it has been at tempted, during a period of more than two thousand years. Dualism — in other words, the real and distinct existence of the spiritual and natural orders — -is here everywhere assumed. No controversy is held with Monism, whether it be idealistic or materialistic ; much less with that new form of com pound, systematized, most ' cunningly devised ' ignorance which has arisen in the present day, and which professes, with I 2 Ii6 APPENDIX— NOTE A. the utmost presumption, to shed a new light on all things human and Divine, by endeavouring to prove that man's highest knowledge and satisfaction ought to consist in the full and deliberate acknowledgment of a certain occult quality, described as the ' Unknown and Unknowable. ' The sincere man of science ' is gravely invited to worship tliis metaphysical figment, instead of the living and true God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the jjrophets ; and lastly, revealed Himself fully in Human Form as the God-Man. Iu the rational light of Swedenborg's teachings it may be clearly seen, as it can be seen nowhere else, that reckless perversions of the human intellect, such as that indicated by the foregoing new form of idolatry or atheism, tends in evitably to spiritual death.* The cardinal facts to be taken into account, in the investigation of Influx, appear, indeed, sufficiently simple at first sight. But a little refiection serves to reveal their deep significance and marvellous complexity. Stated in broad and general terms, the commerce between the Soul and the Body means (1) the operation of the one upon the other ; and (2) the operation of the one jointly with the other. These constitute the two primary and principal elements of this profound philosophical problem. To have any just and definite conception of the subject, the reader must ever keep these two principles dis tinctly and steadily before his mind. And here, on the very threshold of the inquiry, it will not be without advantage to * See English Psychology (pp. 1 47, 148), for a formal statement of the strange and wild chimerical ' knowledge, ' which is supposed by the partisans of this school to crown the highest speculative efforts of ' the sincere man of science.' The passage here referred to exemplifies, in a manner not to bo mistaken by the most obtuse, the actual character and tendency of that peculiar form of intellectual insanity which, to an extent so alarming, has set its mark on the present age. THE THREE HYPOTHESES. 117 bring together, under one view, some of the leading opinions held by several eminent thinkers who have zealously pursued, with much learning and gTeat ingenuity, some of the higher problems of Psychology. It maybe here observed in passing — and the fact is not with out significance for the future of Philosophy — that the three above-named hypotheses, once so widely celebrated through out Europe, have by no means ceased to engage the attention of ardent investigators in the boundless region of psycho logical research. The bold and brilliant speculations which occupy so large a space in the higher literature of the seven teenth and eighteenth centuries are seldom, indeed, referred to in the present day, save by a comparatively small section of the philosophical world. But the subject itself, in another form, still continues, notwithstanding, to absorb a large share of the public interest. The mode of considering it has, un doubtedly, undergone profound modification within the last quarter of a century. It will, nevertheless, be seen in what follows, that two at least of the hypotheses mentioned above have not yet entirely lost their hold on the attention of the schools. From age to age, in every phase of speculation on such questions, they rise to the surface of the seething ocean of human thought, under one or another new aspect One of these opinions may, indeed, be said to have been relegated, by general consent, to the region of pure philo sophical romance. Pre-established Harmony, name and thing, has apparently ceased for ever to exercise the least influence upon the speculative efforts of any existing school of philosophy. The struggle for existence seems now to lie between the partisans of Peripateticism, wh-ether of the Jesuit or materialistic type, and those who favour that grand coun ter-movement in the direction of an intelleetual and spiritual philosophy inaugurated by Descartes, and elaborated into something hke a system by Jtlalebranehe. The case was far ii8 APPENDIX— NOTE A. otherwise at a comparatively recent date. " Absurd," aaVs Mr, Stewart, " as the hypothesis of a Pre-established Harmony may now appear, not many years have elapsed since it was the prevailing or rather universal creed, among the philo sophers of Germany. ' II fut un temps ' (says the eelebrated Euler) ' 0^ le systeme de I'harmonie pr^-6tablie etoit telle- ment en vogue dans toute I'Allemagne, que eenx qui en doutoient, passoient pour des ignorans, ou des esprits homes.' ... It would be amusing to reckon up the succession of metaphysical creeds which have been since swallowed with the same implicit faith by this learned and speculative, and (in all those branches of knowledge where imagination has no influence over the judgment) profound and inventive nation." * It is plain, from various places in his writings, that Swedenborg was intimately acquainted with the true cha racter and import of each of these three systems. He had studied with care their history and development. AVith his accustomed sagacity he has signalized and de scribed the salient point of each in his own peculiarly terse and incisive manner. In a few carefully chosen and pregnant expressions the radical fault proper to each is laid bare before the reader. He commences with (a) The Scholastic Hypothesis. The fundamental and fatal defect of Physical Influx consists in its being based on that common and most seductive of all forms of fallacy, namely, mistaking the appearance for the reality. It takes its rise in the de ceitful appearances of the senses. The power of this fallacy over the minds of men is proverbial. To use the words of a late Bampton Lecturer,t ' What is reality * Preliminary Dissertation to Eighth Edition of Encyc. Brit., p. 126. ¦J Dean Mansel, Lect. III., p. 87. (Third Ed.) PHYSICAL INFLUX. iig and what is appearance, is the riddle which Philosophy has put forth frorii the birthday of human thought.' . . Judge not according to the appearance, but fudge righteous judgment, is the Divine injunction of Him who is Wisdom itself, and demands our allegiance alike in things inteUec tual and spiritual. Unhappily it is the very fashion of judging, thus expressly forbidden by the only supreme and infallible Authority, that constitutes the main spring and source of what is erroneous and false in our notions of things natural and spiritual. It is this connate tendency to judge according to the appearance that forms the chief cause of the bitter hostility with which every new disclosure of truth is cer tain to be assailed. The ' appearances ' to which Swedenborg specially refers in the text, still continue to exercise a sway so potent over the mass of mankind, including even the learned, as to render it next to impossible for them to grasp the genuine theory of the commerce between the Soul and tiie Body, which it is the express design of the present short treatise to unfold. So true is it that to distinguish, without fallacy, between what really is and that which only seems, is the ever-recurring problem in philosophy. The most sincere thinkers, ancient and modem, have ever felt the necessity of being on the watch against this de ceitful natural bias which leads us to believe as true and real, the mere outward semblance of things, and to trust in and cherish the fallacy that assumes the face of verity. St. Augustine, with his characteristic acuteness of perception and felicity of illustration, thus simply yet strikingly warns his readers against this natural proneness to mistake the shifting shadows of mere sensible impressions for the clear and steady light of real knowledge : — . . . Hindi tur anima similitudinibus rerum, cum approbat ea, quse similia sunt, pro iis quibus similia sunt. , , , Fallitur in visione corporali, cum in ipsis corporibus fieri putat quod APPENDIX— NOTE A. fit in corporis sensibus : sicut navigantibus videntur in terra moveri quje stant, et intuentibus coelum stare sidera quse moventur, et divaricatis radiis oculorum duas lucernEe species apparere, et in aqua remus infractus, et multa hujus- modi. * The learned and religious Port-Royalists, who were, at the same time, ardent lovers of truth, both new and old, according to their lights, make the following significant re ference to the same point, in their excellent treatise on Logic : — ' Since the mind often allows itself to be deceived by false appearances, in consequence of not giving due at- tentian to them, and since there are many things which cannot be known, save by long and difficult examination, it would certainly be useful to have some rules for its guidance, so that the search after truth might be more easy and certain.' f '0 men Sauveur ! ' exclaims the pious and devout Father Malebranche, ' faites-moi toujours bien distinguer le vrai du vraisemblable, et fortifiez mon attention afin que je ne consente jamais k rien avant que j'y sois forc6 par I'^vidence de votre lumifere ou par I'autoritl de votre parole ! Mon corps ap- pesantit mon esprit lorsqu'il s'felfeve aux virites abstraites ;' &c. &c. I In his introduction to The (Economy of the Animal Kingdom Swedenborg prescribes the following rule in reference to this most fruitful source of fallacy : — ' To avoid . , . being misled by appearances, we should never give assent to propositions unless general experience sanctions them, or unless they are declared to be true by the unanimous suffrage of nature • that is to say, unless they form necessary links in the great unbroken chain of ends and means in creation. On this * De Genesi ad lift. Ixii. c. 25. + Port-Royal Logic, p. 6, trans, by T. S. Baynes. (Ed. ISH.) X Meditations ChrUiennes, ix. t. ii. p. 145. PHYSICAL INFLUX. 121 condition alone can an edifice be reared, which after the lapse of ages, and the testimony of thousands of additional discoveries, posterity shall acknowledge to rest upon true foundations ; so that it shall no longer be necessary for each age to be erecting new structures on the ruins of the former.' (Vol. i. p. 7.) Whether, and how far, he has observed the truly rational rule, thus laid down with such admirable clearness, precision, and breadth of view, can be known, most certainly not before, but only after, due inquiry. The facts respecting this point speak for themselves. They flatly contradict the fanciful and reckless assertions of some who assume to be his critics. No mere human writer, belong ing to the past or the present can be named, who has proved himself to have been more deeply alive to the existence of this besetting vice of man's mental nature, or who has more successfully resisted its wily influence. It may, perhaps, interest the general reader, to indicate briefly in this place the basis of fact on which Swedenborg rests the assertion in the text, attributing the origin of the Physical Influx hypothesis to the ancient philosophers and schoolmen. The following passage from Sir William Hamilton might, alone, abundantly suffice for this purpose. It is taken from a note* ' On the Doctrine of Species as held by Aristotle and the Aristotelians.' He thus sets forth, with characteristic clearness and force, the views held by two of the ancient philosophers — Democritus and Epicurus— on the subject in question : — f " The hypothesis, that the immediate object of perception is something different both from the external object and from * Reid\ Works, note M, p. 951. t At the same time he incidentaUy establishes, beyond a doubt, the wide diiference which exists between the philosophy of Aristotle and the form it subsequently assumed among the common herd of his scholastic disciples and corrupters. The latter is a point once and again specially signalized by Swedenborg. APPENDIX— NOTE A. the mind itself, owes its origin, not merely to a metaphysical opinion in regard to the impossibility of an immediate com munication between two substances so opposite as Mind and Matter ; but has been likewise introduced as a physical sup position to account for the communication between the ex ternal object and the mind. And as a physical hypothesis it has been used, not merely in the infancy of natural science, to afford a medium of communication between the external object and the sense ; but it has likewise been employed by some philosophers, who limited the mind to the region of the brain, to connect the intellectual perception with the aifec- tion of the organ. " By Democritus and Epicurus, who both believed only in the existence of Matter, the medium of communication between the organ and the object, and the whole process of sensation and thought, was transacted by the intervention of certain fine images or exuviae (e'lScoXa, un-oppoiat, ajrouTao-fu, exuviae, imagines, species, simulacra rerum), which were con tinually thrown off from the surfaces of bodies. ' Esse ea quae rerum simulacra vocamus. Quae, quasi membranae summo de corpore rerum Dereptae volitant ultro citroque per auras.' (Lucretius, iv. 34.) " This theory found little favour among the other philo sophers of Greece ; and Aristotle, to whom a similar opinion is commonly attributed, contented himself with the observa tion, that the mind obtains a perception of external objects through an impression on the organs of sense, without deter mining the nature of this impression, or explaining the con nection between the sensual affection and the intellectual knowledge. But, although Aristotle had not attempted to expound the origin of our perception of external objects after the manner of Democritus, nevertheless the greater number of those who professed themselves his followers, deceived by MALEBRANCHE AND SCHOLASTICISM. 123 a mistaken interpretation of his language, and believing, as their master had taught, that all sensation was a passive affection of the mind, [held] that, consequently, it was necessary to suppose, for the causes of this affection, — more especially where the object was at a distance from the sense — certain efiiuxes from the object, which, penetrating the organ, might affect the soul, and determine it to a mediate and re presentative perception of the outward reality.'' Malebranche, as is well known, opposed with all his force the notion so widely prevalent in his time, and which con stituted the principal element in the scholastic hypothesis of Physical Influx, namely, that material objects transmitted species which were resemblances of themselves. He thus states, in his own concise and limpid language, the charac teristic feature of the Peripatetic doctrine of peiception, as held, almost universally, by his enemies and persecutors - the Jesuits : — ' La plus commune opinion est celle des p6ripat6ticiens, qui pretendent que les objets de dehors envoyent des especes qui leur ressemblent, et que ces espSces sont port^es, par les sens extMeurs, jusqu'au sens commun ; ils appellent ces especes-1^ impresses parce que les objets les impriment dans les sens exterieurs. Ces especes impresses, 6tant mat6- rielles et sensibles, sont rendues intelligibles par Vintellect agent ou agissant, et sont propres pour ^tre regues dans Vintellect patient. Ces especes, ainsi spiritualisees, sont appellees espSces expresses, parce qu'elles sont exprimles des impresses : et c'est par elles que Vintellect patient connait toutes les choses materielles.' ' On ne s'arrete pas k expliquer plus au long ces belles choses et les diverses manieres dont differents philosophes les congoivent. Car, quoiqu'ils ne conviennent pas dans le nombre des facult^s qu'ils attribuent au sens interieur et a I'entendement, et meme qu'il y en ait beaucoup qui 124 APPENDIX— NOTE A. doutent fort qu'ils ayent besoin d'un intellect agent pour connaitre les objets sensibles, cependant ils conviennent presque tons que les objets de dehors envoient des especes ou des images qui leur ressemblent ; et ce n'est que sur ce fondement qu'ils multiplient leurs facult^s et qu'ils de- fendent leur intellect agent' * In the phrase ' espSces spiritualisees,' significantly used by Malebranche in the above, is contained the fundamental error of Physical Influx. Such a spiritualizing process — like the ' travail m^tabolique des cellules ganglionnaires ' of a modem French Physiologist, t that is to say, a conversion of the material into the spiritual — is altogether impossible, be cause contrary to the laws of Divine Order. This fallacy, which is most pernicious in its theological consequences, has been rendered popular by the poetic genius of Milton, in the passage in which he makes his imaginary angel assert of the ' one first matter ' that it was — ' ' Indued with various forms, various degrees Of substance, and in things that live, of life ; But more refined, more spirituous, and pure, As nearer to Him placed, or nearer tending, ' Each in their several active spheres assigned, TUl body up to spirit work,t in bounds Proportioned to each kind." The following lucid account of the Scholastic doctrine of ' Species ' is here given in full, mainly for the sake of the principle enunciated in the concluding sentence, which, apart from its context, would have been unintelligible to most readers. The ability of the summary will, perhaps, be some apology for its length. It affords, moreover, an ex- * Malebranche, De la Recherche de la Veriti, t. i. pp. 103, 104. t Luys, Recherches sur le Systime Nerveux, p. 345. J Cf Luys, ibid. , p. 346, where this writer assigns various imaginary functions to the Thalami Optici, and endeavours to show how they at last become ' progressivement les agents spiritualises de I'activite des cellules cdrdbrales. ' SPECIES OF THE SCHOOLMEN. 125 cellent illustration of ' ces belles choses,' to which Male branche above alludes, and which he considered unnecessary to describe in detail. "According to the opinion which generally prevailed among the Peripatetic philosophers of the middle ages, our faculties of knowledge required for their activity a certain representative medium, different both from the mind itself and from the external object of thought. These intermediate and vicarious objects were called Intentional Species ; Species (formae, similitudines, simulacra, idola), because they repre sented the object to the mind — intentional, to express the relative and accidental nature of their manifestation. These intentional species were held to be the formal or virtual similitudes of their object, and which likeness they impressed on the particular faculty of knowledge to which they be longed, whether that faculty were the intellect or the sense, and whether the sense were the external or internal. " These Species were distinguished, both in the intellect aud in the sense, either as species impressae or as species expressae. A species impressa was the vicarious existence itself, as emitted by the object, as impressed on the parti cular faculty, and as concurring with that faculty in its operation. A species expressa was the operation itself, elicited by the faculty and the impressed species together ; that is, a perception or an intellection, as including both the object and the act. The species impressa was the partial cause of the cognition as co-operating with the mind ; the species expressa was the result and consummation of the act : the former was to the mind the virtual, the latter the ibrmal, similitude of the object. A species fitted to afl'ect the sense, was called a sensible species (species sensibilis) : it proceeded immediately from the object, either by instan taneous transition or by continuous propagation, to the sense ; and, if not altogether immaterial, was of an inter- 126 APPENDIX— NOTE A. mediate nature between matter and spirit. . . . The species of the intellect were called intelligible species (species inteUi- gibiles), and were altogether immaterial. " The intellect was twofold — the Active (agens), and the Passive or Possible (passibilis, patiens, vel possibilis), which a few held to be distinct principles, many to be distinct powers, and some to be the same power manifested in different relations. The function of the Active Intellect was, on occasion of the species in the internal senses, to fabricate from itself species impressae for the Passive Intellect. These intelligible species were not, however, formed or abstracted from the phantasmata or sensible species, because the intellect, as wholly immaterial and not conversant about matter, as it could not contemplate, so it could not fabricate from the material species of the internal senses, an im material species proportioned to its nature and qualified to concur in an act of intelleetual knowledge. "By a conversion of the Active Intellect towards the phan tasms or sensible species, a certain similitude of the external object, abstracted from its individual conditions, is occa sioned in the Passive Intellect, which similitude constitutes its impressed species, — the species intelligihilis impressa. It was the common opinion that intelligible species were wholly the work of the mind itself The functiofi of the Passive or Possible Intellect is to receive the species impressae from the Active Intellect, and to co-operate with them unto a perfect act of knowledge — an intellection — a species intelli- gibilis expressa. It was not, therefore, called passive, as if without an energy, but as receiving the species produced by the Active Intellect, by which, as it were impregnated,* it * This peculiar expression obviously contains the dominating fallacy in the system of Physical Influx. By some imaginary and occult process material images are supposed to be transformed into intellectual percep tions. ARISTOTLE'S PSYCHOLOGY. 127 could produce 83. The author's own italics have been preserved throughout. + See Ibid., t. iv. ch. 2, passim, in which a summary exposition of the various systems of the union between the soul and the body is given. Cf . *,,. iii. ch. 6, ou the activity (spontaneity) of bodily substances. BODY AND SPIRIT. 131 which, when well considered, will be seen to involve the whole question at issue as between the Schoolmen and Descartes, namely, the opinion which attributes to one and the same soul, sensible acts and intellectual operations. The learned Jesuit thus remarks on this subject : — ' Des cartes se B^pare des partisans de cette opinion en ce qu'il ne voit pas dans la vegetation une fonction vitale proprcment dito, mais .seulemeut un mouvement mlcanique, et qu'il enseigne plus nettement que I'ame sent bien dans le corps, mais non avec le corps.'* In this passage Father Kleutgen is obviously referring to a characteristic principle of Cartesianism, namely, that the body, as such, is dead, and that the soul alone lives. Dismissing, for the present, the question as to which of the two views under discussion is the correct one, and fixing the attention on the above distiuction, one fundamental contrast between Scholasticism and the philosophy inaugurated by Descartes, comes fully into view. It is, indeed, a salient point in the controversy. The distinction taken by the French philosopher with such absolute precision, between dead matter and the living soul, is, moreover, essential to the existence of a genuine rational psychology. But the admission of this principle on the part of the Scholastics would be altogether fatal to the entire scheme of Physical Influx, which it is the learned Jesuit's chief object to defend. Hence his earnest and subtle pleading for the Scholastic figment of a plastic activity inherent in the organism. ' C'est,' he observes, ' une these generalement admise de nos jours qu'on ne pent, avec Descartes, regarder la nature -comme une masse morte et inerte qui soit divisee et mise eu mouvement par le dehors.' f * La Philosophie Scolastique, t. iv. p. 57. + Ibid., t. iii. p. 275. K 2 132 APPENDIX— NOTE A. In the same work, the Peripatetic view is given with unusual directness and force, in an attempt to defend a notion advauoed by Thomas Aijuinas, to the effect that it is not repugnant to the nature of a spiritual substance to be the form of the body ; since this only means that, in relation to the body, it is the principle of those perfections through the instrumentality of which the body has some resemblance to the spirit, and is a being at once actual, subsistent, corporeal, living, and sensitive. This purely imaginary notion however, is not sufficient for the requirements of Scholasticism, whatever be the special sense in which it may be taken. ' Les scolastiques,' says Father Kleutgen, with the utmost frankness, 'vont plus loin et disent que I'ame forme de la matiere un tel corps non par une simple operation, mais par une union qui fait d'elle et du corps un seul ^tre, et qu'elle est dans le corps comme dans son sujet. Ce n'est pas assez. Ils soutiennent meme que I'ame est la forme du corps en lui communiquant son propre etre. Or une telle communication est absolument impossible ; car elle ferait ou du corps une substance spiritu elle ou de I'ame un principe materiel. ' Nous repondons : De cette communication on ne pent conclure qu'une seule chose, c'est que le corps et I'ame deviennent une meme nature humaine ; car I'etre lequel I'un et l'autre subsiste est I'Stre humain.' * Now it is obvious that the reply contained in the con cluding passage of the above statement in no wise meets the objection which immediately precedes it. The real question has, in fact, been wholly evaded. A term is invented under which the error is concealed. An appeal, as usual in such cases, is made to the ' system of ignorance.' A bar is thUs put upon all further inquiry. Refuge is taken in an occult * Kleutgen, La Philosophie Scolastique, t. iv. pp. 118, 119. Cf I'nd., p. 57. SCHOLASTIC NATURALISM. 133 quality, whereby the mind becomes enchained in the prison- house of a self-imposed nescience. The authority on which this ' darkening of counsel by words without knowledge ' is at last made to rest, is the following passage from Thomas Aquinas which his Jesuit disciple reproduces in a note : — Habet anima esse subsistens, in quantum esse suum non dependet a corpore, utpote supra materiam corporalem ele- vatum ; et tamen ad hujus esse communionem recipit corpus, ut sic sit unum esse animae et corporis, quod est esse hominis.* In the dictum of the ' Angel of the Schools ' here given, lies the gist and marrow of the entire controversy touching Physical Influx. It is plain that the system necessarily results in pure naturalism. It endeavours, in the interests of a certain theological hypothesis, by means of reasoning the most subtle, to materialize spirit, and spiritualize matter. It would thus envelope the entire subject in the thick dark ness of ' a fundamental and final mystery from which we cannot escape.' In this way it has come to pass that, regarded from the Scholastic point of view, soul and body have been confounded, and deprived of their peculiar and distinctive characteristics, under cover of such unmeaning phrases as ' one human nature,' ' unum esse hominis.' Against sophistical teaching of this kind the new philosophy of the seventeenth century was a noble and to some extent a successful protest. Descartes and his followers have, in no small degree, succeeded in breaking the power of the vulgar Scholasticism. But as the source of this false principle has its roots deep in human nature, the monster must needs appear in another form. The Sensation Philosophy of our time is, strange to say, merely a masked Scholasticism, f In reference to the doctrine of perception there exists a true * Q,ucest. Disp. de Spir. Great. , a,. 2 ad 3. t This singular fact deserves most careful study at the present time. It has received a remarkable and, no doubt, quite unintentional illus- 134 APPENDIX— NOTE A. and curious kinship between the views of Aquinas and hia Jesuit expositor on the one hand, and those advocated by writers as Bain, Mill, and Spencer on the other. This, the following extracts from a recent work on English Psy chology clearly prove. According to the system of Mr. Herbert Spencer, as sum marized in that work, ' the first result of the law of con tinuity is that there is no precise line of demarcation between physiological and psychological facts, and that every abso lute distinction is illusory. Sensations, sentiments, instincts, intelligence, all constitute a world apart ; but which comes out of the animal world, in which it is rooted, of which it is, as it were, the efflorescence. Between the most humble func tion and the most lofty thought there is no opposition of tration in the following curious passage from the pen of an enthusiastic Jesuit partisan of Scholasticism, in whose opinion all systems, except that which he so ardently advocates, are absurd and impious . In exposing the errors of the materialists, this fervid writer ironi cally remarks: — " 'D'aprfis nos maltres et nos oracles il nous, I'ilme, n'est qu'une etincelle de feu, ou une goutte de sang, ou un atome, de la meme nature que les atomes qui ferment le corps. La matiere subtilisee, ou a I'^tat de vapeur ou de fluide adriforme, voila I'dme ; la matiere grossiere, lourde et a I'^tat d'inertie, voUS, le corps. Or rien n'est plus simple ni plus naturel que Taction mutuelle de ces deux portions de matiere, oombinees dans I'homme ; car ne voit-on pas h, chaque instant, par exemple, le feu chauffant Tair, et I'air alimen- tant le feu ? C'est de la m6me maniSre que les choses se passent entre I'ame et le corps ; et, par leur influx ou par leur activity propre, la matidre-ame agit aussi simplement, aussi natureUement sur la matiere- corps que la matiere-corps sur la matiere-ame ; et voil4 tout. Dieu n'a rien k faire dans I'uuiformite des mouvements intSrieurs et extSrieurs do I'homme, ni le rdve des causes occasionelles non plus.' C'est sur ces prineipes et sur ces autoritfe que I'ecole anglaise a etabli son systfeme ma- terialiste de Xinflux physique, et que, par des utopies mat&iaUstes, plus extravagantes et plus dangereuses encore, elle a fait justice des extrava- gantes et dangereuses utopies spiritualistes de I'ecole fraufaise et aUe- raande, touchant I'homme." {La Philosophie ChrUienne, par Le Pere Ventura de Raulica, vol. ii. p. 199.) j SENSATION PHILOSOPHY. 135 nature, but there is diff'erence in degree, each being only one of the innumerable manifestations of life. ' The life of the body and mental life are species, of which life, properly so called, is the genus.' (Principles of Psychology.) . . . Vulgar psychology separates the thinking being from its mecha nism, thus reducing itself to (an) abstraction, experimental psychology never separates these two terms. Between the external and the internal world there is a constant and necessary correspondence. It is only by the action of the without on the within, and by the reaction of the within on the without, that mental life is possible.' * To the rational psychologist this passage presents a mass of mere fallacies and gratuitous assertions. What is meant is clear, namely, to advocate au absolute identity of nature between what is here called 'the life of the body,' and ' mental life.' In accord with the formula of Kleutgen, these two are held to be ' une meme nature humaine ; ' or, in the still more definite language of his master Aquinas, ' unum esse animae et corporis, quod est esse hominis.' The terminology of the English naturalistic psychologist is, indeed, adapted with much adroitness to the needs of his . chimerical hypothesis, but it is virtually the Scholastic figment of Physical Infiux in another form. Thus the Jesuit and the non-Christian Sensationalist are both able to plead, each from his respective point of view, in behalf of ' a law of continuity' which denies the existence of any precise line of demarcation between spirit and matter. Both schemes manifestly result in mere naturalism. The true character of the so-called English Psychology is seen in its doctrine respecting Sensation, as indicated in what follows : — - "Sensation is a composite phenomenon. But what is its primordial element 1 Can it be discovered 1 * See English Psychology, p. 149. 136 APPENDIX— NOTE A. " Mr. Herbert Spencer believes that it can. ' The last unit of consciousness is what we may call a nervous slwcJc.'"* The paralogism by means of which this clever and versa tile writer attempts to prove that a blow may be taken for the primitive and typical form of the nervous shock — which, in his opinion, is ' the last unit of consciousness ' — stands almost without parallel in the history of human speculation. By the side of a fancy so wild and lawless, common-sense, in its crudest form, is worthy of the name of wisdom. Comment on such vagaries are not needed. We call a nettle but a nettle, and The faults of fools but folly. Again, it is said that ' The only primitive and irreducible psychological fact is Sensation.' The school of experimental psychology, of which this is declared to be a fundamental principle, ' recognizes in mind a proper spontaneity which elaborates and transforms materials which come from without j but this spontaneity has its root in the organism, especially in the constitution of tlie nervous system.' f The same principle is inculcated in its lowest and grossest form by such writers as the following, who have at least the merit of expressing their views with the utmost openness and candour : — ' Pour soutenir la thSse des idees innees, on a essayg de faire servir de preuve les animaux en disant : les animaux ont les sens tels que I'homme et souvent encore plus subtils, et restent pourtant des animaux. Cette objection n'est qu'ap- parente. Les sens ne produisent pas immediatement, ils ne sont que les mediateurs des qualites intellectuelles, ils trans- * See English Psychology, p. 152. •\ Ibid., pp. 324—326. PHYSIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 137 mettent les impressions exterieures au cerveau, qui les regoit, les eiabore et les reproduit en raison de son gnergie materielle ; tout ce precede ne peut se faire sans les sens, et toute con naissance intellectuelle a par consequent sou origine dans les sens ; mais les sens les plus subtils ne peuvent rien dans tout ce precede, si-l'appareil de la pensee est vicieux dans son organisation.' * In a recently published physiologico-psychological trea tise a similar doctrine seems to be openly taught, as far as the author's special mode of treating his subject would permit. It is there contended that the two agencies, namely, the Mental and Corporeal, ' must both be accepted as fundamental facts of Man's composite nature, which can only be viewed aright in their mutual relation.' To this conclusion, it is alleged, intelligent and independent thinkers are, in general, couverging. The late Charles Buxton is given as a ' type ' of this class of thinkers. Con vinced of ' the necessity of no longer attempting to keep apart in our Scientific investigations that which Nature (^) has so inseparably united,' the latter thus expresses himself on this point : ' Irresistible, undeniable facts demonstrate that man is not a den wherein two enemies are chained together ; but one being — that soul and body are one — one and indivisible. We had better face this great fact. 'Tis no good to blink it. Our knowledge of Physiology has come to a point where the old idea of Man's constitution must be thrown aside. To struggle against the overwhelming force of science, under the notion of shielding religion, is mere folly.' t * Buchner. Farce a Matiere, pp. 167, 168. Ed. Septieme, 1863. t Notes of Thought, p. 266. Quoted in Dr. Carpenter's Principles of Mental Physiology (Pref pp. xi. xii.) The substantial identity between the opinion here formulated so definitely, and that maintained by the Jesuit Father Kleutgen and Thomas Aquinas, as given above (p. 133), is 138 APPENDIX— NOTE A. On the above statement the author of the interesting work, from which it is taken, grounds the following appeal to hia readers in behalf of this essentially Scholastic and naturalistic notion of man's unity and indivisibility : — " These well-con sidered conclusions of a deeply religious mind may be specially commended to the consideration of those, who may be disposed to condemn without examination anything that savours of a ' Materialism ' which they have been accustomed to regard as philosophically absurd and morally detestable. And those who assume that a Physiological Psychology strikes at the root of Morals and Religion, may be fearlessly asked to show in what a system which leaves the Will of Man free to make the best use he can of the Intellectual and Moral Capacities with which his Bodily Organism has been endQwed by his Creator, and which gives him the strongest and noblest motives both for Self-discipline and for Philan thropic exertion, is unworthy of the nature and destiny of the being whose creation ' in the image of God ' can have no higher meaning than his capacity for infinite progress." * To the calm, keen, searching glance of Malebranche, even in the dim light of his own obscure hypothesis, the pernicious fallacies involved in such speculations were openly manifest. Again and again he lays bare their flimsy character, so as to be seen by any mind ' not trammelled by System or obscured by the dust that has been so continually raised in philo sophical discussion.' In proof of this it may sufhce to quote one of the numberless places in his brilliant and beautiful essays in which he shows the absurdity implied in the notion of a 'corporeal agency,' that is to say, in the supposition manifest. Soul and body are said to be ' one being,' ' one and indivisible, ' ' une mSine nature humaine,' unum esse animae et corporis, quod est esse hominis. * See Dr. Carpenter's Mental Phydol. , Pref. p. xii. DEAD MATTER. 139 that dead matter could be endowed with any sort of inherent virtue : — 'Je Congo is bien que les corps, en conse'quence de cer- taines lois naturelles, peuvent agir sur notre esprit en ce sens, que leurs modalites determinent I'efficace des volontes divines ou des lois generales de I'uniou de fame et du corps ; ce que je vous expliquerai bient&t. Mais que les corps puis- sent recevoir en eux-m^mes une certaine puissance, par I'efficace de laquelle ils puissent agir dans I'esprit, c'est ce que je ne comprends pas ; oar que serait-ce que cette puis sance ? Serait-ce une substance ou une modalite % Si c'est une substance, les corps n'agiront point, mais cette substance dans les corps. Si cette puissance est une modality, voila done une modalite dans les corps qui ne sera ni mouvement ni figure. L'etendue pourra avoir d'autres modalites que des rapports de distance.' ''' It will be found by all enlightened and sincere Christian philosophers that any attempt to regard matter as inherently possessing a self-active force co-ordinate with mind, renders a just conception both of matter and spirit an utter impos sibility. It leads, by inevitable consequence, to that Naturalism and Materialism which true philosophy will for ever reject, and which no Christian, deserving the name, can look upon as other than 'morally detestable,' in presence of all laws Divine and human. A careful study of this single passage will render it evident that the spiritually-minded Oratorian was well ¦aware of the purely naturalistic character of the Scholastic philosophy. From the dilemma thus definitely and precisely put, the Schoolmen, with all their ingenuity, have never been able to escape. Nor would it be easy to state with greater clearness and force the principal point of the discussion as * Ma;cbranche, Enirciiens, YIL, § ii. 140 APPENDIX— NOTE A. between the Cartesians and their subtle opponents. In presence of such a difficulty the partisan of Peripateticism seeks in vain to save his system by betaking himself to that common refuge of all perplexed and despairing advocates of irrational systems — mystery. As a typical instance of this mode of conducting a Theologico-philosophical con troversy, reference may be made to the work of a learned Jesuit, a professor in the Roman College, who clearly saw and felt the difficulty raised by Malebranche. The following is his frank but futile attempt to reply : — 'Ahquid semper,' he says, ' hac in re debet remanere impervium ; est enim m,ys- terium quoddam naturale, cujus ratio adaequata in sola lege extrinseca Auctoris naturae quaerenda est.'* In this way a mystery of man's own making is turned into a pretext, more scholastico, for putting an end to all further philosophical investigation of the subject; while another writer of the same school denounces, in a tone of arrogance and menace not to be mistaken, the laborious and laudable attempts which are being made by the Ontological school in his own religious communion, to elevate the mind of Christian Europe above the low level of the gross naturalism in which it now lies. The new Christian Puilosophy he arrogantly declares to be 'quandam excogitationem ^ro/'SM« ?20i;am, quae omnino proinde delenda est.' f Talibus ex adyto dictis CumEea Sibylla Horrendas canit ambages, antroque remugit, Obsouris vera involvens. That the principle which lies at the base of the modern ' Sensation Philosophy,' ' Experimental Psychology,' and similar systems, is in spirit and intent at one with Scholasticism has been expressly signalized by a recent writer, who worthily * Dmowski, Institutiones Philosophicae, vol. ii. p. 199 (Ed. Lovan. 1840.) t Lepidi, Examen Philosophico-Theologicum de Owtologismo, p. 285. (Ed. Lovan. 1874.) ONTOLOGISM AND PERIPATETICISM. \\\ represents the true spirit of the New Philosophy. As in the seventeenth century, so in the nineteenth, enUghtened reason revolts against the false system of Physical Influx, or Peripateticism, whether in its ancient or its modem form. The Abbe Fabre, in his courageous and able defence of what perhaps may be termed Christian Cartesianism, has accurately described the character and tendency of that hypothesis which, as already shown, Swedenborg rightly attributes to the ancient philosophers and schoolmen. This learned and indefatigable labourer in the interests of Chris tian philosophy in France, does not scruple to stigmatize the system — advocated by his Jesuit opponent in a small work bearing the significant title De l'unite dans V enseignement de la Philosophie — as being " une espece de peripatetisme, qui nous amfenerait infalliblement k nous enfermer dans la sensation avec Condillac, et a nous en tenir au positivisme de M. Taine. II proteste sans doute centre ' I'abject sen- sualisme de Locke et de Condillac ; ' mais ses intentions ne peuvent rien centre la marche logique du systeme, et son peripatetisme, s'il est consequent, supprime la metaphysique et nous jette dans le materialisme." * The same writer, in his recently published Cours de Philo sophie, makes some observations on the special point now under consideration, so apposite and significant as perhaps to excuse their being here reproduced. ' Les disciples du Stagirite,' says the learned and candid Abbe, ' se divisent en trois groupes qui se perdent dans les ;d)imes de la sophistique.' In the third class are to be found, he says, those who admit of nothing in the human soul but sensation. He proceeds : — ' ils rendent, des-lor.s, cette ame incapable d'aucune pensee, puisque, dans toute pensee, il y a unobjet eternel et independant des sensations ; * Defense de V Ontologisme, par M. L'Abbe Fabre, Pref pp. iii. iv. 142 APPENDIX— NOTE A. ceux-lfi s'egarent dans le scepticiame intellectuel, c'est-i-dire dans le materialisme de Leucippe, de Democrite, d'Epicure, de Hobbes, de Holbach, de Taine, et de Littre. D'un c6te, les peripateticiens se debattent done vainement centre le pantheisme ; celui-ci les deborde et les envahit malgre leurs protestations. De l'autre cote, le principe sensuahste de la theorie d' Aristote desespere les ames humaines et les noie dans le monde des corps : le dernier mot de cette philosophie est la formule materialiste la plus nette qui se puisse donner.''* In what immediately follows the above trenchant exposure of the real character of Scholasticism, language still more hostile to this system is quoted as employed by the Abbe Seni, even in Rome itself The whole passage is deeply instructive, in presence of the unprecedented political and theological movements that have taken place in Europe during the last ten years. Condillac gave to France his biassed and perverted reading of the system taught by Locke. The fundamental principle of the Frenchman's scheme may be seen in the following extract : — ' Locke,' says Condillac, ' distingue deux sources de nos idees, les sens et la r6flexion. II seroit plus exact de n'en reconnoitre qu'une, soit parce que la reflexion n'est dans son principe que la sensation m^me, soit parce qu'elle est moins la source des idees, que le canal par lequel elles decoulent des sens. ' Cette inexactitude, quelque legere qu'elle paroisse, re- pand beaucoup d'obscurite dans son systeme ; car elle le met dans I impuissance d'en d6velopper les prineipes.' f Reflection, according to Condillac, is only another name for attention. But what is attention % It is only another * Cours de Philosophie, t. ii. pp. 558, 559 (Paris, 1867). ¦f CondiUac, Traiti des Senmlions, pp. 468, 469. SENSATIONALISM OF CONDILLAC. 143 form of sensation. ' L'attention . . . est comme une lumi^re qui reflechit d'un corps sur un autre pour les eclairer tons deux, et je' I'appelle reflexion. La sensation, aprls avoir ete attention, comparaison, jugement, devient done encore la reflexion meme.' * The Train des Sensations flrst made its appearance in 1746, three years after the opening of Swedenborg's spiritual sight. It was a worthy precursor of the moral and spiritual deluge which was so soon to overwhelm the devoted nation to which it was addressed. The soil was thoroughly suited for the reception of such noxious seed. In the words of the author, ' Cette tentative parut neuve et eut quelque succes.' This, unhappily, was only too true. To the influence of that small treatise, in which the degrading doctrine of Sensualism was carried out to its last limit, in which was advocated the gross falsity that ideas are nothing but transformed sensa tions, must be attributed no mean share in preparing the way for the advent of the terrible national cataclysm which so soon followed. t With the mere naturalism of Condillac may be compared * Traiti de Sensations, p. 473. t In a passage fuU of instruction and warning for aU who take an interest in the grave question of public education, M. De Bonald has clearly indicated the manner in which the subtle intellectual poison con tained in the writings of CondUlac found their way into the French mind. 'Condillac,' says this enlightened thinker, 'aeu sur I'esprit philoso phique du dernier siecle, rintiuence que Voltaire i. prise sur I'esprit religieux, et J. J. Rousseau sur les opinions poUtiques. CondUlac a mis de la s^cheresse et de la minutie dans les esprits ; Voltaire du penchant a la raiUerie et i, la frivolite ; Rousseau les a rendus chagrins et mecontens . . . . CondiUac a encore plus fausse I'esprit de la nation, parceque sa doctrine etoit enseign^e dans les premieres etudes S, des jeunes gens qui n'avoient encore Iu ni Rousseau ni Voltaire, et que la maniere de raisonner et la direction philosophique de I'esprit s'et^ndent a tout' (Re- rlierches Phil., t. i. pp. 187, 188. Quoted in Prelim. Dissert, to Encyc. lirilan., p. 177, note.) 144 APPENDIX— NOTE A. the following recent deliverance on the subject of a so-called ' Physical Causation of mental action,' from the pen of a distinguished physiologist who rejects as exploded errors ' those older notions of the essential independence of Mind and Body, which a truly philosophical Psychology can no longer accept as consistent with the fundamental facts of our composite nature.'* 'Nothing can be more certain,' says Dr. Carpenter, 'than that the primary form of Mental activity — Sensational con sciousness, — is excited through Physiological instrumen tality.' After describing the physiological changes which take place in the formation of a luminous image upon the retina, the writer proceeds to sa.y :— ' Now in what way the physical change thus excited in the Sensorium is translated (so to speak) into that psychical change which we call seeing the object whose image was formed upon our Retina, we know nothing whatever ; but we are equally ignorant of the way in which Light produces Chemical change and Chemical change excites Nerve-force : all we can say is, there is just as close a succession of sequences — as intimate a causal relation between antecedent and consequent — in the one case, as there is in the other. In other words, there is just the same evidence of what has been termed Correlation, between Nerve-force and that primary state of Mental activity which we call Sensation, that there is between Light and Nerve-force ^—e^^ah. antecedent, when the Physiological mechanism is in working order, being invariably followed by its con-esponding consequent.' f Rash and unqualified assertions like the above, respecting what this writer is pleased to call ' exploded errors,' only serve to show the superficial and perfunctory manner iu * Principles of Ment. Physiol., p. 140. t Ibid., pp. 12, 13. COMMON SENSE AND NATURALISM. 145 which those who venture to make them have observed the facts in question. Men of science who write thus, from the stand-point of mere Physiology, overlook a fundamental principle which must needs be conceded in all truly rational investigations bearing on the present subject. Apart from all hypotheses, the real existence of two totally distinct and opposite orders of being, spirit and matter, must be granted at the outset. For the truth of this Catholic principle of Philosophy the unsophisticated Intuition or Common Sense of mankind is a sufficient voucher.'* With those who call in question its deliverances Swedenborg holds no argument. He well knew, as in the case of Kant, that it would be worse than useless to attempt to reason with the votaries of the various delusions which usurp the venerable and sacred name of Philosophy. This is not the proper place to examine in detail the series of mere assertions contained in the above extract. It may be remarked, however, that the language employed is, to say the least, strangely deficient in that accuracy and precision which might reasonably have been expected in a professedly scientific exposition of a most abstruse subject. On due con sideration it will be found to be far from hypercritical to object to the phrase ' primary form ' as applied to what the author terms Sensational Gonscioustiess. The expression ' lowest or most external form ' would correctly express the fact But passing over this, an error of the gravest character * Those who stand in need of testimony on a point so elementary, may possibly read with profit Sir William Hamilton's learned Dissertation