journey into Italy, and stayed a year at Venice and Rome.

With respect to my family connexions: I had four sisters. One of them was married to Eric Benzelius, afterwards promoted to the Archbishoprick of Upsal; and thus I became related to the two succeeding Archbishops of that see, both named Benzelius, and younger brothers of the former. My second sister was married to Lars Benzelstierna, who was promoted to a provincial government. But all these are dead; however, two bishops who are related to me are still living one of them, named Filenius, is Bishop of East Gothland, and now officiates as president of the Ecclesiastical Order in the Diet at Stockholm, in the room of the Archbishop, who is infirm; he married my sister's daughter; the other, named Benzelstierna, is Bishop of Westmania and Dalecarlia; he is the son of my second sister. Not to mention others of my relations who enjoy stations of dignity. I live, besides, on terms of familiarity and friendship with all the bishops of my country, who are ten in number ; as also with the sixteen senators and the rest of the nobility; for they know that I am in fellowship with angels. The king and queen, also, and the three princes their sons, show me much favor: I was once invited by the king and queen to dine at their table, an honor which is in general granted only to the nobility of the highest rank; and likewise, since, with the hereditary prince. They all wish for my return home; for so far am I from being in any danger of persecution in my own country, as you seem to apprehend, and so kindly wish to provide against; and should anything of the kind befall me elsewhere, it cannot hurt me.

'But I regard all that I have mentioned as matters of respectively little moment; for, what far exceeds

them, I have been called to a holy office by the Lord himself, who most graciously manifested himself in person to me his servant in the year 1745; when he opened my sight to the view of the spiritual world, and granted me the privilege of conversing with spirits and angels, which I enjoy to this day. From that time I began to print and publish various arcana that have been seen by me or revealed to me; as respecting heaven and hell, the state of man after death, the true worship of God, the spiritual sense of the Word; with many other most important matters conducive to salvation and true wisdom. The only reason of my later journeys to foreign countries has been the desire of being useful, by making known the arcana entrusted to me.

'As to this world's wealth, I have what is sufficient: and more I neither seek nor wish for.*

Your letter has drawn the mention of these things from me, with the view, as you suggest, that any illgrounded prejudices may be removed. Farewell; and from my heart I wish you all felicity both in this world and the next; which I make no doubt of your attaining, if you look and pray to our Lord.

· EMANUEL Swedenborg.'

We now proceed to notice the principal philosophical works of our author.

*This remark is in answer to an offer by Mr. Hartley, to supply him with money, should he have occasion for it.

2

THE Philosophical and Mineral works (Opera Philosophica et Mineralia) were published at Dresden and Leipsic, in 1734, in three volumes folio, about four hundred pages each. These are three distinct works, each treating upon different subjects, and dedicated to different men; but they were published together, and were always alluded to by Swedenborg as one work. It was published in very elegant style at the expense of the Duke of Brunswick, at whose court Swedenborg tarried for some time, receiving from him many marks of favor. The first volume is entitled, The Principles of Natural Things, or, New Attempts at a Philosophical Explanation of the Phenomena of the Elementary World, (Principia Rerum Naturalium, sive, Novorum Tentaminum Phænomena Mundi Elementaris Philosophice Explicandi.) This is generally called the Principia. It is dedicated to Ludovicus Rodolphus, Duke of Brunswick, has an engraved likeness of Swedenborg, and is adorned with numerous fine engravings and copperplates, illustrative of the subjects treated of.

The Principia may be regarded as a treatise on cosmology. The author attempts to arrive at the cause and origin of the phenomena of the universe by a mode of inquiry peculiar to himself. He asserts that nature, in all its operations, is governed by one and the same general law, and is always consistent

with itself; hence, he says, there is no necessity in exploring her hidden recesses, to multiply experiments and observations. The means leading to true philosophy are represented as threefold. Firstly, knowledge of facts, or experimental observations, which he calls experience. Secondly, an orderly arrangement of these facts or phenomena, which is called geometry, or rational philosophy. Thirdly, the faculty of reasoning, by which is meant the ability to analyze, compare and combine, these phenomena, after they have been reduced to order, and to present them distinctly to the mind. We here make an extract for the purpose of giving a specimen of his style at this period. Speaking of the futility of multiplying experiments and observations to the neglect of attending to their causes, he says:

Nature may be styled a labyrinth, whose intricacies you are anxious to explore. Fruitless would be the attempt to wander through its meandering turns, and note the dimensions of all its ways; the difficulty would but grow the more inextricable, you would pursue your footsteps in a circle; and recognise the self-same spot, when most elated by the prospect of success. But would you gain with ease, and possibly by the shortest road, the exit of the labyrinth, reject then the senseless wish of exploring all its turns rather plant yourself at any intersection of its paths, strive to ascertain somewhat of its general form from the ways which you have trodden, and thus in some degree retrace your steps. When once you have gained the exit, a mere thread can serve to guide you through all its circuitous tracks, and to retrace your errors; but even this, after a time, you may cast aside, and wander fearlessly without it. Then, as if seated on an eminence, and at a glance surveying the scene which lies before you, how would

you smile in tracing out its various breaks and contortions, which have baffled the judgment by multiplied and illusive intersections. But let us now return to the phenomena, and leave similitudes for the subject itself. By too great an accumulation of phenomena, and especially of those which are at a distance from their cause, you not only defeat the desire of scrutinizing the occult operations of nature, but plunge yourself more and more as into a labyrinth, where you are perpetually drawn aside from the end in view, and misled into a distant and contrary region. For it is possible that many things of opposite natures may exist from the same first cause; as fire and water, and air which absorbs them both.'

It is maintained by our author that no one can become a true philosopher who is not a good man. Previous to the fall, he says, when man was in a state of integrity, he had all the essentials of wisdom and true philosophy inscribed on his heart: he had then only to open his eyes in order to see the causes of all the phenomena of the universe around him: but in his present state of sin and non-conformity with Divine order, he is obliged to investigate truths by a laborious external application of the mind. On this subject he says:

'No man seems capable of arriving at true philosophy, since that first of mortals who is said to have been in a state of the most perfect integrity, that is, who was formed and made according to all the art, image and connexion of the world before the existence of vice. One reason why man in a state of integrity was made a complete philosopher, was, that he might better know how to venerate the Deity, the origin of all things, or that Being who is all in all. For no man can be a complete and truly learned philosopher, without the utmost devotion for the Su