is good. Such science for the human body | SULTAT ALUMNO; beneath: MIRO NATURE has been cultivated by the non-medical Swe- INVESTIGATORI SOCIO QUOND. ESTIMATISS. denborg."

but

ACAD. REG. SCIENT. SVEC. MDCCCLII." The eulogium on Swedenborg was delivered by 152. For the rest, the present treatise shines the President of the Academy, General Akrell. for us with the clear, mild genius of our Author. 154. All these works, covering the whole With our last literary accents we would fain field of Materiality, are so many undying claim the attention of the new men of this proofs of Swedenborg's universal learning, age, to what there is in Swedenborg's scien- and of his ability to grasp subjects requiring the tific works, accordant with their own necessities deepest reflection, and the most profound and discoveries. In particular we suppose knowledge. Nor did he wish to shine in that there is no writer before or since who borrowed plumes, passing off the labors of has treated as he has done, of the continuity others as his own, dressed up in a new form, of the body on the one hand; or of the per- and decorated with some new turns of expresmeation and penetration of vibrations and sion. Indeed, as was before observed, he rarely living influences through it, on the other. took up the ideas of others, except when he Let us take a common example. A man was collecting facts, but always followed his catches cold; straightway he feels stiffness own; and he makes numerous remarks and and pains in every joint of his body; his applications which are nowhere else to be whole head is sore; his nose runs with serous found. Nor was he content with merely defluxion, &c., &c. Now, strange as it may skimming over the surface of things: appear, the present science does not present applied the whole force of his mind to peneany physiological knowledge of what these trate the most hidden things, to collect topathological states may be. What is the con- gether the scattered links of the great chain dition of his periosteum, of the sheaths of all his stiff muscles, and of his creaking joints? How does it all happen? Neither science nor imagination knows. The feelings of the patient have no commerce with the skill of the doctor. This demonstrates at any rate that the science which lies at the basis of pathology is not yet opened. Pains, aches, swellings, and symptoms generally, glide along the body by terribly broad bridges of structure of which the anatomist wots not. Well then, there is wanted somebody besides this prim anatomist, to unfold the case. Our Swe- 155. "No man," he 66 says, can be a comdenborg, Licentiate of No College, is one of plete and truly learned philosopher, without the men in whose works we have found a be- the utmost devotion to the Supreme Being. ginning of instruction on this subject. He True philosophy and contempt of the Deity, has wonderfully indicated to us many of the are two opposites." Accordingly, Swedengreat bridges and highways of vibrations and borg took full advantage of the religion of his influences, and in so doing has thronged with time, and the belief in a personal God was living states and forms parts which were pre- with him the fountain of sciences, which viously dispersed, lying in sand heaps of cell germs. To the new pathology, which chronicles the passage of states through Man, he is as yet the most important contributor from the physiological side.

of universal being, and to trace up every thing, in the most perfect order, to the GREAT FIRST CAUSE. Neither did he, as certain other natural philosophers have done, who, dazzled by the light they have been in search of and found, would, if it were possible, eclipse or extinguish to the eyes of the world, the ONLY LIVING AND TRUE LIGHT. He delighted, with love and adoration, to look through Nature, to Nature's God: and he found the ladder that leads from earth to heaven.

alone allowed a finite man to discover in nature the wisdom that an infinite man had planted there. Nothing is more plain than that only in so far as man is the image of God, and can think like God, can he give the reason of any thing that God has made. Not to admit then a personal God is to deny the grounds of natural knowledge, to make it what the philosophers call subjective, that is to say, true for you, but not God's truth or true in itself.

153. It gives us pleasure to end these brief lines by recording publicly that the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, the body of which Linnæus and Berzelius were alumni, has lately paid a fitting tribute to the memory of Swedenborg. We excerpt the following from the official account of their last annual festival. 156. It becomes now a question of peculiar "1852. The Academy has this year caused interest Did Swedenborg, in the course he the annual medal to be struck to the memory marked out, find that to which all his labors of the celebrated Swedenborg. It represents were directed? Did he find the soul? No: Swedenborg's image on the obverse: over but he found what was much better, on a it his name: under it Nat. 1688, Den. 1772. higher stage of observation, as will be seen On the reverse: a man in a dress reaching to hereafter. By the course thus far pursued, the feet, with eyes unbandaged, standing be- he came to the inner parts of the living body, fore the temple of Isis, at whose base the but not to the soul. It was an achievement goddess is seen. Above it: TANTOQUE EX- to dissect the body alive without injuring it,

nay with its own concurrence; to disintegrate middle and thicket of her beauty here, the brain, lungs, heart, and vitals, and to see them forgotten lore of antiquity begins to be reas individuals, as partial men; so to endow stored, and principle ratified into truths, takes them with the whole frame, that they could a body in mythological narrative, the first cresubsist to the mind as human creatures; and ation of the kind since the dawn of the scienthis Swedenborg has done to a considerable tific ages: here the doctrine of Correspondextent but to see the soul, or the spiritual ences commences to reassert its sublime prebody, was not accorded to him at this stage. rogative, of bearing to man the teeming spirit The doctrine of correspondence might have of heaven in the cups of nature. All this acshown it; but then before correspondence counts for the singularity of the work; for works there must be two experimental terms, its standing, in a manner by itself, among the two visible things; the soul must be already author's writings. It is an offering up of both seen, after which, correspondence will show science and philosophy on the altar of Religion. its fitness with the body, and illustrate each Whatever of admiration one has felt for Sweby each. In a word, sight or experience is denborg's former efforts, only increases as we the basis of knowledge; the invisible is the enter the interior of this august natural temunknown, and no doctrines can realize it, or ple. A new wealth of principles, a radiant, honestly bring it near to our thoughts. It even power, such as peace alone can commurests upon Swedenborg's confession, not less nicate, a discourse of order, persuasively conthan upon his quitting the before-mentioned vincing, an affecting and substantial beauty track, that his principles so far did not and more deep than poetry, a luxuriance of ornacould not lead him to an acquaintance with ment, instinct with the life of the subject; inthe soul. tellect, imagination, fancy, unitedly awake in

But if, whilst engaged upon an impossible a lonely vision of primeval times; wisdom, quest, he lost himself among nervous and too, making all things human: such is an imspirituous fluids and the like entities, which perfect enumeration of the qualities which are most real, only not the soul, still he shed surprising light upon the plan and life of the human body. His method was eminently good for this. The doctrines he worked with, the preliminaries he believed in, are the common sense of all plans and organizations.

Worship and Love of God.

enter into this ripe fruit of the native genius of Swedenborg. Whether in fulness or lofti ness, we know of nothing similar to it — of nothing but what is second to it—in mere human literature.

158. The first portion of the work, and for the scientific philosopher probably its finest portion, represents the origin and progression 157. We are now brought to a notice of the of this universe from the sun, and specifically, last of our author's natural works, published the origin of our own planet, with the reign in 1745, the very year in which HIS SPIRITU- of the general spring, and the consequent deAL SIGHT WAS OPENED, and the 57th of his velopment of the first mineral, vegetable, and age. It is a series of Philosophical Essays animal kingdoms one from another in succesON THE WORSHIP AND LOVE OF GOD: Part sion; for nature, at the beginning, was big First, treating of the origin of the Earth, with the principles of all things, and the earth on the state of Paradise in the Vegetable and was near to its parent sun, with as yet no atAnimal Kingdoms, and on the Birth, Infancy, mosphere, but the serene supernal ether. and Love of Adam, or the First-born Man: And, as before observed, the author here asPart 2d, on the Marriage of the First born; serts, as illustrated in the Principia, that there and on the Soul, the Intellectual Mind, the state were seven planets created at the same time. of Integrity, and the Image of God. This Next, we are led to the human body, wrought work may be regarded as an attempted bridge by the infinite in the ovum, furnished by the from philosophy to theology; an arch thrown Tree of Life, in the innermost focus of the over from the side of nature, towards the un- spring, and the paradise of Paradise; creaseen shore of the land of life. As it is a kind tion rising thus, in a glorious pile, centre above of link, so it has some of the ambiguity which centre. Thereafter, we have the infancy and attaches to transitional things, and by those growth of the mind of the first born, in a state who judge of it from either side, may be mis- of integrity and innocency; with its elevation understood. Those who study matter and into the three new kingdoms. Then there is spirit in connection, see in its exuberant lines, the birth of Eve, and the manner of it, and no want of clear truth, but simply the joy and recreation of one goal attained; the Harvest Home of a scientific cycle; the euthanasia of a noble intellect, peacefully sinking back into its own spiritual country; the Pentecost thence of new tongues as of fire, in which every man 159. This work constitutes the end of Sweis addressed in his own language, not of words, denborg's scientific course; and a beautiful but of things. For here has science become termination it is too; uniting Science, Natural art, and is identified with nature in the very and Mental Philosophy, Poetry, Love and

her education by ministering spirits, and her betrothal and marriage to Adam. And the author concludes "this was the sixth scene on the world's stage." THE SEVENTH WAS YET TO COME.

Wisdom, Earth and Heaven. He began from from what is not something it is impossible that God, as the Fountain of the Sciences; the any thing can result; the forces themselves and wisdom of creation was the desire and wisdom changes of life, inasmuch as they flow from a subWherefore a similar of his labors; and here he ended with his be- stance, become efficient. order has place in thy forces and modes of forces, ginning, carrying God's harvest to God him-as in thy fibres, regarded as substances. Hence self. With a little pains to put this Essay it follows, that perfection of life presents itself into measure, it would be recognized as a visible in perfection of the body as in its effigy. beautiful Poem.

160. For the mere purpose of giving the reader an example of his style, in the more poetic and concluding parts of this work, but by no means to attempt to give an idea of the embodied beauty of the whole, we here quote the following passages :

And whereas perfection of body, especially beauty, is an object of sense, but perfection of life, like a mist, shuns human ken, unless it be viewed from a sublime principle, therefore I was desirous of presenting a mirror of the latter in the former, for the sake of gratifying thy wish.

"But thou, my daughter, art the only one, together with him who is the only one with thee in this orb, who lives this order, and bears its im“But this order, [the divine order of the human age. That only one is not far off from thee, he form,] viewed in substance and effigy, that is, in stands in the centre of thy grove, and looks at the face, is called beauty and handsomeness, the thee with a look of satisfaction; we observe him, perfection of which results from the agreement but he is ignorant of it; do not turn thy face in of all essentials, from inmost principles to outer- that direction, but let him come to thee, and court most, viz. from the correspondence of life with its thee with humble entreaty; thou art to be the spiritual heat or fire, and of the brightness thence partner of his life, and the partner of his bed; he arising with its coloring tincture, by which the is assigned to thee by heaven; this also is the day flaming principle itself becomes pellucid, and last-appointed for your marriage, and the hour is at hand ly, of this flower, with the designation of lines by in which you are to be united. Instantly the confibres according to the laws of the harmonies of nature; all which things ultimately must present themselves visible in a plane handsomely winding. But the agreement of all these things cannot possibly exist without a spiritual principle of union, or love in the veriest rays of life; from that principle lone beauty derives its harmony, its florid and genuine complexion and life, its daydawn and vernal freshness; wherefore love itself shining forth from elegance of form, from its hidden and innate virtue, elicits mutual love, and as an index reveals the vein of beauty.

nubial celestials tied up into a regular knot her hair, which covered her neck in ringlets, and inserted it in a golden circlet; and at the same time they fastened with their fingers a crown of diamonds set on her head; thus they adorned her as a bride for the coming of her husband, adding ornaments to her native neatness and simplicity, and to the natural perfection of her beauty. The damsel, still ignorant of her destination, and of what was meant by marriage, and by partnership of the bed, whilst the celestials were thus employed, and possibly whilst, by turning her eyes "Whilst the damsel snatched at these words in that direction, she at the same time got a with a greedy ear, and, as it were, sucked them glimpse of him, had such a suffusion on her cheeks, in with her whole mind, she retired a little into that life sparkled from the inmost principles of her herself, to take a view of herself, for she began face into the flame of a kind of love, and this to consider of some ideas which were newly flame assumed a purple hue, which beautifully conceived; and whilst she in some degree re- tinged her, like a rose; thus she was changed, as strained her respiration, lest it should interrupt it were, into the image of a naked celestial grace. the thoughts of her mind by too deep recipro- "Whilst the first begotten led a solitary paracations, she again, with a soul, as it were, set at disiacal life, and fed his mind at ease with the deliberty, gently accosted her celestial companion in lights of the visible world, he recollected a thouthese words: I will discover to you the idea which sand times that most beautiful nymph, who, during has newly insinuated itself into my mind, in conse- his sleep, was seen by him in this grove; wherequence of what you have been saying, viz. that the fore a thousand times he retraced his steps thither, beauty of the face, arising from that order of the but always in vain; the idea of her, which was in Supreme, is only a perfection of the body, but I consequence excited, kindled such a fire as to insee clearly, that a perfection still more illustrious flame the inmost principles of his life, and thus to and more excellent flows from the same order, to turn its tranquillity into care and anxiety. This wit, perfection of the life itself, which properly or ardor increased even to this day, in which it was principally involves the state of that integrity, con- appointed, by the Divine Providence, that his cerning which you so kindly promised to instruct wound, which then lurked in his inmost veins, ine; I entreat you therefore to add one favor to should be healed by enjoyment; wherefore whilst another, by instructing me, what and of what quali- he now again meditated on the same path, he ty is perfection of life? To this question the celes- came even to the entrance of this grove, which tial intelligence replied as follows: I perceive, was the only entrance, without mistaking his way; says she, that our ideas, thine and mine, like con- rejoicing intensely at this circumstance, he hastened sociate sisters, tend to the same point; for my dis- instantly to the midst of it, to the very tree, under course of itself already slides into the subject of which he had once so deliciously rested; and see thine inquiry, since one perfection involves another, ing the couch there, the idea of sleep so revived, inasmuch as another and another is born from the that he spied, as with his eyes, her very face same order. The perfection of the body is the And whilst he was wholly intent on her image, perfection of form in its substance, from which, as and extended his sight a little farther, lo! he saw from its subject, sprouts forth the perfection of and acknowledged the nymph herself, in the midst forces and of life; for nothing predicable exists of the choir of intelligences; at this sight he was which does not take its actuality from this circum-in such emotion, and so filled with love, that he stance, that it subsists, that is, from its substance; doubted a long time whether his sight did not

deceive him; but presently, when the crowd of his the generations of the gods, there was imbedthoughts was a little dispersed, it occurred to his ded a hint of the origin of the world. Occamind, that he was brought hither of the Divine sionally subjects of unpromising look are inProvidence, and that this was the event, of which vested with sublime proportions, as when he previous notice was given him in sleep; and that she it was whom heaven had marked out for him likens the mathematical or natural point to a as a bride and a conjugial partner. I see clearly, "two-faced Janus, which looks on either side said he, that she is mine, for she is from my own toward either universe, both into infinite and bosom, and from my own life. But we must pro- into finite immensity." The manner of the ceed according to order, that what is divine may Outlines on the Infinite is not dissimilar to that be in what is honorable, and what is honorable in of The Principia, only less elaborate, and its form, or in decorum; she must therefore be en- somewhat more round and liberal. The style treated and courted with supplication. Whilst he was intent on these and several other purposes, of The Economy, however, displays the full the celestial intelligence beckoned to him with a courtliness of a master, -free, confident, connod to make his approach; and whilst he was lead- fiding; self-complacent, but always aspiring; ing the bride in his hand, this scene was ended, at home in his thoughts, though voyaging which was the sixth in the theatre of the orb.". through untravelled natures; then most swift Worship and Love of God, 100, 101, 109, 110. in motion onwards when most at rest in some 161. "Three celebrated men in Sweden," great attainment; not visibly subject to second observes a native author, " have distinguished thoughts, or to the devil's palsy of self-approthemselves by writing sublimely and beauti-bation; flying over great sheets of reason fully on the beautiful; Swedenborg, to whom with easy stretches of power; contradicting Love was every thing, as well as the relation his predecessors point blank, without the posestablished by love between the True and the sibility of offending their honored manes: in Good; Thorild, to whom nature was every these and other respects the style of The thing, as well as the relation established by Economy occupies new ground of excellence. nature between power and harmony; and The latter portion of the work particularly, Ehrensvârd, to whom art was every thing, as "On the Human Soul," is a sustained expreswell as the relation established by art between sion of the loftiest order, and in this respect Genius and the Ideal; But of all Swe- won the commendations of Coleridge, who was denborg's works he esteems the treatise on the no bad judge of style. The Animal Kingdom, "Worship and Love of God" the most beau- however, is riper, rounder, and more free than tiful, and the most conspicuous for its "bril- even the last-mentioned work; more intimateliant and harmonious latinity." The same ly methodical, and at the same time better writer says, (and it should be remembered constructed. The treatises on the organs, that he was not a follower of Swedenborg) themselves correspondently organic, are like that "it is written with so much poetic life stately songs of science dying into poetry; and inspiration, that if divided amongst a it is surprising how so didactic a mind carved dozen poets, it would be sufficient to fix every out the freedom and beauty of these epic one of them on the heaven of poesy as stars chapters. It is the same with The Worship of the first magnitude."

162. It does not appear, however, that our author was in the least aware that his literary life was now closed; but he stood amid the sheaves, contemplating the tillage of future years, in the old domain of Science and Philosophy, although trembling, nevertheless, in the presence of an undisclosed Event. Great, Humble Man! How beautiful are his steps upon the Eternal Hills! while the unclouded Sun of Heaven is shining on his venerable head. But let us not anticipate.

Swedenborg's Style.

and Love of God, the ornament in which is rich and flamboyant, but upborne on the colonnades of a living forest of doctrines. We observe then, upon the whole, this peculiarity, that Swedenborg's address became more intense and ornamental from the beginning to the end of these works; a somewhat rare phenomenon in literature, for the imagination commonly burns out in proportion as what is termed sober reason advances, whereas with this author his imagination was kindled at the torch of his reason, and never flamed forth freely until the soberness of his maturity had set it on fire from the wonderful love that couches in all things.

163. It is interesting now, after having followed Swedenborg to the end of his scientific 164. But as if to body forth a stupendous career, to pass a brief notice upon his style. truth in the mystery of mere rhetoric, we We find increased life in this respect as we find him, after the opening of his spiritual proceed with his works. The style of The sight, putting off all the imaginative, all the Principia is clear, felicitous, though some- flowers and garniture of speech, and descendwhat repetitious, and occasionally breaks forth ing (if descent it can be called) again to into a beautiful but formal eloquence. The the soberest matter of fact expression, which ancient mythology lends frequent figures to has earned for him among those who do not the scientific process, and the author's treat appreciate him, the reputation of "the driest ment would seem to imply his belief that in of all mortal writers!" The truth is, however, it is a want of sympathy and under

* Extract from the Mimer in the Documents.

standing of the subjects treated of, which will be better enabled than the simply experi makes the style pall so heavily upon many. mental or scientific man, by retracing his Yet still there is this remarkable transition steps, to enlarge upon those very same facts which we speak of. Whence was it? What and experiments which served as a basis for shall we make of it? Did the eternal truths his advancement. For from the eminence at of God and heaven, for which he claims not which he has arrived, he can see from the the authorship, but only the humble instrument light of causes, almost infinite things in effects, of their promulgation, disdain the help of all of which they from beneath are ignorant. human accomplishment? And is true, highest The ladder which leads from the earth to the poetry, still to be seen in these unaffected, heaven of the mind, is for the angels - for wondrous revelations? Such is undoubtedly light and truth-to descend, as well as to the solution of the problem. At all events, ascend. It is from this view of the subject here is an unprecedented phenomena in the that we are to account for the fact of Swedenmatter of mere style, shadowing forth, as its borg's having obtained a more perfect knowlhistory plainly does, a mighty mystery of edge of the anatomy of the human system truth. As if, after the highest flights of hu- than any other man.”. · Hobart's Life, p. 49. man science and philosophy, enriched by the beauty of a heavenly imagination, had been reached by mortal, then, to make way for still higher truths which no mortal could discover, the ordering of heaven was to lay aside all the ornament of earth, and let the beauties of Truth itself, which is "beauty unadorned," be displayed to all who could appreciate them. And to those who could not, let not the truths of so high a nature be lightly or superficially acquiesced in, from the mere beauty of an outward and earthly envelope which could not attract to their inmost riches. Here again is Providence, taking care of its own, and confounding alike the art and wisdom of the world. 165. It ought to be said, however, that the style of Swedenborg, at the time here alluded to, is wonderfully clear and simple, not by any means destitute of real beauty, abounding in many exquisite passages, and admirably adapted to the truths conveyed. But we must not go before our subject.

Philosophic and Scientific Genius.

167. But it is to be remarked, in reference to this important feature of Swedenborg's mind, that although, as he modestly confesses, he was less gifted in observation than in the penetration of causes, yet he has shown a most admirable wisdom in the kind of facts he did make use of, and a philosophy which puts to shame that sturdy adherence to mere outward phenomena which was so characteristic of the philosophy of his age. It is interesting to hear him express himself on this point.

"Many," says he, "stubbornly refuse to stir a single step beyond visible phenomena for the sake of the truth; and others prefer to drown their ideas in the occult at the very outset. To these two classes, our demonstration may not be acceptable. For, in regard to the former, it asserts that the truth is to be sought for beyond the range of the eye; and in regard to the latter, that in all the nature of things there is no such thing as an occult quality; there is nothing but is either already the subject of demonstration, or capable of becoming Economy of the Animal Kingdom, Vol. II.

So. -

p. 210.

168. Swedenborg was of too vast and interior a genius, to ignore the invisible, and yet he had too much common sense to disparage the right kind and necessary number of facts. Hear him again on this subject.

166. Before closing our notice of Swedenborg as a man of science, it is proper to observe that he was not so much a collector of facts, as a systematizer of facts, and a discoverer of their hidden causes. For instance, "We do not," says he, "need such innumerable he says, in reference to his knowledge of facts, as some suppose, for a knowledge of natural anatomy, which he professes to have obtained things; but only those of leading importance, and which issue directly and proximately, or at principally from the writings and experiments any rate not very obliquely or remotely, from our of others, although he added some experiments mechanical world and the powers thereof. For by of his own: 666 I thought it better to use means of these we may be led to principles; first the facts supplied by others; for there are to compound, and so far as we are concerned, some persons who seem born for experimental general principles; next from these, by geometry, observations; who see more acutely than (availing ourselves again of the leading facts exothers, as if they derived a greater share of isting in this middle region,) to particular princiacumen from nature. Such were Eustachius, ples; and so in succession to still more simple principles; and at last to the very simplest to Leuwenhock, Ruysch, Lancisius, &c. There the fountain itself, from which all principles, howare others who enjoy a natural faculty for ever modified, ultimately issue. The remaining eliciting, by the contemplation of established facts, bulky as they are, which are too remote facts, their hidden causes. Both are pecu- from the source, and estranged from the simple liar gifts, and are seldom united in the same mechanism of the world, which are present latperson.' This is doubtless true as it relates erally, but do not directly respect the source, to establishing experimental observations in are not so necessary; indeed they are likelier to the first place; but when he who is capable highway of the subject. The reason is, that there guide us wrong, than to keep the mind in the of eliciting, by established facts, their hidden may be an infinite number of phenomena which causes, shall have accomplished his end, he are immensely distant from the source, and from