PREFACE THE theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are spread over numerous volumes. They have been before the public for at least one hundred and fifty years. Originally printed in Latin, they were subsequently translated into ponderous English, and later into many other languages, but nobody has so far had the temerity to endeavour to present a general review of the whole system. The recent achievements of science and the general trend of ideas have tended to bring Swedenborg into greater harmony with contemporary thought than ever before, and the interest recently awakened, especially among certain members of the scientific world, in the supernatural would seem to indicate that the present is a favourable time for the popularisation of his remarkably harmonious, rational, and logical philosophy. The statement of Swedenborg's views has, as far as possible, been reproduced in his own words. To reproduce these teachings fully in all their details and ramifications would be a much more ambitious task than the author has set himself. His aim has been rather to outline their main features in a popular form, and he ventures to hope that a perusal of these pages may stimulate the reader to go to the fountain-head and prosecute further researches for himself in the directions most interesting individually to him. |