EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.1

FEw are the readers, and we cannot boast to be of those few, who have been at the pains to toil through the many and voluminous writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. Indeed, it would not be far from the truth to say that there are very few persons who have thought it worth their while to study him at all seriously; he is commonly accounted a madman, who has had the singular fortune to persuade certain credulous persons that he was a seer. Nevertheless, whether lunatic or prophet, his character and his writings merit a serious and unbiassed study. A madness, which makes its mark upon the world, and counts in its train many presumably sane people who see in it the highest wisdom, cannot justly be put aside contemptuously as undeserving a moment's grave thought. After all, there is no accident in madness; causality, not casualty, governs its appearance in the universe; and it is very far from being a good and sufficient practice to simply mark its phenomena, and straightway to pass on as if they belonged, not to an order, but to a disorder of events that called for no

1 JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE, No. 70.

explanation. It is certain that there is in Swedenborg's revelations of the spiritual world a mass of absurdities sufficient to warrant the worst suspicions of his mental sanity; but, at the same time, it is not less certain that there are scattered in his writings conceptions of the highest philosophic reach, while throughout them is sensible an exalted tone of calm moral feeling which rises in many places to a real moral grandeur. These are the qualities which have gained him his best disciples, and they are qualities too uncommon in the world to be lightly despised, in whatever company they may be exhibited. I proceed then to give some account of Swedenborg, not purposing to make any review of his multitudinous publications, or any criticism of the doctrines announced in them with a matchless self-sufficiency; the immediate design being rather to present, by the help mainly of Mr. White's book, a sketch of the life and character of the man, and thus to obtain, and to endeavour to convey, some definite notion of what he was, what he did, and what should be concluded of him.1

1 Emanuel Swedenborg: His Life and Writings. By William White. In two volumes. 1867. As the present purpose is not to make any criticism of Mr. White's laborious and useful work, I shall not again refer specially to it, although making large use of the materials which it furnishes for a study of Swedenborg; I may once for all commend it to the attention of those who are interested in obtaining an impartial account of the life and works of the prophet of the New Jerusalem. Mr. White does not appear to have formed for himself any definite theory with regard to Swedenborg's pretensions, but is apt, after having told something remarkable of him, to break out into a sort of Carlylian foam of words, which, however, when it has subsided, leaves matters much as they were. Perhaps his

The first condition of fairly understanding and justly appraising any character is to know something of the stock from which it has sprung. For grapes will not grow on thorns, nor figs on thistles; and if the fathers have eaten sour grapes, the children's teeth will not fail to be set on edge. At the end of all the most subtile and elaborate disquisitions concerning moral freedom and responsibility, the stern fact remains that the inheritance of a man's descent weighs on him through life as a good or a bad fate. How can he escape from his ancestors? Stored up mysteriously in the nature which they transmit to him, he inherits not only the organized results of the acquisitions and evolution of generations of men, but he inherits also certain individual peculiarities or proclivities which determine irresistibly the general aim of his career. While he fancies that he is steering himself and determining his course at will, his character is his destiny. The laws of hereditary transmission are charged with the destinies of mankind-of the race and of the individual.

Swedenborg's grandfather was a copper smelter, of pious disposition and industrious habits, who had the book is none the worse for the absence of a special theory, as we get a fair and unbiassed selection from Swedenborg's conversation and writings, and a candid account of the events of his life. At the same time it will obviously be necessary, sooner or later, that the world come to a definite conclusion with regard to his character and pretensions. If man can attain to a gift of seership, and has in him the faculty of becoming what Swedenborg claimed to be, it is surely time that some exact investigation should be made of the nature of the faculty, and that we should set ourselves diligently to work to discover the track of so remarkable a development.

fortune to become rich through a lucky mining venture. He had a large family, which he counted a blessing; for he was in the habit of saying after dinner, with a humility not perhaps entirely devoid of ostentation, "Thank you, my children, for dinner! I have dined with you, and not you with me. God has given me food for your sake." His son Jasper, the father of Emanuel Swedenborg, exhibiting in early youth a great love of books and a pleasure in playing at preaching, was educated for the ministry, in which, by zealous energy and no small worldly shrewdness, he succeeded so well that he ultimately rose to be Bishop of Skara. He was a bustling, energetic, turbulently self-conscious man, earnest and active in the work of his ministry, and a favourite of the king, Charles XI. Of a reforming temper and an aggressive character, with strongly pronounced evangelical tendencies, by no means wanting in self-confidence or self-assertion, and indefatigable in the prosecution of what he thought to be his duties, he did not fail to make enemies among those of his brethren who were unwilling to have the sleepy routine of their lives disturbed; but by the energy of his character and the favour of the king he held his own successfully. "I can scarcely believe," he says, "that anybody in Sweden has written so much as I have done; since, I think, ten carts would scarcely carry away what I have written and printed at my own expense, yet there is as much, verily, there is nearly as much, not printed." Certainly he was not less keenly careful of the things. that concerned his temporal well-being than of those

that belonged to his eternal welfare; and deeming himself a faithful and favoured servant of the Lord, he easily traced in all the steps of his advancement the recompensing hand of his Divine Master. "It is incredible and indescribable," he exclaims, when made Dean of Upsala, "what consolation and peace are felt by the servants of the Lord when raised to a high and holy calling; and contrariwise how down-hearted they must be who experience no such elevation." Without doing any injustice to the zealous bishop, we may suppose that certain worldly advantages contributed their measure to the consolation which he felt in being raised to so high and holy a calling. By the death of his wife he was left a widower with eight children, the eldest of them not twelve years old; but he soon took to himself a second wife, distinguished for her "piety, meekness, liberality to the poor," and who was moreover "well-off, good-looking, a thrifty housewife, and had no family." She died, and within a year after her death he married for the third time, being then in his sixtyseventh year. "My circumstances and my extensive household required a faithful companion, whom God gave me in Christina Arhusia." In his choice of wives, as in other matters, he evinced his shrewd and practical character, acting apparently in accordance with the advice which he gives in a letter to his youngest son, whom he was urging to apply himself to work:-"You write well, you reckon well, and, thank God, you are not married. See that you get a good wife, and something with her. Pray God to lead you in His holy way."