Swedenborg's Preparation

by Alfred Acton

Address given by the Right Rev. ALFRED ACTON, M.A., D.Th.,
at 200th Anniversary Celebration of the Publication of Arcana Caelestia, Victoria Hall, London, June 21st, 1949
SWEDENBORG SOCIETY (Inc.) TRANSACTIONS Number Five

As your Chairman has stated, we are met together to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of the Arcana Caelestia. Swedenborg commenced the writing of this work in November 1748, at a place not far distant from the very centre of this city, and it was published in the following summer. This publication was the culmination of an event which had happened three years before. In April 1745, the Lord appeared to Swedenborg and announced that he was to be appointed the servant of the Lord to reveal to the Christian world the spiritual sense of the Word and the nature of the spiritual world, and that for this purpose he was to be admitted into the spiritual world at the same time that he was present in the natural world.

There have been many men who have claimed to be revelators, but most if not all of these men have received their revelation by a dictation of some sort, and have at once proclaimed their mission and promulgated their so-called revelation. In this respect Swedenborg was unique-- for it was three years from the time of his call before he put his pen to paper to write the first of those works that mark the Second Coming of the Lord. In those three years he laboured; he wrote thousands of pages of manuscript; he read the Bible through and through many times; he wrote and indexed his experiences in the spiritual world, and he studied and mastered the Hebrew language. These three years constitute the last stage of Swedenborg's preparation for his mission as Revelator. Such preparation would not have been necessary for a dictated revelation, but for a rational revelation it was indispensable.

As I have said, these three years of arduous study were the last stage in Swedenborg's preparation. But preceding them were many years of preparation in the field of science and philosophy; for the revelation now given to the New Church is a revelation of spiritual truths clothed in rational language and confirmed by philosophic and scientific truths, and such a revelation could not have been given save by means of a man whose understanding had been formed by a true science and a rational philosophy.

It is of this earlier preparation of Swedenborg, prior to the commission which he received from the Lord in April 1745, that I wish to speak this evening.

Listen now to what Swedenborg himself says on this subject: "The things represented spiritually by the acts of life do not come to the knowledge of the men themselves unless this be the good pleasure of God Messiah. Sometimes it occurs a long time afterward, as was also the case with me. ... At the time I did not perceive what the acts of my life involved, but afterward I was instructed concerning some of them, nay, concerning a number; and from these I could at last plainly see that the tenor of Divine Providence has ruled the acts of my life from my very youth, and has so governed them that I might finally come to the present end; that thus, by means of the knowledge of natural things, I might be able to understand those things which lie more interiorly within the Word of God Messiah, and so ... might serve as an instrument for opening them."* It is this preparation that I would dwell on.

But first let me speak about his health. It was very necessary for a man who was to engage in the very arduous work that occupied Swedenborg during the whole of his life that he should enjoy good health. His father lived to the age of eighty-two, and he himself to the age of eighty-four. He came of a sturdy stock, the Dalecarlian, a mining stock, one of the most healthy stocks in the land of Sweden. His grandfather was a man of great enterprise, and his father a man of vigorous health. Swedenborg could not possibly have done his work nor could he have made the many wearisome journeys which he undertook unless he had been in good health. During his whole life, only two sicknesses are recorded, one in Paris when he was twenty-five, and the other in London shortly prior to his death.

* The Word Explained, n. 2532.

Another characteristic that can be traced to his Dalecarlian ancestry is his independence of thought. The Dalecarlians have been noted in Swedish history for their vigorous independence. In the words of a Swedish author, "the cold skies under which the Dalecarlian lives, the thankless earth which he ploughs, the hard rock from which he mines his living, have given him a free and strong soul, independence in his being, seriousness of mind, and have made him a man for himself, honourable in behaviour, fearless in deed, a stranger to fear, and unbendable in his opposition to despotic power."* It was Engelbrecht, the Dalecarlian, who, in the middle of the fifteenth century, led his people against Danish tyranny and shook off the Danish yoke; and in Swedish history, the Dalecarlians have ever risen up in rebellion when their liberties were threatened.

* Svensk Konversations Lexicon, s.v., Dalarna.

It was necessary that Swedenborg should have this inheritance of fearlessness and independence; for while in the beginning of his literary career he was admired by his contemporaries for his profound learning, and his works were widely reviewed by the learned journals of Europe, yet, as he developed his doctrines concerning the soul and its operation in the body, with the related doctrines of degrees and correspondences, his fame suffered. The reviewers, unable to understand him, characterized his doctrines as silly trifles. Swedenborg was fully aware of this decline in his reputation as a learned man, for he read the reviews. Yet he continued to write and publish; and in his writings he continued to develop those very doctrines which he knew would be viewed with disfavour and even ridiculed. "I know that I speak strange things (he writes in one of his unpublished works*), but what does it matter since they are true." For a man of Swedenborg's ambition thus to face the lessening of his fame, required not only deep conviction but also courage and independence; and Swedenborg had both. It is also significant that Swedenborg came from a mining family and began his studies with researches into the mineral kingdom, the ultimate kingdom of nature.

* The Fibre, n. 520.

Swedenborg came of a deeply religious family, and his early years were passed in a home of true Christian piety. His father was a pious man -- not a pietist in any false sense of the word, but a pietist in the sense that he believed a truly Christian character depended on obedience to the Ten Commandments. He enjoyed his glass of ale and his games, but above all he preached and observed the doctrine of charity. He had no patience with dogmatic theology, and viewed the Bible and the Church, as being solely for the cleansing of the heart. At a time when the Lutheran Church in Sweden, in common with that Church in other lands, had become more and more formal; when the clergy had little regard for the good of life, and the learned among them gave their greatest thought to dogmatic theology; Bishop Swedberg's sermons and books were devoted wholly to the teaching of obedience to the Word of God. * Verbal theology (he says in his Autobiography*) has never been a pleasure to me, but real theology"; and earlier in the same work,+ he declares, "I have never had any liking for disputatious writings, but the utmost repugnance for them." His sermons were always in simple, homely language and filled with telling quotations from the Bible.

* p. 396. + p. 115.

When we consider the aversion which Swedenborg's father had for "verbal theology," an aversion which the freely speaking Bishop was never tired of expressing, we find some added significance in the words which Swedenborg wrote, many years later, in a letter to Dr. Beyer:* "I was forbidden to read writers on dogmatic theology before heaven was opened to me, because thereby unfounded opinions and inventions might easily have insinuated themselves which afterward could have been removed only with difficulty."

Bishop Swedberg was also a determined enemy to the doctrine of faith alone, which he called hjernetro in contrast with hiertatro+a play on the words hjerne, the brain, and hierta, the heart. "This damnable faith (he says++) now rules everywhere in Christendom, especially with those who are called Lutherans." "If a man goes to church at set times in the year, partakes of the Holy Supper, and with all this lives in all kinds of corporeal sins, there is no need of aught else. Faith alone, the great faith, will accomplish all. None shall tell them aught save that they are good Lutherans and Christians and will without doubt be blessed. In a large congregation are hundreds of Lutherans; in a great city many thousands; in the whole Lutheran world countless thousands. Go and ask any one of them, yes, indeed, each one, 'Do you feel yourself saved?' Certainly, I have faith."**

* Feb. 1767 (2 Doc. concern. Swedenborg, 260). + Brain faith and heart faith. ++ Lefvernes Beskrifv., p. 488. ** ibid.. p. 89.

Bishop Swedberg condemns Paul for introducing the word "alone" in his translation "Man is justified by faith alone," and points out that the word "alone" is not in the Greek text. Its introduction by Paul (he continues)+ "has raised up endless and heated verbal contentions between us and the Papists." Swedenborg also, in one of his works, pronounces the same condemnation, saying,++ "I believe that never in his life did Luther commit a greater sin than when from himself he added the word alone."

Bishop Swedberg was so interested in training the young in the Christian life, rather than in dogmatic theology, that he took a special interest in the education of children, and especially in the training of their will. The schools (he says), both elementary and advanced, give all their attention to teaching the understanding; but that the will shall be broken, bent, held in check, and directed from evil to good -- lo, one cares little for that."

++ Faith and Good Works, n. 3 (in Psych. Trans., p. 12). + ibid., p. 368. Lefvernes Beskrifv., p. 223.

Moreover, he rejected the idea of three Persons the idea namely, that there is one God in three distinct Persons. He writes:* "God decreed from eternity that man should again be united with God, and God with man. God became Man, and the two natures were so bound together that from them there became one Person." Again he writes:+ "Christ is God and Man in one Person." Here we find significance in the words written by Swedenborg in the last work which he published:++ "From my infancy I could not admit into my mind any other idea than that of one God."

* ibid., p. 480. + ibid., p. 492. ++ True Christian Religion, n. 16.

Bishop Swedberg left Upsala in 1696, when his son Emanuel was eight and a half years old, and for the next ten years, except for the holidays, the latter, pursuing his studies in Upsala, lived in the home of his learned brother-in-law Eric Benzelius. But during those early years of childhood, when living in his father's home, the idea of the life of charity and of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one Person in whom God is revealed, must have been deeply impressed on his mind. Significant then is the account of his "first youth" which Swedenborg wrote in 1769, in a letter to Dr. Beyer.* These are his words: "From my fourth to my tenth year I was constantly engaged in thought upon God, salvation, and the spiritual diseases of men, and several times I revealed things at which my father and mother wondered, saying that angels must be speaking through me. From my sixth to my twelfth year I used to delight in conversing with clergymen about faith, saying that the life of faith is love to the neighbour. At that time 1 knew nothing of that learned faith which teaches that God the Father imputes the righteousness of His Son to whomsoever and at such times as He chooses, even to those who have not repented and have not reformed their lives; and had I heard of such a faith, it would have been, as it is now, above my comprehension."

* Nov. 14, 1769 (2 Doc., 279).

Significant also of the influence brought to bear on Swedenborg's mind when as a child he lived in his paternal home is the fact that his father had implicit belief in the reality of the spiritual world. One night, when Jesper Swedberg was thirteen years of age, he had what he called "a revelation or vision -- which it was (he says*), I know not" in which he saw two houses connected by a passage. Near the passage was a large tub filled with water. At its side stood the Saviour. Crowds came, some were washed by the Saviour and sent to His glorious room on the right. The others He drove to the room on the left. Jesper Swedberg stood in fear and trembling and prayed that God would deem him worthy. He was chosen, washed, and sent into the room on the right. There he recognized many, and there he heard things which no human tongue can utter. When all had been judged, the Saviour took Jesper Swedberg by the hand and led him to the house at the left or west, where the devils were. In the murky light of that horrible room, he saw men and women dancing with lewd motions. In the middle of the room he saw a deep hole burning with fire and brimstone. Men, tortured by the flames, were trying vainly to climb out, hut were pushed back, making frightful screams. In the room was also a pulpit occupied by a man with a large hat coming down to his ears, but Jesper did not hear what he was preaching, for the Saviour led him away, saying, "Thank thy God that thou comest not here." Coming to the heavenly house, he joined the others in singing with a loud voice, "Holy, Holy, Holy"; and then he awoke.

* Lefv, Beskrifv., p. 47 seq.

This dream or vision made a profound impression on the mind of the thirteen-year-old child, and it led to his determination to study for the ministry.

Seven years later, he was confirmed in this determination in a singular way. It was in a large village. There, in the morning, he had entered into the work of the ministry by preaching his first sermon. In the evening, the church was closed, yet from it he heard the sound of an organ and voices singing godly Psalms, This was heard, not only by Jesper himself but also by all the villagers; yet the church was empty and it contained no organ.*

* ibid., p. 46.

Jesper Swedberg lived in a superstitious age, but he himself was not superstitious. He had a firm belief in the actuality of the spiritual world. He believed also that it may be possible at any time for the presence of the spiritual world to be manifested to men on earth. Certainly, the few visions of which he speaks did not lead him into any visionary ecstasy. They did not lead him to seek visions or even to desire them, but served only to confirm him in the truths of the Word.

When he heard of supernatural experiences, he was at pains to examine the evidence as to their reality. "As I have always believed in God's clearly revealed Word (he writes in his Autobiography*), I have never asked for any miracle; neither have I ever been credulous when told that a miracle had taken place. Yet I have always been of the opinion that when it pleased God to perform a miracle, one should not wholly reject it, when one is sure that it is not something natural or something made up, or the sport and deception of Satan."

Now it is not surprising that the father of Emanuel Swedenborg not only should believe in the spiritual world but should have some experience of the presence of spirits. If it takes several generations to make a gentleman, we should not be surprised at there being an hereditary tendency which prepared Swedenborg to be in both worlds at the same time.

Swedenborg's spiritual experiences involve a latent ability to abstract the mind from external surroundings; and who shall say that this ability was not the result of his pious Dalecarlian ancestry. Such ability, moreover, must rest on some special form induced on the finest organic substances of the mind -- a form that would come by inheritance. Such an heredity must be assumed if we are to account for a phenomenon experienced by Swedenborg which is both striking and unique, I refer to the tacit breathing which he experienced, even as a child, the breathing of the lungs being almost suspended. We know that when the passions of the animus are aroused, a man's breathing is stertorous and harsh; and, on the other hand, when a man thinks deeply, his breathing is quiet and peaceful. The reason of this is because, when the passions of the animus or external mind are aroused, those passions have their seat, and manifest their presence, in the body itself, whereas, when the thought is profound and abstracted, the passions of the animus are allayed, as it were, and the spirit itself breathes almost apart from the body. This breathing of the spirit is not an abstract thing but is an actual breathing; it is the animation of the finest substances in the brain where is the seat of the spirit.

Swedenborg himself says that he could not have thought profoundly unless he had been able so to separate the breathing of the spirit from the breathing of the lungs that the breathing of the lungs was almost tacit; and, furthermore, that the ability to do this implies some peculiar formation in the inmost substances of the organic mind. Such a formation cannot be separated from heredity.

Here are his own words, as written in his Economy of the Animal Kingdom:* "To search out the causes of things from given phenomena is a peculiar gift into which the infant's brain is in a way inducted from its first stem, and into which it is later imbued by many stages of use and cultivation."

Later, when writing in his Memorabilia⁺ concerning the respiration of the men of the Most Ancient Church, he says that he could perceive and believe that this respiration was varied according to the state of their faith, "because my respiration has been so formed by the Lord that I could breathe internally for some length of time without the help of the external air, so that the breathing was directed within and yet the external senses remained in their vigour and also the actions. This could not be the case save with those who have been so formed by the Lord."

That the respiration is in correspondence with the thought (he goes on to say++), of this it was granted me to have much experience, before I spoke with spirits, an when, in infancy, I purposely wished to hold my breath when praying in the morning or evening . . . and also later, when I was writing in imagination, when I observed that I held my breath; it was tacit, as it were."

* No. 19. + n. 3317. ++ ibid., n. 3320.

A little later, in October 1748, thus a few weeks before commencing the Arcana Caelestia, he writes:* "I was first accustomed to breathe in this way in infancy when saying morning and evening prayers, and also at times afterward when explaining the concordance of the lungs and the heart, and especially when, for many years, I was writing from my mind the works that have been published. I then observed frequently that the respiration was tacit, almost insensible. It was later granted me to think and to write concerning this. Thus I was introduced to such respiration throughout many years from infancy, and especially by intense speculation , in which the respiration became quiescent; otherwise, an intense speculation of truth is not possible. Sufficient air was drawn in to enable me to think. By this means it is granted me to be with spirits and angels."

* ibid., n. 3464.

And now I turn to a phase of Swedenborg's life that must be peculiarly interesting to Englishmen, especially to Londoners. In 1766, Swedenborg was asked by a Prelate of Germany,* why, from a philosopher, he became a theologian. His answer was as follows: "The reason in, in order that the spiritual things now being revealed may be taught and understood naturally and rationally; for spiritual truths have a correspondence with natural truths. For this reason, I was introduced by the Lord first into the natural sciences and thus prepared, and, in fact, from the year 1710 to the year 1744 when heaven was opened to me. The Lord has further granted me to love truth in a spiritual manner."

* Oetinger; sec 2 Doc. 256.

Note the years here mentioned, 1710 to 1744. In the year 1710, on the tenth day of May, Swedenborg, nuking his first voyage, landed in London. In 1744 he was for the second time in London, and it was then that heaven was opened to him. In 1710 he was twenty-two years of age. His previous years had all been spent in the university town of Upsala, under the guidance of professors. Here, naturally, he had not much opportunity for developing independence of Bought, And now, in 1710, he had come from a small university town of less than two thousand inhabitants into a great city of half a million inhabitants. But what in most important in this his first visit to England in the year 1710 when he was first "introduced by the Lord into the natural sciences," is the fact that he came into a land where was freedom of speech and freedom of the press. On his first arrival in London, this fact was brought to Swedenborg's attention in a very lively way; for the whole city was engaged in a heated discussion, by pamphlets and coffee-house discussion, concerning the power of the crown over the subject, and the duties of the citizen to the crown.* The young student must certainly have been amazed at the fact that, despite the bitter and public criticisms against the government, no one was arrested. Such political controversies would never have been tolerated in Sweden, nor in any country on the Continent, except Holland. England and Holland were the only countries where there was freedom of the press and freedom of speech; but in Holland, that freedom was circumscribed by the Calvinism of the State Church.

* Letters and Memorials of Emanuel Swedenborg, p. 12.

Swedenborg remained in England for nearly three years, but those years were the most formative years of his life. He had never previously been in a great city. His life had been spent in a university town where thought and discussion were more or less dominated by the spirit of dogmatic theology. And now, a young man of impressionable age, he was in a country where was utter freedom of thought and investigation. He was intimate with the Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed. He visited Oxford and had learned discussions with the Savillian Professor of Mathematics and eminent Astronomer, Halley, and also with Dr. Hudson, the Bodleian Librarian. He attended meetings of the Philosophical Society, and visited many of its members in their homes. He discussed mineralogy with the geologist, Dr. John Woodward; he had frequent talks with the publisher and publicist, John Chamberlayne; he discussed mathematical instruments with the scientific inventor, Francis Hawksbee, and the famous instrument maker, Marshall; he read the Philosophical Transactions and other English writings. And all this, as I have said, at the most formative period of his life. Truly we can say that, while his body was born in Sweden and his inheritance was Swedish, his mind is also a child of England, that is, of the freedom of thought and discussion, and of the boldness of investigation which characterized the English nation. It was England that fostered in him that boldness of thought, freed from the fetters of dogmatic theology, which characterises his philosophical writings and his political activities in the Swedish Diet.

On his return to Sweden in 1715, one of the first effects of his visit to England was his publication of a quarterly which he called the Daedalus Hyperborens (the Daedalus of the North). The remarkable thing about this paper was that, instead of being written in Latin, it was written in Swedish. His mind was inspired by the example set by the Royal Society whose Philosophical Transactions were published, not in Latin as was the universal custom in Europe in the case of learned works, but in the native language. Swedenborg was determined that the Swedes, including the ordinary man who was ignorant of Latin, should have the same opportunity of learning the sciences as the English; that by the investigation of natural phenomena, the whole nation should be aroused to think, and to take an active interest in the conclusions drawn by the learned.

But Swedenborg had to provide for his living. In 1716, he thought of becoming a professor of physics, but one limitation to this, was the fact that he stammered. Nevertheless, he might have become a professor, or a director of a physical laboratory, for he was highly thought of by the professors in Upsala University ; had he not been appointed by Charles the Twelfth to be an Assistant to the great Swedish Engineer Polhem in the building of a dry dock, in the construction of a canal, and, incidentally, in the transporting of large galleys overland to an inlet of the sea wherefrom Charles the Twelfth could attack the Norwegians. These works were all engineering works, and I suppose, had Swedenborg lived at this day, he would have been called a Civil Engineer. He describes some of these works. For instance, the dry dock. A dock was to be blasted into a rocky cliff facing the sea, and for this purpose a circular dam had to be built in order to afford a dry space for the blasting. Swedenborg was charged with measuring the floor of the sea in order to fit the bottom of the dam to its contours. He also had some part in the building of the dam itself, which was built above the water and then lowered.

These engineering works greatly interested Swedenborg, but he was still more interested in investigating the phenomena of nature and the committing of his thoughts to paper, especially with a view to publishing them in his Daedalus Hyperboreus.

When Charles the Twelfth died in 1719, Swedenborg took his seat as an Assessor in the College of Mines, to which office Charles had appointed him in 1716, though temporarily delegating him to assist the engineering works carried on by Polhem. In the College of Mines he devoted himself to the study of mineralogy and chemistry.

His position as an Assessor in this College was a very important one. The Assessors of the College had judicial functions in all matters concerning the mining and smelting industry in Swedenleases, the quality of the iron produced, safety devices, disputes with workmen, etc. Every summer, Assessors were sent out to the various mining districts to hear cases and take testimony. This they reported to the full College where decisions were made by majority vote.

Swedenborg was diligent in this work, but his real interest lay in searching more deeply into the phenomena of nature. He delved deeply into the study of chemistry, and, for the purpose of learning the operation of the soul in the body, he entered upon the study of anatomy, particularly the anatomy of the brain.

In 1721 and 1722 he published, in Amsterdam and Leipzig, as the results of his studies, his Forerunner of the Principia (commonly called Chemistry) and his Miscellaneous Observations, in which works we see the seeds of those doctrines which were later developed in the Principia. He also issued a prospectus of a work in several volumes which was to treat of the various minerals.

The following years were occupied in the preparation of these volumes, and in 1734 he went to Leipzig and there published the fruits of his studies, in three folio volumes, entitled Opera Mineralia.

This work is specially remarkable in that, while the second and third volumes deal with Iron and Copper in a purely scientific way, the first volume, entitled the Principia, commences with a philosophical consideration of how the finite was created by the Infinite.

So far as I know, no man in literature has ever ventured to try to solve the problem of how the finite was created by the Infinite. St. Augustine toyed with the idea that God created the world from His own Substance, but he concluded that this would involve pantheismthat matter was God; therefore he propounded the doctrine which has ever since prevailed among Christian theologians, that the world was created from nothing.*

* See A Philosopher's Note Book, pp. 27, 138, 252.

Swedenborg was not satisfied with this. Knowing that from nothing, nothing comes, he concluded that creation was not only from God but was actually the finiting of Infinite Substance. Thus early was his mind formed for seeing in clear light the teaching of Revelation,* that God created the world by "finiting His Infinity by means of substances emitted from Himself."

* True Christian Religion, n. 33.

The Writings say nothing as to how God finited His Infinity, but in the Principia, Swedenborg essays to take up this problem, and his solution is not only in agreement with the teaching of Revelation, but it greatly enlightens our understanding of that teaching.

Swedenborg's reasoning is similar to that of Euclid when teaching of the origin of geometry. That origin, says Euclid, is a point without length, breadth, and thickness. The point moved in one direction makes a line which has length but no breadth or thickness. The line moved in one direction makes an area having length and breadth but no thickness. An area moved in one direction makes a body having length, breadth, and thickness, and thus comprehensible to the human mind. But the objection is made. If the point has neither length, breadth, nor thickness, it is nothing; and how can something come from nothing ? to which Euclid might answer: If we seek the origin of geometry, we must go beyond geometry; and since human thought cannot envisage the existence of anything save in terms of three dimensions, therefore the origin of geometry must be above the comprehension of human thought. In other words, reason can see that it is but not what it is.

So Swedenborg defines the beginning of creation as pure and total motion in the Infinite, that is, a motion without any finite thing being moveda motion which can be conceived of rationally but not geometrically.* Now, of course, such a motion is beyond our comprehension. Yet human reason can see that it is, even though it cannot see what it is, Moreover, reason can see that creation commences with the Divine Will, and that this Will goes forth or proceeds as creative motion, that is to say, as Divine Truth. So all human creation begins with will, and this will flows into the body as creative motion. In the Principia, Swedenborg shows that the first natural point or creative motion pervades the universe and continually sustains the universe, so that should it cease, the created universe would at once cease to be.

* Principia I, ii, s. 12.

By the doctrine of the Principia, we can see more clearly the teaching of the Writings concerning the Divine Proceeding, and the teaching that existence is perpetual subsistence. The teaching of the Principia so fully agrees with the more general teaching of the Writings concerning creation that there can be hardly a doubt that by it Swedenborg's mind was prepared to receive the spiritual truths concerning creation in his understanding.*

* New Churchmen have thought that the statement in Divine Providence n. 6, which condemns those who hold that the first substance is likened "to a point which is of no dimension, and that the forms of extension existed from an infinitude of such points"; and the statement in True Christian Religion n. 20, condemning the doctrine of the origin of substance "from forms, and geometrical lines which are of no dimension"; constitute a condemnation of the whole doctrine of the Principia; but in this they fail to see the difference between the geometrical point of Euclid and the first natural point. What is condemned are the monads of Wolff. The first natural point is the proceeding of the Infinite; it is the creative motion of the Divine Love, and contains within itself all that will subsequently be created.

It has also been held that the repudiation of the Principia doctrine is involved in Swedenborg's statement in True Christian Religion n. 76, that he had "long meditated concerning creation but in vain" until he knew that there were two worlds and two suns. This would seem to mean nothing more than that without revelation the Principia doctrine would be a mere hypothesis; for it may be noted that heaven was opened to Swedenborg in 1744, and it was later in the same year that he wrote in his work on the Senses, n. 262: " According to an admonition of the night, I ought to betake myself to my philosophical Principia . . . and it was said that then it would be given me to fly wheresoever I will." Moreover, six months after he had received his commission as revelator, in April 1745, he wrote in his History of Creation n. 10, that he was "amazed at the agreement" of his doctrine of creation and the Mosaic account.

The Opera Mineralia brought Swedenborg high renown. It received long and highly flattering reviews in the learned journals of Europe, and on the basis of it, Swedenborg was invited by the Royal Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg to enter into correspondence with that body.

The first volume, the Principia, was a philosophical inquiry into the mode in which the mineral kingdom was created by the Infinite. It was indeed intended as the introduction to a long series of works on the various minerals, but Swedenborg's underlying reason for writing it was his desire to search into the soul and its commerce with the body. This is indicated by the fact that, while the Opera Mineralia was being printed, Swedenborg wrote his Forerunner of a Reasoning Philosophy concerning the Infinite and the final cause of Creation, in which he treats at length of the Mechanism of the Operation of Soul and Body. He was inspired to the writing of this work by the desire to search into t he-ultimate and spiritual causes underlying the phenomena of nature. He wished to show that the soul was not an aerial something but was a real substance; that it was the means by which God willed to form a heaven from the human race; and that its connection with the body was a real organic connection.

It was with this in mind that Swedenborg developed his Principia doctrine of the atmospheres -- one universal atmosphere above the sun of the natural world, and three atmospheres below that sun, two of which embodied the supreme atmosphere. New Churchmen are so accustomed to the doctrine of three atmospheres that they are apt not to reflect on the fact that this doctrine is entirely alien to the scientific world, both of Swedenborg's day and of our own. But Swedenborg saw that nothing can be transmitted through a vacuum; that, if the ear hears, there must be an atmosphere to carry the sound waves to its organ; that if the eye can see a bell swinging in a receptacle exhausted of air, while the ear cannot hear the ringing of the bell, there must be a superior atmosphere conveying light waves to the eye; that the corporeal life conveyed to the animal soul must be transmitted by the mechanism of a still superior natural atmosphere, and that the spiritual life conveyed to the human soul came through a supreme atmosphere above the sun of the natural world.

That in the Principia, Swedenborg had in mind his search of the soul is clearly indicated by a statement which he makes in The Five Senses* written in 1744 when his spiritual eyes were opened. He there says: "These [the doctrines of order, forms, and influx] are given in my Philosophical Principia where the forms of the parts of each atmosphere are set forth and delineated. This was done for the present purpose. Now comes the application." (No. 267) And a little earlier in the same volume he writes: "It is to be observed that according to an admonition of the night, I ought to go back to my Philosophical Principia . . . and it was said that then it would be granted me to fly whithersoever I would." (No. 262)

Swedenborg soon realized that for the study of the soul it would be necessary to have a thorough knowledge of the body in which she dwells. For this purpose, he spent eighteen months (1736-1738) in an anatomical school in Paris, where he took up the work of dissection, particularly of animals living both on land and in the water, in order to study the relation of the brain to the lungs.

It was at the beginning of these studies (1736) that Swedenborg began to have significant dreams, and these continued until he received his commission in 1745. Moreover, he began to learn the signification of these dreams,+ and was thus initiated into the doctrine of correspondences; we find his first references to that doctrine* in the Economy of the Animal Kingdom which was finished in December 1739.$

+ The Word Explained, n. 1894. ++ See Psychological Transactions pp. 195 seq., where are given all Swedenborg's references in his philosophical works to the doctrine of correspondences. I, nos. 625-6, 648-9. $ 3 Doc. 924.