It must be granted, however, that the constructive principle of the entire Swedenborgian theology suggests, perhaps compels, this very method of procedure. But the danger which the representation of purely spiritual ideas by means of physical images always carries with it, is so evident as to need no mention. All the more ought this danger to be guarded against while reading or construing Swedenborg, since, turn where we will, it everywhere confronts us.

Some stress is placed upon the fact that, though the loyal subject of a monarchy, he was republican in his political opinions. It is fortunate that he stood on firmer ground in politics than in theology. The "inspiration-theory," when confined to religion, is comparatively innocuous or brings its own antidote, but as applied to the rise and fall of governments, we have had sufficient acquaintance with its methods and results. That Swedenborg did not receive an inspiration in this direction was due partly to circumstances, but chiefly to the peculiar bent of his mind. We can readily credit his biographer's assertion that "there was very little of the visionary or enthusiast in Swedenborg's composition in the popular acceptation of these terms." Delusions which involve continual introspection are not apt to produce external zeal. Calmness is, however, rather a mental state or a mark of temperament than the stamp of genuineness and truth. This trait gave name to the Quietists, themselves also mystics, whose passivity was proportioned to the completeness of their confidence in a palpable delusion. He can afford to be calm who believes that he has discovered the secret of nature and can converse with angels. Paul was not so tranquil as Swedenborg; his vision of Jesus filled him with hot zeal and sent him proselyting over the world. Unlike the Swede, he had no scruples about "pressing his views home." It is evident, however, that Swedenborgians are rapidly making good their master's delinquencies in the last-mentioned respect. We are informed further that he knew how to use facts and the experience of other men," "was eminently practical," no mere theorist." Such statements must of course be taken with reference to his extra-religious, or purely scientific thinking. But the emphasis placed upon them indicates that his biographer, conscious of the incredible nature of the inspira

tion theory, felt how desirable it was that the reader should believe the seer incapable of entertaining any theory, whether scientific or religious, except upon the clearest empirical evidence. But the very regard for purely empirical methods which made him a valuable and trustworthy scientist, rendered him all the more incompetent to figure as an investigator in the departments of religion and psychology. The confidence in the absolute certainty of the relation between cause and effect which he had acquired during his career as a student of physical phenomena and physical laws was transferred with disastrous result to his subsequent investigations in an entirely different realm of thought and experience. He never quite forsakes his common sense except when he approaches the subject of necromancy; then he loses consciousness and begins to mutter. He was subject to mental hallucinations, fanciful visions, which had for him the value of objective realities. Were they real? This was the first question to be settled concerning these angelic communications. Until their reality was proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, a casual observer could not place absolute confidence in any theory founded on them. But a theory of some sort was with Swedenborg a foregone conclusion. He was a genius, a reasoner of great imaginative powers. Like Newton he passed easily from his assumed objective presentations to the assumption of a comprehensive principle, involving the universality of every law in nature, the idea of perpetual correspondence between the spiritual and material worlds. From theory he went on to the construction of a vast system, into which he sought to bring all his ideas and observations, and even his dreams and fancies, under the control of his one great principle.

Phenomenon, theory, and system mutually supported one another in his own mind. These formed the tripod which this oracle used in his divinations. The same combination of transcendant genius with scientific methods which produced Newton and his Principia gave us Swedenborg and his theology. In both these men was an infusion of religious possession. Both wrote on scriptural as well as scientific subjects. In the case of Newton the scientific results have been preserved, as being within the sphere of common experiment, while his

apocalyptic writings have been forgotten. In the case of Swedenborg, strange to say, the purely scientific writings have been left in comparative oblivion, while his religious claim and theological system have been raised into notice to win the undivided assent of a few and challenge the criticism of many.

Four leading doctrines or principles under-run his system,— Influx, Degrees, Forms, and Correspondencies. The doctrine of correspondencies is however the real nexus of all his thinking. His other thoughts, great and small, revolve about it in orbits. Briefly formulated it stands thus: "The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world, not only the natural world in general, but also every particular part thereof. * * * The natural world exists and subsists from the spiritual world, precisely as an effect from its efficient cause." In form this principle is simple, in idea it seems grand. But on closer inspection it is seen to shine in a reflected light; its sublimity is borrowed from its subject, the universe. It was then, and it is to-day, too purely hypothetical to furnish the basis of a cosmical philosophy, and it is not strange that Swedenborg felt compelled to invoke angelic testimony as a collateral support. Although not new to him, no other person has ever carried this theory to such extremes as he. The underlying thought appears in all the higher ranges of poetry and is hinted at in some of Christ's parables, but Swedenborg compels the great parable to "go on all fours." Simple as it is, it grows under the nurture of his fertile imagination and vast learning to an enormous size. As a sea monster reaches out its many tentacles into the surrounding ocean and conveys to its interior whatever it can lay hold of, so this theory feeds on the universe. The final result is a vast and somewhat cumbrous system, made up of mingled philosophy, theology, and apocalypse,-confused, yet not without self-consistency. Embodying in itself manifest truths together with palpable errors, it is itself, considered as a whole, either a most sublime truth or a most colossal error. In any case it contravenes the generally received tenets of theology and of science, and, until proved to be a sublime truth, must be treated as a stupendous heresy. Swedenborg has put forth his riddle; where is the Samson who will expound it for us?

Anyhow, one thing we may be sure of, that this doctrine of correspondencies, whether true or false, is the master key by means of which we are able to unlock every secret chamber, if not in the universe of God, at least in that of Swedenborg. It is in reality the eye of this seer. It is the ladder which seemed to him in his dreams to reach to heaven, and upon which he beheld the angels ascending and descending. He

says:

"The angels taken collectively are called heaven because they constitute heaven, nevertheless it is the Divine proceeding from the Lord, which flows in with the angels and is received by them, that makes heaven in general and in particular. The whole heaven is the Maximus Homo, and is called the Grand Man because it corresponds to the Lord's Divine Human. For the Lord is the only Man; and by so much as any angel, spirit, and man on earth receive from the Lord, they also are men."

He had a reverence for the text of Scripture that was almost servile, yet his doctrine was even more important to him than the text. He finds by correspondence a new significance in every passage however trivial. Legal code, detail of ritual, historical occurrence, text of prophecy,-each has its hidden. meaning. We become weary of the permutative and reflex working of this perpetual Rule of Three, of which the immanence of the Divine Essence is the middle and always constant term. We tire of the subjunctive "As it were" and long for the positive "As it is." We turn away confused and surfeited from the restless relative and seek relief in the stable positive, in worldly logic and in the comforting "Thus saith the Lord." He who becomes so dominated by one idea is necessarily in peril. Let him leave his dreams and look to his sanity. He who becomes absorbed in following out the endless applications of a single hypothesis, like the hound on the trail of the hare, doubles on his own track without perceiving the fact. He begins to live in an unreal world, apart from the ideas of ordinary men. He magnifies the importance of his own conceptions. His mind becomes exceedingly susceptible, his perceptions unusually acute, especially within the sphere of his favorite meditations, and his imagination increases in activity. Meanwhile his judgment grows correspondingly weak, until, without knowing it, he loses his true self-consciousness

and becomes the victim of a delusion, mistaking an abnormal mental condition for an extraordinary illumination.

And yet he may have performed for the rest of mankind an invaluable service. Like the arctic explorer who does not reach his goal and perishes on his voyage, so Swedenborg in his adventurous flight into dangerous zones of speculation has incidentally extended philosophical knowledge and spiritual experience for those who will not care to follow him in all his wanderings.

The feature of his career upon which his disciples lay greatest stress is of course the suddenness with which at the age of fifty-five he resigned an important and lucrative position under the government to devote himself for the rest of his life to the new function which he called his "illumination." But this proves as much in one direction as the other. The crucial question repeats itself: was this change the result of a real revelation from heaven, or was it the revival at the most critical period in a man's life, of morbid tendencies which had manifested themselves already in early childhood? Opinions will differ. His biographer argues zealously for the former view. For ourself, we are compelled to see in this remarkable man the illustrious victim of a settled delusion. He inveighed with marvelous inconsistency against "those misshapen offspring, the monsters of hypothesis," professing contempt, like Lord Bacon, for any method not inductive; but the very kernel-the chief corner-stone-of his philosophy was the boldest and most comprehensive hypothesis imaginable. It was in fact by the broadest philosophical methods, working inductively and deductively, that he succeeded in bringing such a vast array of heterogeneous material into the semblance of a connected and self consistent whole. A mere hypothesis, supported by the fancied testimony of angels, and elaborated into a cosmical systen, will be invincible-in the mind of him who originates the hypothesis and fancies that he has spoken with the angels. We need not speak of the probable effect of all this upon those who merely borrow from him the bypothesis and take his word for the word of the angels.

It was probably inevitable, though unfortunate, that Swedenborg's personality should have been perpetuated in a sect. If