The Animal Kingdom, Considered Anatomically, Physically, and Philosophically #0

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, CONSIDERED ANATOMICALLY, PHYSICALLY, AND PHILOSOPHICALLY.

By Emanuel Swedenborg,

Late member of the House of Nobles in the Royal Diet of Sweden, assessor of the Royal Metallic College of Sweden, fellow of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Upsala, and of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg.

Translated from the Latin by James John Garth Wilkinson, member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London.

London: W. Newbery, 6, King Street, Holborn; H. Bailliere, 219, Regent Street.

Otis Clapp, School Street, Boston, United States.

1843.

Reproduced by Photo Offset, by the Swedenborg Scientific Association, 1960

"Eo provecti sumus, ut hodie auris et oculi sensationem valde supra seipsam, aut supra naturale suum acumen, per artificialia organa exaltare sciamus: jam superset, ut etiam memtem, seu auditum et visum rationalem." - Swedenborg, Oeconomia Regni Animalis, tr. ii., n. 859.

"Cotitatio ex oculo occuldit intellectum, at cogitatio ex intellectu aperit oculum." - Swedenborg, Sapientia Angelica de Divino Amore, n. 46.

London: Printed by Walton and Mitchell, Wardour-street, Oxford-street.

Preface to 1960 Photo Offset Edition

PART I.

Prologue of Part I. 1

CHAPTER I. The Tongue 24

CHAPTER II. The Lips, the Mouth, the Palate, and the Salivary Glands 50

CHAPTER III. The Pharynx, the Esophagus, and their Glands 73

CHAPTER IV. The Stomach and its Orifices 87

CHAPTER V. The Intestines 107

CHAPTER VI. The Mesentery and the Lacteals 141

CHAPTER VII. The Thoracic Duct and the Lymphatics 158

CHAPTER VIII. The Glands Generally 171

CHAPTER IX. The Liver and the Gall-bladder 191

CHAPTER X. The Pancreas 219

CHAPTER XI. The Spleen 235

CHAPTER XII. The Omentum 250

CHAPTER XIII. The Succenturiate Kidneys 266

CHAPTER XIV. The Kidneys and the Ureters 278

CHAPTER XV. The Urinary Bladder 296

CHAPTER XVI. The Peritonaeum 308

Epilogue of Part I. 326

PART II.

CHAPTER I. The Nose and the Uvula 335

CHAPTER II. The Larynx and the Epiglottis 353

CHAPTER III. The Trachea 368

CHAPTER IV. The Lungs 385

CHAPTER V. The Pleura, the Mediastinum, and the Pericardium 411

CHAPTER VI. The Thymus Gland 430

CHAPTER VII. The Diaphragm 442

Epilogue of Part II. 456

PART III.

Prologue of Part II. 467

CHAPTER I. The Skin and the Sense of Touch 470

Organic Forms generally 531

The Sense and Sensorium of Touch specifically 548

The Use of Touch 568

CHAPTER II. The Sense of Taste 574

Bibliographical Notices respecting certain Authors cited in the Animal Kingdom 597

Appendix 598

PREFACE TO 1960 PHOTO OFFSET EDITION

The Animal Kingdom has been out of print in the English language for more than a century. The publication of a new edition has long been contemplated by the Swedenborg Scientific Association, whose journal, The New Philosophy, reports work during the early 1900's of a committee to revise Wilkinson's translation published in 1843-4. Unfortunately, this revision was not completed. Nothing more has been done in the intervening half-century, and there seems little prospect at present for a new revision. Meanwhile, copies of the old edition have become progressively more scarce and fragile. In order to insure that a rising generation of scholars shall not be prevented by scarcity of books from studying this important work, the Swedenborg Scientific Association herewith reproduces the Wilkinson translation by photo offset printing, omitting only lengthy and rather dated "Introductory Remarks by the Translator" (to the whole work); but retaining Wilkinson's prefaces to Parts I, II, and III, which contain bibliographic material. The reprinting of a translation now over one hundred years old is in itself a recognition of the ageless grace of Wilkinson's language and the veracity of his interpretation.

The consistent purpose in Swedenborg's physiological works was to demonstrate the existence of the soul in the body and the intercourse between them. In pursuing this objective, he developed a number of different plans for arranging his various published and projected treatises into a comprehensive overall scheme. These plans have been described in detail by Alfred Acton in prefaces to his translations of several of Swedenborg's physiological works, especially in the Psychological Transactions (1920, 1955), pages xxviii to xxxi; in Generation (Parts 4 and 5 of the Animal Kingdom series, 1912, 1928), pages 5 to 15; in A Philosopher's Note Book (1931); in The Cerebrum (1938); and in the "third transaction" of the Economy of the Animal Kingdom, which was posthumously published (1918) and is generally known under the title, The Fibre. Besides, Dr. Acton's typed "Notes on the Life and Work of Emanuel Swedenborg" (covering the period up to the year 1744) contain many references to Swedenborg's plans for future publications.

One of the last of such plans Swedenborg prefixed to the Prologue to this first volume of the Animal Kingdom under the title, "Index of Contents of the Whole Work," "whole work" referring to a comprehensive series of treatises of which the published volumes of the Animal Kingdom were to form the first two of seventeen "Parts." In the preface to his translation of Psychological Transactions, Dr. Acton pointed out that on gathering together the whole of Swedenborg's physiological writings, published and unpublished, almost each of the "Parts" in this plan were found to be covered by some one or more of his works. These relationships were shown in tabular form, a modification of which, below, lists the seventeen "Parts," followed by parentheses enclosing the names of corresponding written works.

INDEX OF CONTENTS OF THE WHOLE WORK

• Parts 1-2, The Viscera of the Body. (A. K., I and II).
• Part 3, The Heart, etc. (B. A. K., I; The Red Blood.)
• Parts 4-5, Generation. (Generation; Origin and Propagation of the Soul.)
• Part 6, The Senses. (A. K., III; The Soul; The Senses.)
• Parts 7-8, The Brains. (B. A. K., II; The Brain.)
• Part 9, The Fibre. (The Fibre.)
• The Motor Fibre (Action.)
• The Animal Spirit. (The Animal Spirit; chapter in codex 65 on Brain.)
• Part 10, The Organism of Animal Motion. (Action.)
• Part 11, Diseases of the Head. (Diseases of the Fibre; Transaction III in codex 65 on Brain.)
• Part 12, The Doctrine of Forms. (Chapter in The Fibre.)
• Order, Degrees, etc. (F. A. K., I fin.)
• Correspondence and Representation. (Hieroglyphic Key; Correspondences and Representations.)
• Modification. (Sensation; The Soul.)
• Part 13, Action. (Action.)
• External and Internal Sense. (The Soul; Sensation.)
• Imagination, Memory. (The Soul; Diseases of the Fibre.)
• Part 14, Affections and Disorders of the Animus. (The Soul; Diseases of the Fibre.)
• Part 15, The Intellect and Rational Mind. (The Soul.)
• Part 16, The Soul. (The Soul; Way to a Knowledge of the Soul; Origin and Propagation of the Soul.)
• Part 17, Concordance of systems respecting the Soul and body. (Harmony of Soul and Body; The Soul.)

This photo offset edition of the Animal Kingdom is presented without further editorial comment in the hope that the ready availability of the work may stimulate more widespread study and appreciation of the significance to modern thought of Swedenborg's remarkable philosophical system.

Swedenborg Scientific Association

Bryn Athyn, Pa. October, 1960

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO PART I.

THE Regnum Animale of Swedenborg, of the first Part of which, this volume is a translation, was published by the author in 1744 and 1745, and constituted the last of a series of works on the natural sciences, which Swedenborg wrote previously to commencing his labors as a theologian. These works are related to each other in a certain order, as containing a successive evolution of principles; and the first part of the series is in some measure presupposed in the subsequent parts. Thus a full comprehension of the doctrines of the "Animal Kingdom" can scarcely be attained without an acquaintance with its precursors, the Principia Rerum Naturalium, published in 1734, and the Oeconomia Regni Animalis, published in 1740 and 1741. ¹ It might, then, have been desirable to publish the translations of these works in the order in which Swedenborg published the originals; but as this would have involved considerable delay, it was considered expedient to issue immediately that work which happened to be ready for the press, and to trust to the reader's candor, to make some reservation in Swedenborg's favor, until the whole of the materials on which to found a judgment on his claims are before the public. In no long period, this will be the case, inasmuch as the translations of the Principia and Oeconomia ² are virtually completed, and their publication will not be delayed beyond the time necessary to accomplish the operations of the engraver.

It is not intended to enter at present upon the merits and demerits of Swedenborg's system. A critical Preface will come most appropriately with Parts II. and III., when the translation of the Work is completed; at which time it is also the translator's wish, to give a copious index, and a short biographical and bibliographical notice of the numerous writers referred to in the Work.

It may, notwithstanding, be useful to suggest, that the merits of the Work lie in its principles and doctrines, and only secondarily in its details. The facts made use of by Swedenborg were, of course, the facts of his own day—the facts of perhaps the most illustrious anatomists who ever lived—but still imperfect, as the facts of our day will be imperfect in the year 1943. Principles, however, are immortal; and the roll of centuries, (supposing always that mankind is advancing steadily the meanwhile to higher enlightenment,) serves only to confirm and establish them. They have, moreover, a power of eliminating and throwing off spurious facts, when such facts have served a provisional end, and more real data are prepared to take their places. The principles of Swedenborg, the translator believes, have this increasing root in the world, and this power: he believes that they are more true now to the rational enquirer, than they could possibly be to the men of Swedenborg's own day: that wherever he adopted false facts, they furnished a worse basis for his system than the more solid materials of modem discovery. An example of this occurs in the Chapter on the Kidneys, where the principle stated to govern the urinary series is confirmed by the recent observations of Mr. Bowman better than by the hypothetical structure assigned to the parts previously, in the absence of experimental evidence. It would be easy to multiply instances of the same kind, but the intention is, not to write a commentary, but rather to warn the reader against confounding principles with supposititious facts, and throwing away the former, when there is only ground for rejecting the latter.

It is not enough, then, in perusing Swedenborg's Work, that the reader should question the details borrowed from the older anatomists and physiologists: another duty still devolves upon him, supposing these details are proved in some important instances to be erroneous; the duty, namely, of enquiring how far Swedenborg's principles do or do not square with the better details of the present day.

The translator directs attention to the doctrines mentioned in the Prologue (n. 14), and illustrated throughout the Work; particularly to the DOCTRINE OF SERIES AND DEGREES, which, according to Swedenborg, "when taken in conjunction with experience, is the path to an intimate knowledge of nature" (Oecon. Regn. An., Tr. I, n. 628). The application of this doctrine to the living body is perhaps the most important object of study presented in the following Treatise.

There is besides a variety of particular subjects on which the "Animal Kingdom" is of considerable import to the physiologist. It may be sufficient to indicate, that it contains new views upon the philosophy of forms and forces; and especially, upon the universality of the spiral form in the organic creation; and the grounds and reasons of that universality: also, upon the effect of the respiratory movements in the body generally; and upon the motions of the viscera and organs. Its doctrines respecting the permeability of tissues, the circulation of serum in the serous membranes, and the functions of those membranes, and respecting the nature and office of the cellular tissue, and of the lymphatic system, are well worthy the attention of all those who are engaged in studying the living body.

The impediments, however, to a right understanding of Swedenborg's views, can scarcely be overrated. Those views differ as much from the current views, as rational astronomy, which regards the sun as the centre of its system, differs from sensual astronomy, which upon the clear evidence of vision, recognized the earth as the centre. The sphere of the senses and the sphere of reason, are not merely distinct, but antagonist: and it is only by an inversion of phenomena that we pass into the region of causes. The naked eye cannot see truth, nor can the eye assisted by the microscope: but the rational mind is its proper organ, accommodated to the rays of its super-sensual light. The doctrines of truth may indeed correct the appearances of the senses, and be found in agreement with, and be confirmed by, those appearances, when so corrected: but they cannot agree with, or be confirmed by, a chaos of facts. But at the present day, there is a morbid dread of doctrines and principles: and as a necessary consequence, it is taken for granted, that the senses themselves are the organs of truth, and that any imperfection of insight will one day be rectified by some keener eye, or better microscope. This state of mind is, indeed, diametrically opposite to the spirit of Swedenborg's writings; and it may prove extremely difficult for those who are under its influence, to accord any measure of appreciation to, or derive any advantage from, the present Work.

Moreover, it is easy to foresee that Swedenborg's style will prove an obstacle to many. Nevertheless, the translator has anxiously sought to preserve it in the English version. The reason is, that the mode of speaking by figures, is not an excrescence, lying merely in language, but is the indication of a great principle: the principle, that there exist a universal Analogy and Correspondency throughout nature and human society in all their spheres; and that thus one thing not only may be used, but in certain cases even ought to be used as the term and exponent of another.

The popular prejudice against Swedenborg's theological works may also cause a reaction against his scientific works. This is a subject upon which the translator cannot dwell. There is only one way to discuss prejudices and to substitute in their place acts of judgment; namely, by each individual carefully examining evidence for himself.

But the "Animal Kingdom," has a distinguishing feature which, it is hoped, will conciliate all parties, and commend the Work, pro tanto, to all: I mean the citations from the old anatomists; from those who were the original geniuses in this field of observation. These citations must give the Work some value to even the lover of mere facts, particularly since it would appear, that medical learning is undergoing a revival in this country; and that the works of the old worthies – the Patristic lore of medicine – will now for the first time be popularized to the profession in English translations. I allude to the projected labors of the SYDENHAM SOCIETY; which, although retrospective, seem, to me, at least, to be of the utmost importance for the advancement of anatomical and medical science.

With respect to the citations above alluded to, the translator has to make the following acknowledgment of obligations. In the passages from Winslow's Exposition Anatomique, he has compared Swedenborg's Latin translation ³ with Douglas's English one, ⁴ and availed himself; wherever it was practicable, of the assistance, and for the most part, of the phraseology, of the latter: when any discrepancy occurred between the Latin and English versions, he has always had recourse to the French original. In rendering the passages from Heister, he has derived considerable aid from the English translation of the Compendium Anatomicum, published at London in 1752. ⁵ In the citations from Boerhaave, some hints have been adopted from an English paraphrase of the Institutiones Medicae, published at London in 1724 ⁶ In the passages from Swammerdam's Biblia Naturae, the translation by Sir John Hill, and others, has been as far as possible followed. ⁷ These are all the instances, so far as present recollection serves, in which the translator is directly indebted to the labors of others.

With the exception of the passages from Winslow, the whole of the quotations have been compared verbatim with the corresponding passages in the works of the authors; and references have been appended throughout, to enable the reader to refer immediately to the originals. The numerous references made by Swedenborg himself have been strictly verified, excepting in three or four instances, where it was found impossible to procure the works cited, or else, to find the passages: to the unverified references the mark is adjoined.

It is to be observed, that the numbering of the paragraphs does not correspond in the latter part of the Volume, with the numbering of the original. In the original, both the thirteenth and fourteenth Chapters commence with n. 266, apparently because our author had at one time intended Chap. XIV. to stand first, and had afterwards altered his intention, without having changed the numbering. Another error is also super-added, and next to n. 266, in Chap. XIV., we find 217, 218, 219, and company, proceeding through the Work. Thus a series of sixty numbers is repeated twice. Reference from the latter parts of the Work to the former becomes, on this account, extremely difficult and uncertain, and the translator has therefore ventured to correct the numbering throughout. It may also be mentioned, that the typographical errors in the original are exceedingly numerous, and so important, that the certainty of the translation may sometimes have been endangered by them. ⁸ In the present Volume the translator is indebted to his printers for he believes a very opposite condition with respect to correctness.

The reader will find frequent reference made to Parts of the "Animal Kingdom" which were never published by Swedenborg. ⁹ The present Work was indeed the mere beginning of the course which he had prescribed for himself. There is reason to suppose that these Parts were not written; but among the author's MSS., preserved in the Library of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, there are - several physiological Treatises, ¹⁰ the contents of which will doubtless serve to fill up some portions of his design.

A word respecting the principles which have guided the translator in the execution of this first part of his undertaking. He has striven to the best of his ability to give a faithful translation, and, as one means to this end, to divest the Work of Latin idioms as far as possible. But in cases where he was either certain that particular phrases, although stiff and peculiar, were not indebted for their peculiarity to the genius of the Latin language, or where he strongly suspected this to be the fact, in such cases, he has felt it safe to adhere to the original, and to put precedent, custom and style, out of sight.

And furthermore, as the technical language of that day was generally the result of certain theories respecting the uses of the things named, he has seldom felt himself called upon to alter the scientific terms of the Work into those now in use. It may, however, perhaps be advantageous to give a glossary of those terms with Parts II. and III.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO PARTS II. AND III.

IN presenting to the public the concluding volume of the "Animal Kingdom," the translator has but little to add to what was specified in the Preface to Part I. The same principles have now guided him throughout in the translation of the whole work; the same care has been used in verifying the citations from the old anatomists, and in correcting the references with which the work abounds. In Parts II. and III. the whole of the citations, not excepting those from Winslow, are in fact translated from the original sources.

In making a quotation, Swedenborg sometimes only gives an abstract of the passage he professes to cite; sometimes he gives in his own words the sense of the author; and this, not seldom very imperfectly. In such cases one rule has been obeyed; viz., to follow the original works verbatim, and if an additional length of quotation is necessary to the sense, to make it without reserve. In no instance, however, has a passage been shortened, or anything omitted of which Swedenborg has given an indication.

An Index of Authors is appended; also a short series of Bibliographical Notices of those authors who especially furnish the anatomical basis of the work. In preparing the Index of Subjects, the model furnished by Swedenborg himself in his admirable index to the "Arcana Coelestia," has been imitated as far as possible. This Index of Subjects, it is hoped, will be found not unreadable in a connected form; in which case the perusal of it will furnish a good introduction to the study of the work itself. Lastly, the translator has had great pleasure in inserting the learned Memoir on Swedenborg's Physiological Manuscripts, which was kindly sent to him, in Latin, through the celebrated Baron Berzelius, by Dr. J. E. Svedbom, Librarian to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Stockholm. He trusts that this Memoir will incite the admirers of Swedenborg's works to secure the publication of his MSS., and first, perhaps, of that on the "Cerebrum," which would have constituted Part IV. of the "Animal Kingdom," had Swedenborg continued his labors in the field of science.

The Introductory Remarks, which are intended for insertion in Volume I., will, the translator hopes, be of some assistance to those who have the best title to expect it, and at the same time to any scientific reader who is desirous of perusing a slight outline of Swedenborg's physiological doctrines.

The idea of giving a glossary of obsolete terms has been abandoned. Any old medical dictionary will supply all that could be desired in this respect. It will be for the readers of Swedenborg to consider, whether his physiological works shall not be illustrated with an Atlas of Plates from the old anatomists: but this can better be settled when the whole of those works are in print.

It remains for the translator to make his profound acknowledgments to those numerous friends who have supported him in the publication of the "Animal Kingdom," and through whose generous patronage the first volume is now out of print.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY THE TRANSLATOR.

IT will be the aim of the following remarks to give a general view of the doctrines of the "Animal Kingdom," and of their relation to the past, present, and future state of science; and in so doing, to address those chiefly who are acquainted with the theological writings of Swedenborg, as forming the class by whom, at present, the work is most likely to be read, and to whom it may be the most useful and satisfactory.

The evolution of the natural sciences amounts to the creation of a new sphere in the human mind; and since this development has not taken place under the auspices of theology, but either in direct or tacit opposition to the prevailing church; since it proceeds from without, and proposes knowledge and intelligence as ends distinct from spiritual life; therefore it constitutes a sphere which is not in unison with the current doctrines of religion, but from the beginning has menaced their subversion; and which, unless reduced to order, is opposed, however true its materials in themselves may be, to the understanding of all genuine truth. It was a perception of this character in science, and also of the fact that the universal human mind was becoming immersed in scientifics, that impelled Swedenborg to enter the field of nature, for the purpose of demonstrating in it an order corresponding to the order of heaven, and thereby of making it a medium to spiritual and sacred truths. This was his paramount end in the construction of the "Animal Kingdom."

The system therein propounded rests upon the foundation of experience; namely, of such experience as the learned world had accumulated at Swedenborg's time; not indeed upon the particular experience strictly and proximately belonging to any one science; for such experience would be inadequate, in the present imperfect state of our insight, to suggest the universal truths that each science involves; hut upon the general experience of all ages in all the sciences. This, it is to be presumed, was Swedenborg's meaning, when he likened himself to one of the racers of olden time, who before he could merit the crown, was commanded to run seven times round the goal; and again, when he declared that we must be instructed by all things of one thing, if we are to know that one thing thoroughly. As his theory is not derived from particular experience, so it cannot finally be either confirmed or denied by any isolated fact or facts. For it is a conclusion from the order and tenor of facts universally; in a word, from an integral survey of nature. Unless this be borne in mind, the very largeness of the field from which his inductions are drawn, and the very strictness of mind which caused him to test them through all the sciences, will only make them seem the more like baseless hypotheses. In this case the analytic process may easily be mistaken for the synthetic, and Swedenborg may be charged with committing the error which he begins his work by denouncing in others.

Swedenborg announced the starting-point of his method in the, first lines of his first chapter; namely, that "the use or effect which produces the end must be the first point of analytic enquiry." First comes the question of fact or result; next, the reasoning upon it. Unless we reason from uses, what chart have we in the exploration of structures? To illustrate this, let it be supposed that a complicated tissue, for instance, the skin, presents us with three undoubted effects, say of absorption and excretion; from these effects we infer the existence of a threefold organism to produce them; for effects imply causes, and functions, forces, motions, accidents, and c., are predicates and unvarying signs of substances. Having proceeded so far, we have then to distribute the effects to their proper organic causes in the tissue; and thus effects furnish the rule for the first analysis of a structure. In many instances indeed it will be impossible to trace effects to visible organic causes, in which case the mental sight must take up the operation, and continue and complete it, and this, by the assistance of the several instruments and appliances which are now to be mentioned.

It is impossible to understand either the Word or the works of God without doctrines, which in both cases require to be formed by "one who is enlightened." ¹¹ The doctrines made use of by Swedenborg in the "Animal Kingdom," are the Doctrines of Forms, of Order and Degrees, of Series and Society, of Influx, of Correspondence and Representation, and of Modification. These doctrines themselves are truths arrived at by analysis, proceeding on the basis of general experience; in short, they are so many formulas resulting from the evolution of the sciences. They are perpetually illustrated and elucidated throughout the "Animal Kingdom," but never stated by Swedenborg in the form of pure science, perhaps because it would have been contrary to the analytic method to have so stated them, before the reader had been carried up through the legitimate stages, beginning from experience, or the lowest sphere. Each effect is put through all these doctrines, in order that it may disclose the causes that enter it in succession, that it may refer itself to its roots and be raised to its powers, and be seen in connexion, contiguity, continuity, and analogy with all other things in the same universe. ¹² They may be compared to so many special organs, which analyse things apparently homogeneous into a number of distinct constituent principles, and distribute each for use as the whole requires. To deny any of these doctrines, or to give them up in the presence of facts that do not range upon them at first sight, is to nullify the human mind as the interpreter of nature.

The Doctrine of Forms teaches that "the forms of all things, like their essences and substances, ascend in order and by degrees from the lowest to the highest. The lowest form is the angular, or as it is also called, the terrestrial and corporeal. The second and next higher form is the circular, which is also called the perpetual-angular, because the circumference of the circle involves neither angle nor rectilinear plane, being a perpetual angle and a perpetual plane; this form is at once the parent and the measure of angular forms. The form above this is the spiral, which is the parent and measure of circular forms, as the circular, of angular forms. Its radii or diameters are not rectilinear, nor do they converge to a fixed centre like those of the circle; but they are variously circular, and have a spherical surface for a centre; wherefore the spiral is also called the perpetual circular. This form never exists or subsists without poles, an axis, foci, a greatest circle, and lesser circles, its diameters; and as it again assumes a perpetuity which is wanting in the circular form, namely, in respect of diameters and centres, so it breathes a natural spontaneousness in its motion. There are other still higher forms, as the perpetual-spiral, properly the vortical; the perpetual-vortical, properly the celestial; ¹³ and a highest, the perpetual-celestial, which is spiritual, and in which there is nothing but what is everlasting and infinite." There is then a scale of forms, whereof the higher are relatively more universal, more perfect, and more potent than the lower. The lower again involve the higher and the highest, and are generated by them: so that where there is an angular body, there is a circular form and force intimately present as its ground; where there is a circle, it is the limit of an interior spiral; and so forth. For nature operates from the very principles of geometry and mechanics, and converts them all to actuality and use. The purer substances in creation gyrate through the higher forms; the less pure circulate through the lower, or are fixed in the lowest. All the essentials of the angular form are opposed to each other, whence the origin of gravitating and inert matter, intrinsically unfitted for motion. But the other forms, according to their eminence, are more and more accommodated to motion and variation.

The Doctrine of Order teaches that those things which are superior in situation, are also superior in forces, in power, in dignity of office, and in use; and that a similar law determines the situation of the parts of things, and of the parts of parts. Corresponding to the highest or first of the series of subordination, is the central or innermost of the series of coordination.

The Doctrine of Degrees teaches the distinct progressions through which nature passes when one thing is subordinated to, and coordinated with another. There are three discriminated degrees in all things, both natural and spiritual, corresponding to end, cause, and effect. In the human body there is a sphere of ends, a sphere of causes, and a sphere of effects. The body itself, comprehending the viscera of the abdomen and chest, and the external sensoria of the head, is the sphere of effects; the brain, and the whole of its appendages, are the sphere of causes; the cortical substances of the brain are the sphere of ends or principles. These spheres are subordinated to each other in just series from the highest to the lowest. The highest degree or sphere is active, the lowest is passive and reactive. The above degrees, in their order, indicate the progression from universals and singulars to generals or compounds. But every organ again involves the same triplicity of spheres; it consists of least parts, which are congregated into larger, and these into largest. All perfections ascend and descend according to degrees, and all attributes, functions, forces, modes, in a word, all accidents, follow their substances, and are similarly discriminated. Each degree is enveloped with its common covering, and communicates with those below it thereby. There is no continuous progression from a lower degree to a higher, but the unity of the lower is the compound of the higher, and in transcending that unity, we leap out of one series into another, in which all the predicates of force, form, perfection, and c., are changed and exalted. The Doctrine of Degrees enables us to obtain a distinct idea of the general principles of creation, and to observe the unity of plan that reigns throughout any given organic subject; and by showing that all things are distinct representations of end, cause, and effect, it empowers the mind to refer variety to unity, as the effect to the cause, and the cause to the end, and to recognize the whole constitution of each series as homogeneous with its principles.

Series is the form under which the coordination and subordination of things, according to order and degrees, ultimately present themselves. The whole body is a series, which may be looked at either generally, from above to below, as comprising the head, the chest, and the abdomen or universally, from within to without, as divisible into the three spheres already alluded to. All the organs of each region are a series; each organ in itself is a series; and every part in each organ likewise. In short, everything is a series and in a series. There are both successive and simultaneous series, but the latter always arise from the former. Essences, attributes, accidents, and qualities, follow their substances in their series. Every series has its own first substance, which is more or less universal according as the series is more or less general. This first substance is its simple, unity, or least form, governing in the entire series, and by its gradual composition forming the whole. Each series has its limits, and ranges only from its minimum to its maximum. Whatever transcends those limits at either end, becomes part of another series. The compounds of all series represent their simples, and show their form, nature, and mode of action. The Doctrine of Series and Society teaches that contiguity and continuity of structure, are indicative of relationship of function, and that what goes on in one part of a series, goes on also, with a determinable variety, in all the other parts: wherefore each organ is to be judged of, and analysed, by all the others that are above and around it. In this manner, the whole series is the means of showing the function of each part of itself and indeed of analysing that function into a series similar to that of the whole for the least in every series must represent an idea of its universe. Under the operation of this law, the point becomes a world analogous to the great world, but infinitely more perfect, potent, and universal.

Such is a very brief illustration of the Doctrines of Order and Degrees, Series and Society, from which it will be evident how closely connected these doctrines are, and that they can hardly be stated without; our seeming to repeat of one what has already been predicated of the others. Degrees appear to involve the distinct progressions of creation from above to below, or from within to without: order, to appertain to the law of succession observed in degrees, whereby rank and height are given to excellence, priority, universality, and perfection; series, to involve the complex of the whole and the parts when created and coexisting; and society, to be the law of contiguity and relationship existing between different series, and between the parts of any single series. Perhaps it would not be far wrong to state in generals, that order and degrees involve the creating and successive, series and society, the created and simultaneous. But as we have said before, Swedenborg never stated these doctrines as promised in the "Animal Kingdom," but contented himself with using them as analytic instruments in the exploration of the body; and therefore the reader will learn them best in the way of example and illustration in the Work itself.

The Doctrine of Influx involves the manner in which the lower substances, forms and forces of the body subsist, as they at first existed, from the higher and the highest; and in which the body itself subsists from the soul, as it at first existed; and the natural world from the spiritual. But there is not only an influx from within, but also from without; and by virtue of both, the body, which otherwise would be a mere power, is raised into an active force. ¹⁴

The Doctrine of Correspondence and Representation teaches that the natural sphere is the counterpart of the spiritual, and presents it as in a mirror; consequently that the forms and processes of the body are images of the forms and activities of the soul, and when seen in the right order, bring them forth and declare them. It shows that nature is the type of which the spiritual world is the ante-type, and therefore is the first school for instruction in the realities of that which is living and eternal.

The Doctrine of Modification teaches the laws of motion and change of state in the several auras or atmospheres of the world, and in their spiritual correspondents. ¹⁵

What was stated of the Doctrines of Order, Degrees, Series, and Society, as mutually supposing, or as it were interpenetrating each other, may be repeated generally of the whole of these doctrines, and this, because they are all but so many varied aspects of the one principle of divine truth or order. Like nature itself they are a series, each link of which involves all the others.

The Doctrine of Series and Degrees in conjunction with that of Correspondence and Representation, teaches that there is a universal analogy between all the spheres of creation, material, mental, and spiritual; and also between nature and all things in human society. The circulation of uses in the body perfectly represents the free intercourse of man with man, and the free interchange of commodities between nation and nation. The operations that go on in the body, analogically involve all the departments of human industry; nay, and infinitely more, both in subdivision, unity, and perfection. There is not an art or trade, whether high or low, so long as it be of good use, but the Creator himself has adopted and professed it in the human system. Nay, in the richness of his pervading love, the very prerogatives of the mind are representatively applicable to the body. End, cause, and effect, as existing in Himself, are represented in the latter as well as in the former. Liberty and rationality, the universalprinciples of humanity, are transplanted by analogy from the mind into the body. It, presents an analogon of liberty, in that every organ, part, and particle, can successfully exercise an attraction for those fluids that are adapted to its life and uses; of rationality, in that it acts as though it took cognizance of the adaptability, and operates upon the materials demanded and supplied, in such a manner as will best secure the well-being of itself and of the whole system.

This may account to the reader for the extremely figurative character of Swedenborg's style, and show that it proceeded from the reason and not from the imagination. It is because each thing is a centre to the life of all things, that each may freely use the exponent terms of all. Analogous uses in the body and the soul, furnish the point of contact between the two, and the possibility and the means of intercourse. Had Swedenborg confined himself to the dry straitness of what is now called science, he must have forfeited the end he had in view; for matter, as matter, has no communion with spirit, nor death with life. It was absolutely necessary that the body should be tinctured with life in all possible ways, when it was to be the medium of instruction respecting the soul.

But it is time to instance a few of the results to which the above doctrines lead when wisely applied to the living body. It will, however, be impossible to give anything beyond the merest sketch of Swedenborg's physiology, or to look at it from more than a single point of view. He himself has regarded it from all sides, or from each organ and sphere of the body, and given what may be called a combined proof of its correctness.

The alimentary canal and the whole of the viscera of the abdomen form one grand series subservient to the creation of the blood. This again is divided into three inferior series, whereof one primarily respects the chyle, another the serum, and a third the blood already formed. There are then three series of digestions.

1. The alimentary canal commencing at the tongue and terminnting with the rectum, performs as many distinct digestions of the food, and eliminates from it as many distinct products, as the canal itself has distinct divisions and articulations Thus there is the chyle of the tongue and mouth, the chyle of the stomach, the chyle of the small intestines, and the chyle of the large intestines, and all these chyles subserve the blood in a successive series, coincide in its formation, and ultimately coexist within it in a simultaneous series. When the chyle has been inaugurated into the blood, and is once in the arteries and veins, it is no longer called chyle, but serum.

2. The serum is the object of the second digestion. The finer parts of it therefore are secreted, and the worthless parts are excreted and thrown out, just as was before the case with the food. The former operation is performed by the pancreas, the latter by the kidneys.

3. The blood itself is the object of the third digestion. This process, termed by Swedenborg the lustration of the blood, takes place in the capillaries and glandular elements all over the system, but specifically in the spleen, the pancreas, and the liver. As in the first series there are various menstrua or media between the chyle and the blood; namely, in the mouth, the saliva; in the stomach the gastric juice, which is the saliva potentialized by the peculiar action of the stomach; ¹⁶ in the small intestines the pancreatic juice, and the hepatic and cystic biles; and in the large intestines the liquid distilled from the vermiform appendage of the coecum; so in each of the other series corresponding menstrua are required and applied. The blood of the pancreas, and the blood of the spleen deprived of its serum by the pancreas, serve in the liver as a menstruum for refining the chyle and lustrating the blood. The lymph is a kind of ultimate saliva which digests the chyle as the common saliva digests the food. The lymph of the spleen, for instance, digests the chyle in the mesentery, as its blood digests the chyle and blood in the liver. In short, as all the abdominal viscera form one series of uses, so the lowest and largest form of that series may be taken as an exponent of the whole; and it will then be found that all these organs are high evolutions of the alimentary tube, digesting finer and finer aliments, (for the blood itself is the essential aliment of the body,) and throwing out subtler and subtler excrements or impurities. Thus the liver is the stomach of the chyle and blood; and the ductus hepaticus and the gall-bladder and ductus cysticus are respectively analogous in their proper series to the small and the large intestines.

The viscera of the thorax also minister to the blood. The heart is a chemical organ for preparing liquids to enter into its composition, at the same time that it is the beginning of the circulation. It separates the blood into two parts, a purer and a grosser; the purer it sends away through the lacunae underneath the columns on its inner surface, by a series of ducts into the coronary vessels, which are the true veins of the heart; ¹⁷ the grosser into the lungs. Thus it also is an organ of blood-digestion or sanguification. The lungs have three general functions:

1. They lustrate all the blood of the body, especially in regard to its chyle or serum; their office in this respect being analogous to that of the kidneys in the abdomen.

2. They feed the blood with aerial and ethereal chyle, as the viscera of the abdomen with terrestrial chyle.

3. They call forth the powers of all the organs of the body by respiration. With respect to the last-named of these offices of the lungs, namely, that they supply the body and all its parts with motion, it is one of the most important discoveries in the "Animal Kingdom," and not less wonderful in its consequences than in its simplicity and obvious truth.

If the reader can once succeed in apprehending it, there will be no danger of his letting it go again even among the perilous quicksands of modern experience. It is one of those truths that rest upon facts within the range of the most ordinary observation, and require but little anatomical investigation to confirm and demonstrate them. It is visible in its ultimate effects during every action that we perform, and at every moment of our lives. Perhaps there is nothing in the history of physical science that is more illustrative of the native ignorance of the mind, or that better shows how far we have departed from the simplicity of nature, than the manner in which this grand office of the lungs has been overlooked; particularly when coupled with the fact, that it should have required a great and peculiarly instructed genius, by an elaborate process, to place it once again under our mental vision. But nature is simple and easy; it is man that is difficult and perplexed. Not only in the lungs, but in the whole body, the primary office is disregarded, and the secondary substituted for it. It has been supposed that the lungs inspire simply to communicate certain elements of the air to the blood; and expire for no other end than to throw out by means of the returning air certain impurities from the blood. Under this view, their motion is only of use for other things, or instrumentally, and not as a thing in itself, or principally. And yet it is not confined to the sphere in which these secondary offices of the lungs are performed, but pervades the abdomen as sensibly as the chest, and according to the showing of the experimentalists, extends also to the heart, the spinal marrow, and the head. It was therefore incumbent on the physiologist to show what its function was in all the regions where it was present, and to declare its action as a universal cause, as well as its action as a particular cause. Now the motion itself which the lungs originate is their grand product to the system; the inspiration and expiration of the air are but one part of its necessary accompaniments, being performed in the chest alone. Granting that the inspiration and expiration of the air are the particular use of this motion in the chest, what then is the use of the rising and falling which the lungs communicate to the abdomen, the heart, the spinal marrow, and the brain? What office, analogous to respiration, does the motion of these parts communicate to the organs? It manifestly causes them all to respire, or to attract the various materials of their uses, as the lungs attract the air. For respiration is predicable of the whole system as well as nutrition: otherwise the head would not be the head of the chest, nor the abdomen the abdomen of the chest; but the human body would be as disconnected, and as easily dissipated, as the systems that have been formed respecting it. The universal use, therefore, of the respiratory motion to the body, is, to rouse every organ to the performance of its functions by an external tractive force exerted upon its common membranes; and by causing the gentle expansion of the whole mass, to enable the organ, according to its particular fabric, situation, and connexion, to respire or attract such blood or fluid, and in such quantity, as its uses and wants require, and only such. Each organ, however, expands or contracts differently, according to the predicates just mentioned; the intestines, for instance, from articulation to articulation, to and fro; the kidneys, from their circumference to their sinuosity or hilus, and vice versa, the neighborhood of their pelvis being their most quiet station and centre of motion: and so forth. In a word, the expansion as a force assumes the whole form of the structure of each organ. In all cases the motion is synchronous in times and moments with the respiration of the lungs. The fluids in the organs follow the path of the expansion and contraction, and tend to the centre of motion, from which these motions begin, to which they return, and in which they terminate. The lungs, however, only supply the external moving life of the body; but were it not for them, the whole organism mould simply exist in potency, or more properly speaking, would cease to be; or were it permeated by the blood of the heart,--a condition which can by no means be granted,--the latter would rule uncontrolled in all the members, subjugate their individualities, and not excite them to exercise any of the peculiar forces of which they are the forms. In a word, the whole man would be permanently in the foetal state, for ever inchoate and ineffective.

It need not surprise the members of the New Church that no writer before or since the time of Swedenborg should have seen the primary function of the lungs in the human body. For it is shown in those wonderful theological treatises with which they are familiar, that the heart and lungs of tile natural body correspond to the will and understanding of the spiritual man; and as the understanding or rational mind has hitherto brought out none of those truths which enable man spiritually to live, nor been an external cause cooperating with the Word as an internal cause in the work of regeneration, so it had in itself no ground from which to recognise the necessity of the above function in the human frame; but its lower chambers alone being opened, took cognizance only of the lower and relatively passive offices of its bodily correspondent, the lungs. Unwittingly it yielded up the sceptre of the body to the heart, and here again obeyed the law of correspondence. But the truth is that the lungs mediate between the brain and the body, precisely as the rational mind of man is intended to mediate between heaven and earth.

The brain supplies the body and the blood with life, and its functions in this respect combine nutrition, circulation, and respiration. It respires the ethers of the world, it nourishes its life with ethereal chyle, and it circulates the animal spirit elaborated therefrom through the corporeal system. It may be regarded as a unity which involves in principle and idea all the varieties that are manifested in the two inferior regions of the thorax and abdomen. Its cortical substances involve the functions of both the heart and lungs, because they are in the degree above both. They are so many corcula propelling the animal spirit through the medullary fibres and nervous system, and so many pulmuncula performing an animatory motion synchronous with the respiratory motion of the lungs, although not dependent upon it, but automatic or self-derived, and which indeed generates the motion of the lungs, as the end generates the cause, or the cause the effect. The ethereal medium that they respire they derive principally through what are termed by Swedenborg the corporeal fibres, which originate in the skin, and run back from the last boundaries of the body to the first in the brain. Now the physiologists have never discovered the animation of the brain, because they have never seen the respiration of the lungs in its primary light. Had they done this, it would have been evident that the respiratory motion exercises a traction upon the sheaths of all the great nerves, and expands them, and that this traction is the external cause of a nervous circulation; for were there no fluid to respond to the force, there would be a tendency to a vacuum in these most impressible organs, and their parts would be strained, or drawn asunder. But if there be a real circulation in the nervous system, it must have centres that propel it, and times and moments in which it is performed. We have already seen that in this case the fluid is externally drawn forth by the attraction of the lungs, consequently in the times of the respirations, and hence it must be drawn in by the brains in the same times; in short, the animations of the brains must be synchronous with the respirations of the lungs. Hence it is that the brain supplies the body with internal motive force at the same instants as do the lungs with external; the heart only maintaining the organs in a state of potency, and supplying what they demand by the influx of this compound attractive force operating according to their various fabrics.

It must not be inferred that a truth of such paramount importance in physiology as the animation of the brain, rests upon the slight chain of reasoning attempted above. No; its attestation is as general as the truth itself is universal. But since Swedenborg has taken the proof of it upon his own Atlantean shoulders, the reader is referred to his treatise ¹⁸ on the subject for further corroborations. But it may be useful to indicate, that the doctrine is in no way shaken by the existence of the pulsatile movement so readily felt in young children, nor yet of that other movement, alternate and not synchronous with the respirations, which has been observed by some experimentalists. The truth is that all the three movements proceed uninterrupted by each other; and that the alternate movement, which is referable to the blood rushing out by the veins during inspiration, is what chiefly masks the synchronous movement, which is automatic, or referable to the brain itself.

There is no part of Swedenborg's system which is better worthy of attention than the doctrine of the skin. As the skin is the continent and ultimate of the whole system, so all the forms, forces and uses of the interior parts coexist within it. Moreover as it is the extreme of the body, and the contact of extremes, or circulation, is a perpetual law of nature, so from the skin a return is made to the other extreme, namely, to the cortical substances of the brain. Hence the first function of the skin is, "to serve as a new source of fibres." For the fibres of one extreme, to wit, the brain, also called by Swedenborg the fibres of the soul, could not of themselves complete the formation of the body, but could only supply its active grounds; and therefore these fibres proceed outwards to the skin, which is the most general sensorial expanse of the brain, and there generate the papillae; and again emerging from the papillae, and convoluted into a minute canal or pore, they take a new nature and name from their new beginning, and become the corporeal fibres, or the fibres of the body, which proceed from without; inwards to the brain, and unite themselves to its cortical substances. These are the passives of which the nervous fibres are the actives; the veins or female forces of which the nervous fibres are the arteries or males; and "they suck in the purer elemental food from the air and ether, convey it to their terminations, and expend it upon the uses of life."

Besides this, the skin has a series of other functions which there is not space to dwell upon at present. Inasmuch as it is the most general covering of the body, therefore it communicates by a wonderful continuity with all the particular coverings of the viscera and organs, and of their parts, and parts of parts. And as it communicates with all by continuity of structure, so it also communicates by continuity of function; the whole body being therefore one grand sensorium of the sense of touch. In short, the animal spirit is the most universal and singular essence of the body and all its parts; the skin, the most general and particular form corresponding to that essence.

Having thus bestowed a cursory glance upon some points of Swedenborg's doctrine of the three spheres of the body, and their most general and particular continent, the skin, we shall now enlarge a little on certain subjects that have already been mentioned, in order to give them a more distinct place in the reader's apprehension. And first with respect to the circulation. It is clear that in assigning its due weight to the primary function of the lungs, we obtain a law which enables us to limit the functions of the heart and arteries; and the result is, that the heart and aorta simply propel the blood to the mouths of the arteries leading into the viscera, and the viscera them- selves attract it thenceforth, and dominate over the circulation. of their own vessels, commanding it to take place in the times of the respirations, and not in the times of the pulses of the heart. As one means to this end, the vessels which supply the organs, generally come off at right angles from the great artery.

But there is another branch of this subject which is worthy of attention. The circulation in the great vessels is comparatively inordinate or confused, because in them the blood is all mingled together in a heterogeneous mass, and propelled onwards by an external force; but the circulation in the capillaries is most orderly and distinct, being an automatic movement performed by the single globules of the blood, in vessels which correspond to them individually, and where they are perfectly at home. If a comparison be permitted, they constitute a medley crowd in the heart and aorta, but march separately, man by man, in the capillaries. Hence the blood in its mass can but imperfectly manifest its living endowments, but when sundered into its individualities or leasts, it distinctly exercises its dynamic nature, and flows spontaneously; for it is a spiral and circular force, and tends therefore to a spiral gyration, or to circulation. Indeed in a universal sense, the leasts of the blood are the causes of the heart's action, and the grounds of the whole sanguineous movement; although speaking in generals, the heart, and the lungs acting on the viscera, are the joint causes of this effect.

The blood is the product of the whole organic system. The brain and lungs give it soul and spirit; the abdominal viscera, by means of the food, supply it with body or embodiment; wherefore each globule is an image of man inasmuch as it has both a soul and a body. Every viscus contributes a distinct share to its generation and regeneration. The animal spirit is its organizing principle. The blood consists, in the language of Swedenborg, of mere simples; that is to say, it contains the primal unities of all the series in the body, and being readily resolvable into each, can give origin and seed to all its possible compounds, whether they be solids or fluids. Nothing exists in the body that did not preexist in the blood. As it is distinctly compounded of a triple order of substances, so during each round of the circulation it is distinctly decompounded or resolved into each. Its spirit, spirituous lymph, and bodily portion are sundered as often as it circulates; the former is claimed by the cortical substances of the brain; the lymph is rendered back to the blood in a circle by the lymphatics; and the embodiment, by the veins. The reason why it undergoes this resolution is, that thereby, when its simples are disengaged, it gives birth to all the vital fluids, and renovates all the solids; and moreover submits itself to perpetual purification, self-examination, or lustration. Those portions of it which are no longer of use are thrown out of the system by various excretions, the loss thus occasioned producing that sense in the little veins all over the body, which in the aggregate we term hunger and thirst. The blood of the jugular veins which has been de-spirituated in the brain, is vivified afresh in the lateral sinuses, by a spirituous lymph sent forth from the pituitary gland, which is the conglobate gland of the cerebrum. Thus the effete spirit of the brain unites with its effete blood, and both together serve as a menstruum, medium, or saliva for introducing the new chyle into the sanguineous system. It is for this reason that the thoracic duct is inserted at or near the bottom of the jugular vein. But the circulation of the blood, although it may be considered by itself, yet like all things in the body, is but a part of a more universal order, termed by our author the circle of life; and which involves in one the circulation of both the blood and the spirits.

All the fluids of the body institute circulations after the image of the circulation of the blood. Such may be readily seen to be tile case with respect to the saliva, the bile, the fat, and c., and c.

The circulation of the animal spirits, supplied to the brain through the corporeal fibres from the ethereal media of the universe, as well as by the blood of the carotid arteries, and elaborated in the cortical substances, is not a simple circle, like that of the blood, but a transcendent circle, leaping from series to series, omnipresent in an things and conjoining all. For the spirit is propelled by the cortical substances or "corcula cerebri" through the medullary and nervous fibres; by the nervous fibres into the arteries, where it is inserted into the globules of the blood, and constitutes their life and soul; and it is carried back in the blood by the carotid arteries to the same cortical substances, there to be purified, conjoined with fresh spirit, and begin its circle anew. The animation of the brain is the first moving cause of the circulation of the spirits; the respiration of the lungs the secondary or corporeal cause, which operates by a general traction upon the external membranes of all the organs, vessels, and fibres of the body. For the brains give the universal or most internal life of the body, and in this respect, as propulsive causes, represent the capillaries or distinct corcula of the nervous circulation; the lungs, the general, or most external life, and represent the one heart of the same.

The above doctrine may conveniently suggest the idea, that points of analogy are not points of sameness or identity, but in reality; of harmonic difference. The circulation of the blood is one thing, and images that of the spirits; but notwithstanding, the circulation of the spirits is quite another. Each fluid has its own peculiarities, and its circle is applicable only to its own sphere. It is an abuse of analogy if we use it to destroy and not to reconcile differences; and if so abused, it becomes a childish and paltry instrument, totally inadequate to guide the mind through the labyrinths of nature. To revert to the present case, it has been attempted to be shown, that the circulation of the animal spirits is a simple circle, precisely like that of the blood. But for the purposes of analysis, it ought to be paralleled with what is higher than itself, and not with what is lower. Let us take as illustrative the grand circle involved in generation; for "all things that involve an end constitute a circle." In this example, the male and female conspire to generate a new being: the male fluid is propelled out of the body into the body of the female, or from one series into another; here it is developed or embodied, and is again propelled from the maternal series into that of the external universe: afterwards it is developed inwards from the body to the mind, and when its circles of education and information are completed, it returns as a member of that society from which it proceeded, to commune with the principles that gave it origin in the parents, to amplify their sphere, and enlarge their amount of social life. The circulation of the spirits is more like this of generation, than like that of the blood; for being a universal it belongs to the sphere of universals, and is but poorly imaged in particulars, which are, indeed, but portions of itself.

We have already treated of the limits of the circulation considered as proceeding from the heart, and have had occasion to hint at the attraction exercised by the several organs. The truth is, that the latter demand different and varying quantities and qualities of blood at different times, according to their different states as determined by and determining the state of the body; and that the heart and aorta, as a propulsive power, can have no share in apportioning these. Hence an attractive force is given to the viscera themselves, whereby all the commodities in the body are placed at their disposal; or as Swedenborg says, "they are enabled to summon what they require, from the universal mass of the blood." For each organ, and each part and particle of each, is an individual member of a perfect society, possessing the form of a stupendous rationality whereby to discern its wants, and of an equal liberty to enable it to supply those wants from the community, on the condition of reciprocation of use: not the smallest intrusion upon its individuality by the common powers is permitted for a moment; for should this take place, disease is the inevitable consequence. But let it not; be imagined that the attraction exerted by the organs is of a violent character, or that their movements are other than gentle and tranquil. It is unnecessary that such should be the case; inasmuch as there is always a propulsion or incitation corresponding to the attraction or invitation, so that what the organ demands is immediately supplied. For when the unities or leasts of an organ expand to draw in their blood, their vessels contract to propel it; and by virtue of the simultaneous expansion of the unities and contraction of the vessels, the size of the organ is scarcely altered, and its motion is almost imperceptible.

The motions of the organs of the body are an important subject in Swedenborg's theory; occasionally seen in glimpses by many writers, among whom may be instanced our own philosophic Glisson, ¹⁹ yet not recognized by them as a necessary law. It has been remarked before, that the lungs and the brains give each organ a universal motion, at once internal and external. But it would be an error to suppose, because the motion communicated is one and the same, that therefore it is not received and appropriated differently, in other words, modified, by the organs themselves. So truly is this the case, that the motion takes place in every instance in accordance with the geometrical form of the organ, as made up of lesser and least parts, and these forming axes, diameters, and circumferences, general, specific, particular, and singular. Always indeed it is expansion and constriction, these being nature's own motions, and pervading the universe, elemental, material, and organic. Nevertheless it is an expansion and constriction proceeding according to the form of the organ. As a general rule, the most fixed point of every organ is its centre of motion, from which its expansion and constriction begins, to which it returns, and in which it terminates. For each organ is an individual, made up of an infinity of lesser individuals, whereof one and all live their own lives, exercise their own forces, and perform their own actions, and only rely upon the general system for supplies, which they can convert to use in their own way, and according to their own essence; and this, no matter whether the supplies be supplies of blood and fluids, or supplies of motion. The material always comes from without, but the disposal of it from within. These motions convert the organs from powers into forces; so that it may be stated as a law, that the heart and the blood generate the body; but that the brain and the lungs make use of it, and wield it as an instrument of action. As a rude illustration of this, we may instance the case of human machines. The fabrication of a steam engine by artificers in the workshop is one thing, and analogous to the formation of the body by the blood, the vessels, and the heart; but to make use of the same engine requires altogether a different series of powers--fire, water, steam, and a new order of workmen, analogous to the brain, the lungs, and their motions.

As motion is a necessary condition of actual life in the whole body, and all its organs and their parts, so likewise is sensation. For without sensation the organs would not be able to exercise their attractions and repulsions with benefit either to themselves or the system. The cerebrum is our general sensorium, in which we are conscious of all the impressions that rise from the external sensoria, of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; which sensoria occupy the circumference of the body: but the cerebellum takes cognizance, apart from our consciousness, of all the impressions that are made in the interiors of the body; namely, of every contact, ²⁰ in general and in particular, between the solids and the fluids. Therefore the cerebellum is aware of the whole state of the kingdom of the body in its minutest details, and disposes and governs it agreeably to the ends for which corporeal life is instituted. Now the human frame, unlike that of other animals, is coordinate with the whole external universe; it is an organization correlated and responsive to the entire series of the natural creation. The brain is a form of the elemental kingdom; the lungs, of the atmospheric world; and the abdomen, of the terraqueous globe. Nothing less than this can be the case, inasmuch as the body descends from the highest sphere to the lowest, and, by the heart and its vessels, reascends from the lowest to the highest, and thus doubly draws with it the order of the universe. Each degree of the body involves a sensation of its external coordinate. Of the external senses specifically, sight is coordinate with the ether, and apprehends its modifications; hearing, with the air, and perceives its vibrations; smell, with the effluvia of matter; taste, with the essences of body; and touch, with body in its ultimate or concrete form. The first two senses therefore are atmospheric senses; the latter, material, and may be fitly regarded as different forms of touch. There are then three grand genera of touch. The first genus prevails all over the circumference, and constitutes touch proper: the second prevails in the innermost parts of the body, beginning from the tongue; namely, in the esophagus, the stomach, the intestines, and all the viscera of the abdomen, and at the threshold of this series is called taste: the third genus prevails likewise in the innermost parts of the body, but beginning from the nares; namely, in the trachea, the larynx, and the lungs, or in the viscera of the thorax, and at the entrance to these is called smell. The sense of taste again is divided into as many species as there are viscera of the abdomen, and these species into as many particular differences as there are unities in each viscus. "From the variety of the particular sensations of one viscus, a common sensation arises; and from the variety of sensations of many viscera, a still more common sensation arises. And from all and each of these sensations conveyed by the fibres to the cerebellum, the soul, by means of this sense, here apperceives specifically the states of chylification, sanguification, and purification; in a word, of nutrition; and according to the perception, disposes those viscera to the conservation of the whole and the parts, which is the effect and use that this sense produces." The villi on the internal surfaces of the abdominal organs are the papillary sensoria of the above sense.

Thus in the living body sense and motion are universal, and mutually suppose each other, just as is the case in the mind with the will and the understanding. The deprivation of any one of these predicates in any part of its own sphere, amounts to the death of that part, and either involves its elimination, or the death of the whole system.

But as every part of the body is a free individual, dependent upon the whole, and yet independent in its own sphere, so the body itself, although sustained generally by the external universe, in its interiors is altogether exempt from the power and jurisdiction of the latter. It is so far under the mundane law of gravitation, that we are forced to make our dwelling-place, build up our abodes, and institute our communities, upon the soil of the earth: but intrinsically the microcosm dominates over the macrocosm. The substances and fluids in its interiors do in fact gravitate, although not to the centre of, the planet, but to that of the particular motion in whose current they are involved. This centre of motion may be either upward or downward, speaking according to those relations as existing in the surrounding world; for in the body the centre of motion is always the downward point, and its diameters and circumferences are always the upward; for the body itself is nothing but a stupendous series of motions, in whose everlasting currents its solids are ranged and its fluids are fluent. When any substance has attained one centre of motion, it is then at rest in the viscus or organ in whose sphere it was moving: but that very centre is only a point in the circumference of another sphere, to the centre of which the substance is now again drawn and impelled; and so forth. In short, all things in the bodily system are tending from centre to centre, and do not begin to tend to the centre of the planet, until they arrive in the last, lowest, and most general centre of motion of the microcosm, where a mixed action commences between it and the macrocosm, as is the case in the bladder and the rectum. In illustration of this multiple centripetency, the fluids in the gyrating intestines tend first to their parietes, and then into their cellular coat, which is their centre of motion: this centre of motion is the circumference of the mesentery, which now, by its attraction, draws the fluids to its most quiet station or centre of motion, namely, to the receptaculum chyli. Here again, in reasoning from the external world to the internal, we may see the use of cultivating in the mind a principle of flexibility, which will enable us to modulate from the order of one sphere into that of another; for each individual subject has its own essence and peculiarities which must never be overlooked, and although formed on the model of the universe, derives its determinations from its own principles, as much as the universe does from its own principles. All things are under the law of gravitation, but the gravitation of one is not the gravitation of another, because the motion is not the same, nor the end for which the motion is instituted.

Thus in the body we have a perpetual illustration of the law, that fluids always tend from unquiet to more quiet stations; analogous to the rule in physics, that fluids always find their level; and to the principle in the spiritual world, that every man gravitates, "per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum," to the final state of his ruling love.

This may give us some idea of the body as a machine of ends, in which there is not the least point but flows from a use, and tends to a use, and so through perpetual revolutions. For every part of the organism is a centre in itself, in that the whole body conspires to supply and maintain it; and a circumference, since being only a part, it yields its uses primarily to the whole, and only secondarily to itself. The external universe, in all its spheres, communicates with the body by a similar law. These centres, arranged according to the laws of forms, order, degrees, and series, constitute diameters and circumferences, in a word, make up the human frame, which therefore is a world of centres, or speaking generally, is the central work of creation. For there is nothing in nature but man, to which all things can minister a use.

The body is exempt not only from the gravitation but from the chemistry of the circumambient world. It has its own heat, of which there are various degrees, and which is as distinct from the heat that vivifies external nature, as its gravitation is distinct from the gravitation of nature. ft has its own distinct imponderable fluids, its own atmospheric elements, its own fluids, and its own solids. It has its own complete organic chemistry, in which organization is the only end. No chemical changes that occur in the extremes of the system, (where a mixed action commences, of the microcosm and the macrocosm,) no chemical analysis of the excrements or the excretions, no experiments on the dead fluids or tissues, empowers us in the slightest degree to reason to similar chemical effects in the interiors of the body. The organs of the body themselves are the only workmen, appliances, and laboratories, by which and in which organic chemistry is performed; the contemplation of those organs and their products by the rational mind is the only path to the knowledge of such chemistry. In this chemistry there is indeed decomposition or decombination, but instead of a destruction of form and series, a purification from those elements that mar their harmony, and in the decombination, an evolution of higher forces, and an elevation into a more perfect order similar to that of the compound; and last of all, invariably a recombination. But to take a part or product of an organic being, and subject it to destructive analysis,--such a procedure call only be termed disorganic chemistry, as expressing that it is the very reverse of what goes on in the body. For this process is analogous to putrefaction, and not to formation.

Throughout nature every general is made up of its own particulars. These particulars are its unities, and constitute the limits of its series. For instance, the pulmonary vesicles are the unities of the lungs, or the essential parts from which the pulmonary series commences: the vessels and nerves that construct these vesicles are not the unities of the lungs, because they are not peculiar to the lungs, but form the groundwork of the whole body. Men and women are the unities or atoms of human society, not that they are indivisible, but that they are the simplest forms of their own series. The unities of each organ in the body are so many little organs homogeneous with their compound: the unities of the tongue are little tongues; those of the stomach are little stomachs; those of the liver are little livers; and so forth. These leasts or unities are not necessarily identical with their compounds in form, but only in function; for in the field of leasts (in campo minimorum), similitude of use determines homogeneity, and similitude of shape is of no consequence. As every general is the sum of its particulars as a form, so is it also as a power, force cause. The function represented by an organ is performed more freely, perfectly, and efficiently, by its unities or leasts, than by its them from which the power of the whole is derived, more easily exempted from the laws of gravity, and more gently and distinctly recipient of external forces. They are nearer to the substance of substances, and as it were more divine. They are the all in all of their own series; the essences of which the general is the form; the actives of which the compound is the passive. In the expressive language of Swedenborg, "all power resides in the least things," and again, "nature is greatest in what is least, and least in what is greatest." ²¹ The field of leasts is the field of universality, where an action communicated pervades the entire sphere as though it were but a point of space; for the more internal the sphere, the more intense the association. The stream of creative influx enters the compound through the gate of its leasts. The difference between the latter and the former is as between the ideal and the real; the ideal being represented in the leasts; the real, with its complications, and subservience to secondary laws and external circumstances, in the compound. Let us recur for an example to the highest and simplest instance; to the case as existing between an individual man, and a society or a nation. In the individual, the body is the very manifestation of the mind; the servant is the obedient and accurate image of the master. The will, as the ground of activity, flows through a series of intellectual means evoked from itself, with the smallest diminution of force and efficiency into the bodily actions, there being no separate or self interest to absorb it either in the understanding or the body; and thus the monarchy of the first principle is pervading, absolute, and complete. But how different are the actions of a society or compound individual; its interests how divided; its instruments how insubordinate; how great the distance between its legislative and executive, its will and its actions; through what inept mediations the former must pass into the latter; what an absorption is there-of the first force in the passage; what a refraction and dispersion of the intentions of the government before they can ultimately be applied to the governed. Now the same is true with the simples and compounds of every series in creation, as with the simples and compounds of humanity.

We come now to speak of the formation of the body, which takes place by a gradual descent from the higher to the lower forms, or by the perpetual derivation, composition, and convolution of simples. Speaking in generals, the spiral form may illustrate the progression. For this purpose let us assume the primary fibre of the brain, without going deeper, or to the spherules of which that first fibre is composed. This fibre, named by Swedenborg the fibre of the soul, involves the spiral form and force, and carries the animal spirit. By its evolution, or what amounts to the same thing, its circumvolution into a new spiral, it forms the nervous fibre, which carries the true purer blood, or nervous fluid; and this again (for it likewise is a spiral force), by its circumvolution generates the blood-vessel, which carries the fluid of the third degree or sphere, namely, the red blood. Hence every artery involves a triple series of circulations, wonderfully alternating with each other. For the nervous fibre, in its expansion and constriction, is precisely alternate with, or the inverse of, the primary fibre; and the same relation of harmonious discord subsists again between the blood-vessel and the nervous fibre. Thus the cause of expansion in the one sphere, is the cause of constriction in the sphere above it: to convert the expansion of the blood-vessels into constriction, the nerves are approached by an expansile agent adapted to their own subtle and active nature; for by the law of inversion, the expansion of the one the constriction of the other. The play of this inversion, in its perfect form, is a condition of health; but in man's present state, the equilibrium is too often lost, there being, in the words of Swedenborg, "a perpetual battle and collision between the three spheres of the body, namely, between the blood and the spirits, and between the spirits and the soul."

The last subject on which it will be necessary to say a few words in this department of our remarks, is the distinction between the life before birth, and the life after birth. In the foetus, nature, that is to say, the soul, as an end and formative power, alone rules, and all things proceed in natural order, from the highest or innermost sphere to the lowest or outermost, by the synthetic way, or a priori ad posteriora. But after birth, the will rules over nature, and drives her from her throne, and all operations proceed in inverse order, by the analytic way, or a posteriori ad priora. These opposite states require a medium to reconcile between them, which medium is supplied by the opening of the lungs; the animations of the brains being synchronous with the respirations after birth, but with the pulsations of the heart during uterine life. In the foetus, the higher spheres act, and the lower react; whereas after birth the lower act, and the higher only react. In the former case all operations are universal and most individual, conspiring by intrinsic harmony, and in perfect freedom, and proceed outwards from the brains; in the latter they are in the first place general, and proceed inwards to the sphere of particulars through the coverings, membranes, or bonds, of the body and its organs. But the reader will not acquire a satisfactory understanding of this wonderful doctrine by anything short of an attentive study of Swedenborg himself.

There are certain organs in the body which have always been looked upon as the opprobria of physiologists, who indeed appear to fail wherever nature does not speak by an ultimate fact; that is to say, wherever there is a clear field for the understanding as apart from and above the senses. The absence of an excretory duct is sufficient to consign an organ in perpetuity to the limbo of doubt. Surmise indeed respecting its functions is still allowed, but proof is considered impossible. We might as well pretend to know the nature of the world of spirits as to know the function of the spleen. We should be as rank visionaries in the one case as in the other, since we should be placing an implicit dependence upon reason, in a matter where the bodily senses give no direct information. Swedenborg did pretend to know both, and ill he fared in consequence with the scientific world, and with the first reviewer of his "Animal Kingdom" in the "Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensia." They said he was "a happy fellow," and laughed outright. Without stopping to do more than direct the reader's particular attention to his doctrine of the spleen, the suprarenal capsules, and the thymus gland, as being satisfactory and irrefragable, it may be wondered why the physiologists should single out those organs as especial subjects whereon to make confession of ignorance. There is modesty in their confession, but it ought in justice to have embraced more. These organs are closely connected to others, and ignorance respecting them involves ignorance respecting the others also. Connexion of structures in the body is also connexion of functions, forces, modes, and accidents. If the function of the spleen be unknown, so precisely to the same extent are the functions of the pancreas, the stomach, the omentum, and the liver; if the functions of the succenturiate kidneys be unknown, so are the functions of the diaphragm, the kidneys, the peritonaeum, and indeed of the whole body; for the body is a continuous tissue, woven without a break in nature's loom. To be ignorant of a part, is to be ignorant of something that pervades the whole. The disease that affects the spleen, affects the whole, for the spleen is in all things, and all things are in the spleen. To recur to the liver: what is the amount of knowledge respecting its functions? Precisely this, that the hepatic duct proceeds from it, and carries bile into the duodenum. The bile and the duct are the sum and substance of the modern physiology of the liver it is prorsus in occulto why either bile or duct should exist. The truth then is, that there is as much known about the liver as about the spleen, and no more; in the one case it is known that there is an excretory duct, in the other that there is none. Alas! the scientific mind is steeped in the senses, and is the drudge of their limited sphere.

Swedenborg's analysis is professedly supported upon the foundation of the old anatomists, who flourished in the Augustan age of the science. At his time nearly all the great and certain facts of anatomy were already known; such for example as the circulation of the blood, and the existence of the lymphatics and the lacteals. Anatomy, too, had long been cultivated distinctly in the human subject, and was to a great extent purified of the errors that crept into it at first from the habit of dissecting the lower animals. Many of the old anatomists were men of a philosophic spirit, who proposed to themselves the problem of the universe, and solved it in their own way, or tried to solve it. They were the first observers of nature's speaking marvels in the organic sphere, and described them with feelings of delight, which showed that they were receptive of instruction from the great fountain of truth. They worked at once with the mind and the senses in the field of observation. There was a certain superior manner and artistic form in their treatises. They believed instinctively in the doctrine of use. They expected nature to be wonderful, and supposed therefore that the human body involved much which it required the distinct exercise of the mind to discover. Hence their belief in the existence of the animal spirits; belief which they based upon common sense, or what amounts to the same thing, upon the general experience of effects; at the same time that they recognized its object as beyond sensual experience, and not to he confirmed directly by sight. ²² They used the microscope to assist and fortify the eye, and not to substitute it, or dissipate its objective sphere. Even the greatest among them, who addicted himself to the bare study of structure and the making of illustrative preparations, expressed a noble hope that others would complete his labors, by making as distinct a study of uses. ²³

But the picture is not without its darker side. Although they had strong instincts and vivid glimpses of truth, yet when they attempted to carry their perceptions out, they degenerated into mere hypotheses, and systems of hypotheses. They did not ascend high enough before they again descended, nor did they explore nature by an integral method; and hence they had no means of pursuing analogies without destroying the everlasting distinctions of things. They stopped in that midway where scepticism easily overtook them, and where, when that enemy of the human intellect had once penetrated, there was no possibility of maintaining themselves, but the fall to the sensual sphere was inevitable. The reason of this was, that they had not conceived the laws of order, and therefore could not claim the support which nature gives to all her truths. Nay, it was so impossible that they should proceed further without the tincture of a universal method, that their minds came to a standstill; the truths already elicited mere rendered unsatisfactory, and mere progress demanded their fall. They fell therefore, and a race which knows them not is dwelling now in tent and but among their mighty ruins.

At the very crisis of their fate, Swedenborg took the field for the end that has been already mentioned, and at once declared, that unless matters were carried higher, experimental knowledge itself would perish, and the arts and sciences be carried to the tomb, adding that he was much mistaken if the world's destinies were not tending thitherwards. The task that he undertook was, to build the heaps of experience into a palace in which the human mind might dwell, and enjoy security from without, and spiritual prosperity from within. He brought to that task requisites, both external and internal, of an extraordinary kind. He was a naturalized subject in all the kingdoms of human thought, and yet was born at the same time to another order and a better country. To the various classes of schoolmen he appears never to have attached himself, excepting for different purposes from theirs. He pursued mathematics for a distinctly extraneous end. As a student of physiology he belonged to no clique or school, and had no class-prejudices to encounter. In theology he was almost as free mentally, as though not a single commentator had written, or system been formed, but as though his hands were the first in which the Word of God was placed in its virgin purity. Add to this that he by no means disregarded the works of others, but was learned in all useful learning. He had a sound practical education, and was employed daily in the actual business of life for a series of years. He was thoroughly acquainted with mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, and the other sciences as known in his time, and had elicited universal truths in the sphere of each. From the beginning he perceived that there was an order in nature. This enabled him to pursue his own studies with a view to order. He ascended from the theory of earthy substances to the theory of the atmospheres, and from both to the theory of cosmogony, and came gradually to man as the crowning object of nature. He brought the order of the macrocosm to illustrate the order of the microcosm. His dominant end, which he never lost sight of for a moment, was spiritual and moral, which preserved his mind alive in a long course of physical studies, and empowered him to see life and substance in the otherwise dead machinery of the creation. He was a man of uncommon humbleness, and never once looked back, to gratify self-complacency, upon past achievements, but travelled onwards and still onwards, "without fatigue and without repose," to a home in the fruition of the infinite and eternal. Such the competitor who now entered the arena of what had, until this time, been exclusively medical science; truly a man of whom it is not too much to say, that he possessed the kindliest, broadest, highest, most theoretical and most practical genius that it has yet pleased God to bestow on the weary ages of civilization.

Swedenborg perceived that the permanence of nature depends upon the excellence of its order; that all creation exists and subsists as one thing from God; that divine love is its end; divine wisdom, its cause; and divine order, in the theatre of use, the simultaneous or ultimate form of that wisdom and love. He also perceived, that the permanence of any human system, whether a philosophy or a society, depends upon the coincidence between its order and the order of creation; and that when this coincidence exists, the perceptions of reason have a fixed place and habitation on the earth, from which it will be impossible to dislodge them by anything short of a crumbling down of all the faculties, both rational and sensual; a result which, if the human heart be improving, the belief in a God forbids us to anticipate. But Swedenborg did not rest, as the philosophers do, in a mere algebraical perception of the truth, or in recognizing a want without supplying it; but like a good and faithful servant he actually expounded a system of principles at one with nature herself, and which will attest their order and their real Author by standing for ages of ages.

But his still small voice commanded no attention, and what he predicted took place: the sciences were carried to the tomb, where they are now buried, with the mind their subject, in the small dust of modern experience. This brings us to say a few words of the physiology of the day.

Facts are the grand quest of the present time, and these, particular facts: general facts are less recognized now than they were at the beginning of the last century; for short-sightedness has so increased upon us, that we must look close in order to see distinctly, and hence extended surfaces do not fall under our vision. The physiologist defers reasoning until the accumulation of facts is sufficiently great, to suggest reasons out of its own bosom. This is a step beyond ordinary materialism. The individual materialist considers that matter must be organized into the form of a brain before it can think and will; but that compound materialist, the scientific world, expects dead matter to open its mouth and utter wisdom, without any such previous process. It thinks that at present there is not matter enough, or this result mould ensue; little dreaming that there is a fault in itself, and that the larger the stores it possesses, the more impossible it will be to evolve their principles, or to marshal them under a theory. The common facts of the body having been pretty well explored, the physiologists go inwards, and gather further facts. Without waiting to ascertain the import of these, they submit them to the microscope, and again decompose them; and so on, to the limits prescribed by nature to the optician, and by the optician to the scientific enquirer. But is the field of leasts more easy to discern than that of compounds; or if we cannot read nature's secret in her countenance, can we expect to divine it from her very brains? The truth is, that the modern state of physiology is a universal dispersion of even sensual knowledge: its pretended respect for facts is not real; otherwise it would enquire into their general significance before resolving them into further elements. It perpetually illustrates the principle that facts cannot be duly respected unless they are seen as agents of uses, and results of ends and causes; and that if they are not so regarded, they become mere playthings, to which novelty itself can lend scarcely a momentary charm.

But as every end progresses through more means than one, so science is undergoing dispersion in another direction also. Not only are the generals of anatomy forgotten for its particulars, but the human frame itself is in a great measure deserted for comparative anatomy. The so-called human physiologist pursues his diffuse circle from animal to animal, from insect to insect, and from plant to plant. Man is confounded with the lower and lowest things, as if all the spheres of creation were in one plane of order. The consummation of this tendency is already more than indicated above the horizon; when the lowest range of existence will be the standard of all, and then the chaos of organic nature will become the legitimate property of the chemists, to be by them resolved into gases and the dead materials of the earth.

Another characteristic of the times is the almost total breach of continuity between the present and the past. The terminology of science is so much altered that it is impossible to read the older works with benefit, unless after a course of study something like that requisite for learning a dead language. In consequence, the mere anatomical value of the fathers of anatomy is not at all understood; their rich mines of observation are no longer worked, and their forgotten discoveries are now and then again discovered, with all the pains of a first attempt, by their ill-informed successors. Can anything be less human than this,--that the parents should transmit so little to the children, or rather that the children should be willing to receive so little from the parents? It exchanges the high destiny of man for the fate that attends the races of animals, in which each generation lives for itself alone, and again and again repeats the same limited series, without improvement or the possibility of evolution.

In the midst of this humiliating condition, what loud sounds do we not hear of "march of intellect" and "progress of the species,"--so many discharges from the impotent artillery of self-conceit. This indeed is the last and worst sign of a decadent science. The poor sick sufferer is delirious, and possesses for a moment superhuman strength in his own exhaustion.

The present cultivators of science boast themselves followers of Bacon in the inductive method, apparently grounding their claim on the fact, that they dwell in effects or in proximate causes to the exclusion of final causes. It is a remarkable circumstance, that each age since Bacon's time has considered itself especially as his follower, and that the present age, besides laying this unction to its soul, denies the genuineness of the Baconianism of all preceding ages. Meanwhile there can be no doubt, that if Bacon himself were to publish his works now for the first time, he mould be ranked among the mesmerists, the phrenologists, and the other poor gentiles, who are banished by common consent to the far islands of the scientific world, and would be exterminated from it altogether if they were not preserved in some mysterious way,--perhaps by having the truth on their side. Bacon himself would belong to these gentiles; but mould their antagonists then lay an exclusive claim to his philosophy? We apprehend not. The inductive method would be far from fashionable if its larger tendencies were seen, or if the scientific beliefs to which Bacon himself was led by it, could be currently reported. Would it not freeze a, Royal Society to the very marrow, to be identified in any way with a man who believed, as the great Lord Bacon did, in witchcraft, and the medicinal virtues of precious stones?

Notwithstanding the unpromising state of things in science, the natural theologians have adventured to deduce from it "the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the creation." Truly the creation is an effluence and argument of divine wisdom. But in the present range of scientific insight, it is not seen to do more than approximate to the works of human skill. The mechanics of the watch are more wonderful to man than the mechanics of the ear or eye; the arch is the antetype of which the convex skull is but the type. Natural theology based on such science, can attribute nothing to God which does not belong in a superior degree to man. Its discoveries are not worth making, because they are so infinitely transcended by the perceptions of common sense in all nations and ages. Now Swedenborg, in his scientific works, was a natural theologian, but he began where human skill terminates, and by the application of guiding doctrines, followed the ever-expanding order of creation inwards to the point where mechanics and geometry are realized in more universal laws of wisdom and providence; and where at last the human mind itself recognizes the very source of life in its humiliation before the throne of God.

But it would be far from the present line of argument, to maintain that the moderns are performing no useful function in the "progress of the species." Such a proposition would be incompatible with what we know of the divine economy, in which human degeneracy itself is converted into a new point in the circle of uses. Nay, the moderns have their direct value; in the first place, they have enlarged the catena of observation in many departments. In the second, they have corrected innumerable minute errors in their predecessors, who were more intent upon general than particular accuracy. And thirdly and chiefly, although in this respect no credit attaches to them, they have gone so low in their enquiries, that as it is even physically impossible to go lower, so by the law of the contact of extremes a revolution may now take place, and the ascending passage be commenced, as it were from the skin to the brain, or from the lowest sphere to the highest.

It would be interesting to trace the successive stages by which the physiology of the ancients declined into that of the moderns, to review the grounds on which great doctrines were given up, and to test the sufficiency of the reasons which were adduced for the change. The state delineated in the well-known lines--

"I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,

The reason why, I cannot tell;

But this alone I know full well,

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,"

--this state was the moving cause of it. In short, it was a change in the human will, and not primarily in the understanding, which faculty appears to have been called upon subsequently, to confirm the new turn of the inclinations. Such at any rate we know to be the case with the doctrine of the animal spirits, which, as Glisson said, was in his time believed in "by nearly all physicians, and by all philosophers." It might have been supposed that the animal spirits were demonstrated out of existence by some beneficent genius who substituted something better in their place; at least that they fell honorably in a well-fought field of argument. No such thing; they fell by the treachery of the human heart loving the sensual sphere more than the intellectual. Is such mere waywardness as this a part of the "progress of the species?" The ancients believed in the existence of the animal spirits without pretending that they could become objects of sight. "Tam subtile sit concipiendum [fluidum hoc subtilissimum]," says Heister, "...ut instar lucis velocissime se diffundat; quod profecto non oculis, sed ex effectibus et phaenomenis, . . .ope judicii sive mentis oculis cognoscendum.... Ita aerem, animam, et multa non videmus, quae tamen ex effectibus, quemadmodum spiritus animales, esse et existere intelligimus." ²⁴ But the moderns reject whatever they do not see, and will credit the existence of nothing that absolutely outlies, and must in its conditions for ever outlie, the senses. It is needless to say that a state like this is based upon neither reasons nor sensations, but is purely negative or sceptical, and must be referred to sheer will without any admixture of wisdom.

We promised at the outset to speak of the relation in which Swedenborg's philosophy stands to the science of the day, but it will now be seen that there is no direct relation between the two, but a plenary repugnancy. For the one is order, the other is chaos: the one is concentration, the other is infinite division: the one enlarges its limits in that interior world where creation exists in all its spiritual amplitude, the other loses its limits, and its distinct life along with them, in the great vacuities of space and time: the one is a rod and staff giving the mind a practical support in the exploration of nature's fields, the other is a mist of hypotheses crawling along the ground, and making every step uncertain and perilous.

The science of the moderns tends to bury physiology more and more within the schools; that of Swedenborg will ultimately shed it abroad as a universal light which like that of the sun belongs in justness to all mankind. In this respect science is situated precisely as theology. There is no difficulty in either but what man himself induces. The whole scheme of true theology is so simple that the humblest capacity may understand it, and so coherent, that the memory may retain even its details without the slightest difficulty. So in a measure will it be with a true science. The appointed professors of the true theology must be amenable to a common knowledge thereof existing in the understandings of their flocks and congregations. So must it be at last with the professional bodies appointed to preside over a true science. In a word, under the influence of the New Church, a protestant state must come over science itself; the bible of nature must be opened to the public as well as to the professions; and the professions themselves must be content to accept their position, from standing in a clear and recognized connexion with the common sense of mankind, as brought into play upon their own subjects.

The relation in which Swedenborg stands to the philosophers may be briefly characterized. The analysis and classification of the conditions and states of the mind is a subject which he has only touched on incidentally in the "Animal Kingdom." He maintains that the influx of the soul into the body is truly synthetic, or a priori ad posteriora, but that the instruction and information of the rational mind is necessarily analytic, or a posteriori ad priora; not that the senses generate the mind, but that they supply it with materials, and externally excite it to activity; the soul similarly exciting it internally. With respect to that mentalism which has been introduced since Swedenborg's time by Kant and his followers, the writings of Swedenborg distinctly involve it, but then our author adds to its forms life and substance, and displays a world coordinate with each plane of the human faculties, without which man would not exist in nature. By virtue of this, what are mere abstract categories and ideas in the one, are organic causes in the other, (Swedenborg says, "all causes must be formed organically,") and the mind is allied to the body through the whole scale of its ascent. But there is one department of metaphysics or ontology which finds no countenance in Swedenborg; viz., the two schemes of materialism, and immaterialism, or as it is falsely called, spiritualism, as opposed to, and opposing, each other. The controversy between these two he declares to be "a battle of words," a play of "shadowy sophisms," a "game at chess in the high city of literature;" and he refers the whole misunderstanding to ignorance of the doctrines of forms and degrees. ²⁵ For this war respecting the substance of which things are made, tends to divert the mind from the successive order of nature, and to plunge it at one leap in the occult; consequently to induce it to omit all the series of forms that intermediate between the body and the soul. The words mind and matter in this case stand for two substances under one form, and it is not easy to see how the one can be preferable to the other, or how thought can be influenced by either of them. As systems of causation therefore, the rule of use protests against them both. The main argument of Bishop Berkeley, that his hypothesis causes no difference to our sensations, must be admitted, and it is conclusive against immaterialism. Why introduce an element that confessedly plays no part in our affairs. Both these schemes are essentially controversial or negative, and if either of them could be substracted, the other mould no longer be capable of an expression. Both of them tacitly deny the order of nature, and therefore they can never minister at the altar of true science. Matter and substance may be opposites, but this has nothing to do with the question of the existence of matter. The mind is a substance, but this likewise in no way touches the existence of matter. The question of the existence of matter is perfectly distinct from the question of its substance. What then is the definition of a substance? It is evident that a substance is the ground of a particular existence; and equally so, that the only ground for which anything exists is the end or use that it will subserve in the creation. The particular end or use, then, of each thing is its substance. But ends and uses in themselves are spiritual. In order, therefore, that this end or use may institute a series in nature, it must put on a natural form; and the first form that it so assumes, the form of the first degree, is the substance or unit of the whole series, as being all in all throughout the subsequent degrees: it is the universal of the series, as being, by virtue of the properties of its form, universally present, potent, active, and c., in the entire progression of the thing that it constitutes. It is the relation that this unit bears to order, degrees, and series, that makes it into a substance and not into an accident. Hence it is order that determines substance, and hence too every substance is an organic form, as being the initiament of all the forms of its series. Mental admissions of substance which do not involve forms analogous to those of the natural creation, are mere terms without ideas: views of mind, thought or affection, which contemplate these subjects otherwise than as prototypes of the human body, are vacant of meaning: metaphysics without they rest upon the order of physics, are a soul without a body, and belong neither to this world nor to the next. Whatever deflects the understanding from order, as the question of questions, deflects it equally from both mind and matter, and consigns it proportionably to the "shadowy sophisms" of materialism or immaterialism. In the highest sense God is the only substance, and yet in a true sense, each degree is a substance to that proximately below it. All finite differences are in reality variations of form determined by uses in their order. Each degree involves the repetition in itself of all the three degrees, of end, cause, and effect; and hence nature itself is full of substances,--of bodies possessing real trine dimension,--and matter also involves as many substances as it has distinct forms. If we suppose that nature is a mere surface, me manifestly indispose the mind for admitting a doctrine of forms, consequently me detain it in the last degree, and in the lowest plane of imagery, and when this is the case we must look upon science as something which exists by courtesy, a record of appearances and superficialities which are only presented to us to be negated. Thus the spiritual violates the natural, instead of leaning upon it, as a house upon its foundation. But let no logic disturb our foundations thus: the principle of use, and the test of results, furnish a more conclusive experiment of ideas than any syllogistic process; for they scrutinize the end, and not only the means. This principle and test declare to us, that in the investigation of nature, we are to keep our minds in the idea of order, as manifested in successive degrees of forms, forces, operations and uses, and that then we are legitimately studying the nature of substance in the only meaning that it has for finite beings. Other substance than this is a figment, which is rendered necessary by nothing in the theory of causation, because it will legitimately account for nothing. It has no function in the new state of things, but belongs essentially to the scholasticism of a past church.

If it be alleged that immaterialism produces philosophical results, and is capable of being expanded into a system, we reply to this, that wherever such results appear to follow it, they arise in reality from the tacit intermingling of some organic element of thought in the premises, the presence of which element is not perceived. It would be easy to illustrate this by a criticism of any of the philosophical and religious consequences: which are supposed to flow from immaterialism, and to prove that those consequences are not the fruits of the immaterialism, but of other grounds coexisting with it in the mind. But the demonstration would carry us beyond the design of the present remarks. With respect to substance, it may be expedient to observe, that the word is commonly used in two meanings, both of which are true, and must concur to a complete idea of the thing. Firstly, it is used in a universal, generative and active sense, as the elemental ground of matter, and as the spiritual ground of the natural world, in which partial sense, substance is spiritual, and its operation purely synthetic. Secondly, it is used in a general, formative, and passive sense, as the complex, continent, and basis of interiors and universals, in which partial sense, substance is material, and its operation purely separative or analytic. But the complete idea of substance is the result of the union of these two senses; in other words, of the ordinary notions of both substance and form; which although two elements in thought, are not two in reality, but "distinctly one." Swedenborg clearly shows both in his philosophical and religious works, (which indeed are perfectly at one on this subject,) that we must take a bodily as well as a mental view of substance. It may be sufficient to cite the following passage from his work on "Heaven and Hell." "Man," says he, "cannot exercise thought and will at all, unless there be a subject, which is a substance, from and in which he exerts those faculties. Whatever is imagined to exist, and yet to be destitute of a substantial subject, is nothing at all. This may be known from the fact, that man cannot see without an organ as the subject of sight, nor hear without an organ as the subject of hearing. Without such organs, sight and hearing are nothing, and have no existence. It is the same with thought, which is internal sight, and with apprehension, which is internal hearing: unless these existed in, and from, substances, which are organic forms, ... they could not exist at all," and c. (n. 434)

Having now briefly indicated the relation between Swedenborg's science and philosophy and that of his own and the present time, me have still to speak of a few points which more particularly belong to the Work before us.

The reader may probably be led to enquire, how far the "Animal Kingdom" embodies doctrines which were current at Swedenborg's day, and how far its deductions are peculiar to our author. To this it may be answered, that many doctrines to be met with in the Work are by no means peculiar to Swedenborg, but were the common intellectual property of his contemporaries and predecessors. We have seen that a host of writers held the doctrine of the animal spirits. It was also no uncommon belief that they were elaborated by the cortical substances of the brain, and circulated through the nerves. Vieussens held that there were distinct degrees of them. Brunn propounded the same doctrine as Swedenborg respecting the pituitary gland; and numerous instances to the same effect might readily be adduced from other writers. Perhaps the best means to be certified on this head, will be by the perusal of Boerhaave's "Institutiones Medicae,"--a work where the theories of many ages are condensed into an eclectic system. It appears as though Swedenborg freely availed himself of the treasures that were accumulated around him and before him, and was altogether destitute of that passion for originality which has been the besetting sin of so many of the learned. He distinctly states that he has relied upon his own experience to but a small extent, and that he has deemed it wiser, for the most part, to "borrow" from others. ²⁶ So also where he found true doctrines and deductions,--these likewise he borrowed, and this, with generously grateful acknowledgment. But what he really brought to the task were those great principles of order to which we have before alluded, and which touched nothing that they did not universalize and adorn; nay, which built the materials of experience and the deductions of reason into a glorious palace that truths could inhabit. It is as the architect of this edifice that Swedenborg is to be viewed, and his merits are to be sought for not so much in its separate stones, as in the grand harmonies and colossal proportions of the whole.

After this statement it is scarcely necessary to observe, that Swedenborg is not to be resorted to as an authority for anatomical facts. It is said, indeed, that he has made various discoveries in anatomy, and the canal named the "foramen of Monro" is instanced among these. ²⁷ Supposing that it were so, it would be dishonoring Swedenborg to lay any stress upon a circumstance so trivial. Whoever discovered this foramen was most probably led to it by the lucky slip of a probe. But other claims are made for our author by his injudicious friends. It is said that he anticipated some of the most valuable novelties of more recent date, such as the phrenological doctrine of the great Gall, and the newly-practised art of animal magnetism. This is not quite fair: let; every benefactor to mankind have his own honorable wreath, nor let one leaf be stolen from it for the already laureled brow of Swedenborg. True it is that all these things, and many more, lie in ovo in the universal principles made known through him, but they were not developed by him in that order which constitutes all their novelty, and in fact their distinct existence. For in the first place it is impossible for the human mind to anticipate facts; these must always be learnt by the senses: and secondly, Swedenborg was too much a man of business to turn aside from the direct means to his end, or to attempt to develop anything beyond those means. His philosophy is the high road from the natural world to the spiritual, and of course has innumerable lateral branches leading to the several fair regions of human knowledge: but through none of these by-ways had Swedenborg time to travel: nay, could he have done so, there is nothing to show that he would there have discovered what his successors have done. He had his mission, and they have theirs. His views are at harmony with all that is new and true, simply because they are universal, but in no fair sense do they anticipate, much less supersede, the scientific peculium of the present century. Swedenborg, therefore, is not to be regarded as an Aristotle governing the human mind, and indisposing it to the instruction designed to be gained from nature; but as a propounder of principles the result of analysis, and of a method that is to excite us to a perpetual study in the field of effects, as a condition of the progress of science.

The anatomical knowledge possessed by Swedenborg was undoubtedly very extensive. He appears to have studied more by plates than by actual dissection, as almost any one would naturally do who had in view the same end as himself. This will be regarded as an unpardonable vice by the physiologists. But why should the knowledge of the human frame be limited to the dissecting-room? Why should it be the appendage of one craft, and not an inheritance of universal humanity? Why should the truths of the body be the exclusive property of the physicians, any more than the truths of the soul the exclusive property of the clergy? Have we not all souls, and have we not all bodies? Now good and accurate plates, corrected and generalized during several ages, are far more valuable and available as a basis of general education, such as the New Church must ultimately desire, than either dissections or preparations. It is something that they carry none of the adjuncts of death, disease, or putrefaction; that they do not hinder the mind from recollecting that life and motion are the import and lesson of the body. It is something that they may be placed within the reach of all. Swedenborg has set the example of what may be done by studying them, and his readers must follow the same course if they wish to profit by his instructions. ²⁸

The professional reader of the "Animal Kingdom" will not fail to discover that the author has fallen into various anatomical errors of minor importance, and that there are occasionally marks of haste in his performance. This may be conceded without in any degree detracting from the character of the work. These errors do not involve matters of principle. The course which Swedenborg adopted, of founding his theory upon general experience, and of only resorting to particular facts as confirmations, so equilibrates and compensates all misstatements of the kind, that they may be rejected from the result as unimportant. To dwell upon them as serious, and still more to make the merit of the theory hinge upon them, is worthy only of a "minute philosopher," who has some low rule whereby to judge a truth, instead of the law of use. Such unhappily was the rule adopted by the reviewer of the "Animal Kingdom" in the "Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensia" (1747, pp. 507-514): the book was despised by this critic because Swedenborg had committed an error in describing the muscles of the tongue, and because he had cited the plates of Bidloo and Verheyen, which Heister and Morgagni had then made it a fashion to disparage; and for other equally inconclusive reasons. All they amounted to was, that Swedenborg had not accomplished the reviewer's end, however thoroughly he had performed his own.

But fortunately such criticisms are never decisive; a single truth can outlive ten thousand of them. The "Animal Kingdom" appeals to the world at this time, a hundred years since the publication of the original, as a new production, having all the claims of an unjudged book upon our regards. For during that hundred years not a single writer has appeared in the learned world, who has in the slightest degree comprehended its design, or mastered its principles and details. The reviewer to whom we have more than once alluded, judged it by a standard which was suited only to an anatomical manual and textbook. Haller bestowed a few words upon it in his invaluable "Bibliotheca Anatomica," but he knew nothing of Swedenborg's views; and his notice of the "Economy of the Animal Kingdom," contains errors too numerous not to invalidate his censure, had he bestowed it, which however he has not done directly. Sprengel, in his "History of Medicine," has offered a few lines upon the work, but these merely of a bibliographical import. The past therefore has found no fault in it, and it comes before the reader with an uninjured character, and demands as a good, true, and useful book to be taken into his service, and to receive a full trial at his hands. The modern physiologists having no theory of their own, have no reference to it, nor until they quit their present ground can they be allowed to have an opinion on the subject. Their censure would not be more relevant than mould the opposition of a Red Indian to the problems of the mathematics.

But it may fairly be asked, what are the prospects that the "Animal Kingdom," and the scientific works of Swedenborg generally, will be received at this day, when they refer to an order of facts almost forgotten, when they involve a scientific terminology which has become partially obsolete, and especially when it is considered that there never perhaps was an age so well satisfied with itself and its own achievements as the present one? Their prospects in the high places of science are not indeed encouraging: it would be vain to build up hopes in that quarter, or to address expostulations to it. A commission of any Royal Academy in christendom would soon decide our claims in the negative. But fortunately there are abundant signs of a breaking up. The scientific world, and specifically the medical world, which is always the highest exponent of the state of science, is in a state of intestine revolution; nay, what is saying much, it is nearly as full of dissension as the church itself. It would be exceedingly unpalatable to dwell upon its divisions, to specify the sects which have separated from the maternal body, and to show the irreconcilable nature of the differences that subsist between orthodox medicine and her refractory children. The future historian, standing upon the grave of once venerated institutions, may do this with impartiality, and not without a feeling of pity. Meanwhile it is our privilege to rejoice, that amid the decadence of science new ground is being broken, and new spirits raised up, to some of whom the new truth may be accommodated and delightful.

We use the phrase "new truth," although the works which contain it have been buried in the dust for a whole century; but in so doing we simply allude to the principles involved in those works. The confirmatory facts by which these principles were brought into relation with the science of Swedenborg's day, may doubtless from time to time be superseded by better attestations: particular facts are but the crutches of a true theory, and are not strictly speaking its basis; for the basis itself is spiritual, since it is the order and tenor of effects that form it, and not the matter. The principles themselves are eternal truths,--the same yesterday, today, and for ever. They are not attached for more than a time, or for any end but necessity of use, to any one range of facts, or to the books of any one author, - no, not even of a Swedenborg.

There are cycles in all things, and even now there are some indications of a revival of medical learning. The weakness of the present state of things is perceived by those who have no appreciation of its barrenness; the temper of the public is an unmistakable demonstration to this effect. Hence many begin to revert to the past, and laying aside for a moment the vociferation of "march of intellect" and "progress of the species," they are content to march and progress, like the crab, backwards, and to claim Hippocrates and Galen and Sydenham as their fathers. This is at any rate so far good, that it shows how a forgotten range of facts and an antiquated terminology may be reacquired as soon as there is a sufficient motive: nay, it nourishes the hope, that under the pressure from without, the large body of dependents, if not the feudal lords of science, may come to even greater and more unexpected results than these. Who shall say that they may not ultimately see that it is their interest, as practitioners of medicine, to deposit their cloke of mystifications, to bring to market something which is intelligible and useful to humanity, to go wherever truth leads them, even though that truth be "stranger than fiction," and to come to our Swedenborg in his double character, and acknowledge with humble thankfulness that a greater than Hippocrates is here, -- a man who has married practice to theory, who has dissected the living body without destroying it, and has so opened the sciences of anatomy and physiology, that they must sooner or later become branches of human education, in which case the medical profession will have a solid basis in the social world, and be as a golden crown of wisdom and practice resting securely upon the correct knowledge and common sense of mankind.

To all those who are in possession of truths which are not recognized, or are rejected, by the systems of the day, the writings of Swedenborg may be perfectly invaluable. Those writings will prevent them from being dependent, in any department of reason, upon the old state of science. They will furnish a high rallying point where a number of such distinct truths may be combined, and derive that strength which is the result of union, and especially of the union of truths. They will put weapons of offence and defence in the hands of causes which are now repressed almost into nothingness, and give power to those which are strong in spirit, yet weak in body. They will add force to faith, and sustain the earnest soul through the day of small things, and meanwhile yield it a peaceful delight prophetic of a glorious future. To all such persons these writings ought to be as glad tidings, and should be received with hearty thankfulness, and a determination to lose no time in converting them to use.

But it is on the New Church itself that Swedenborg's scientific works have the highest claim. They were written, indeed, to convince the sceptic, yet perhaps their chief end may be to confirm the believer. They disclose the intellectual use of nature, as being a theatre of instruction where man may learn the highest truths in the lowest form, and from which he may mount upwards, on the ladder of divine order, until the intellect merges in the moral sphere. They proclaim that in this course of true instruction there is nothing to be unlearnt, either in this life or in that which is to come, but that our limits are to be successively enlarged, and all that is real and positive ever carried forwards into the proximately succeeding state. For these works are thoroughly congruous with the theology of the New Church. The order which they show to exist in nature, is the very mirror of the order that reigns in the spiritual world. They mark the successive stages through which Swedenborg was led by the Divine Providence, until he was capable of that interior state in which his spiritual eyes were opened, and the inner world disclosed to his view; and as they were therefore the means, so were they in unison with the end. The doctrines which they set forth respecting the human body are reiterated with scarcely an omission in his theological treatises, and particularly in his "Arcana Coelestia," where they serve as the ground-work of his stupendous descriptions of the life of man after death, when he is associated with his like, according to the laws of order and degrees, and if he be capable of it, becomes a part of the grand human form of heaven. It is therefore at once edifying and delightful to examine the scientific evolution of those doctrines in the "Animal Kingdom," and to observe how wonderfully coherent they are, and how firm they stand in nature. At the same time, far be it from us to admit, that Swedenborg's theology was the outgrowth of his science. This has been stated to be the case, and it is an assertion easily made, a proposition which the sceptic will be too ready to conceive. But we give it a direct negative: it is the offspring of a double ignorance, --of an ignorance of both the premises. Those who are best acquainted with the writings of Swedenborg know full well that it has not a glimmer of probability to support it.

Nevertheless it may be confidently affirmed, that it is impossible to affix a meaning to much that Swedenborg has said of the human body in his theological writings, without a study of his scientific works. In this respect the former presuppose the latter, as containing a body of elucidations that cannot be obtained from the views of any other physiologist.

But these works not only support and elucidate Swedenborg's theological writings, but they also afford the members of the New Church an opportunity of descending from the spiritual sphere into the natural, and there gathering confirmations from the broad field of creation. In proportion as this is rightly done, or done for spiritual ends, there will be a regeneration of the sciences, and the ascending or analytic method will become subservient to the influx of spiritual power and truth from above. The order of nature will be more and more seen to be at one with the order of heaven. The sciences through which nature is viewed in different aspects, will become easy of comprehension and recollection, because all their details will be ranged on the electric spirals of order. The organic sciences especially will be schools in which the great lesson of society is learnt, and the laws of government and intercourse represented. The human imagination will be limited by the truth, and will admit that all that outlies its sphere, is a monstrosity, and an outrage against the universal principles of art; and that without rational truth there can, at this day, be no true art, as there can be no heroic action. The understanding will no longer love the occult, or dwell in quiddities and logical formulas, but in the recognition of ends and uses in substantial forms. Man will see the omnipresence of God in nature, because he will contemplate a moving order, perpetually tending from ends to ends, and thus involving an infinite intelligence and love in every point of its progression. There will no longer be faith alone, nor charity alone, nor works alone. The natural world will not be divorced from the spiritual, nor the body from the soul; for there will be no hostility between the different faculties of the mind, but the spiritual man will rest on the rational, and the rational on the sensual, which last will then become the enduring basis of the heavenly, and the ultimate theatre of its life and fructification. "In that day there shall be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel shall be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land." ²⁹

But until this prophecy is accomplished, science must be dead. For the Egypt, Assyria, and Israel of the Word, are not places, lying under a particular latitude or confined to one planet, for the divine truth is omnipresent, and transcends the conditions of space and time; but they are general states within every man that is born into the world. The Egypt of divine truth is his scientific mind; the Assyria is his rational mind; and the Israel, his spiritual; and the prophecy here describes the true order of the influx and circulation of mental states and principles, in either an individual, a society, or the human race at large. This is the order to which we believe power will ultimately be given by Him who has all power in heaven and on earth. Fro we know that until it is established, opinion must be as the shifting sand; human systems must be so mortal that the mere flux of time is sufficient to destroy them; the scientific state of each age must be at the mercy of any strong man with an energetic will and equal faculty of persuasion; since without a permanent reference to true order, intellectual feats can be measured by no standard but daring and determination. But a better time is at hand, and a better state than man deserves, or than he himself could originate. The new era has commenced already. The truths of a New Church have been revealed in the writings of Swedenborg; and in those truths, and those truths alone, may science drink of the waters of immortality.

Footnotes: