destruction in its relation to the human mind, Swedenborg, we believe, was raised up in the order of Providence to teach mankind the true nature of the inspired Word, to shew in what its divinity consists, to point out the true mode of its inspiration, and to demonstrate the true system of its interpretation. And do not all devout and reflecting minds, in every denomination of Christians, consider this to be the great desideratum of the age? If God, in His mercy, has employed in the different periods of the church, extraordinary instruments to accomplish certain purposes, such as Luther, Wesley, and others, who have given the initiative to great movements which have tended to bring out the Word, and to spread it among the people, to vindicate the liberty of the human mind in its relation to spiritual things, which had been so severely oppressed by the bondage of an ecclesiastical despotism, and to awaken in the bosom of myriads a strong sentiment of religious activity, raising them out of the sensualism in which they were buried ;-if it be consistent with the Providence of an all-wise and all-merciful God to employ certain men as instruments for these high purposes of good, can we doubt that the same Providence would also employ, when the time should come, a suitable instrument, to vindicate His Holy Word itself against the sceptical and infidel tendencies of the natural mind, and to lay open the true nature of its inspiration, and of the system of its interpretation, and thus to demonstrate the true doctrines of Christianity? Is it not admitted, in the abstract, that this would be the greatest boon that could be vouchsafed for the divine cause of Christianity? But this boon, we believe, has been granted; and let no man say, Nay, until he has candidly examined the claims of Swedenborg to be heard or read upon this important question.

In our next paper we shall take up the various statements in which the amiable writer in the "Prospective Review" has objected to certain positions on which he considers the doctrines, and generally the writings of Swedenborg, must be received. These objections, in all their points, we can assure the writer, will be seen to be groundless, when a more correct and extended view of Swedenborg's statements and writings is obtained.

These objections have not originated, as is sometimes the case, in ány contemptuous feeling,-we cannot say that "an enemy has done this;" but they have originated in a too cursory and a too shallow study and investigation of the works of Swedenborg.

(To be concluded in our next.)

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SWEDENBORG'S PRINCIPIA.

His Theory of the Elements of Creation partly confirmed by the subsequent researches of Priestly, Scheele, Lavoisier, and Trudaine, and by Black, Cavendish, Watt, Dumas, Boussingault, and others. [Continued from page 220.]

Brief statement of Swedenborg's Theory of the Actives, Finites, and Elements of Creation.

OUR report has led us through the Astronomical and Magnetic Departments of Science; and we have seen how fruitful and suggestive of true and valuable Principia was the anticipative originality of Swedenborg's genius. We now proceed to the Elemental or Chemical; in doing which, we shall have to pass under review the whole series of the Principia. The work is so designated, because in it the author explains his views of the first principles of the universe. The question proposed for solution is, therefore, the following:-How has Creation issued forth from the Creator; and what is the order and character of the series? This the Principia proposes to solve. It is one of primary importance, both in a philosophical and religious sense. The outbirth of creation is a question involving the ALL of Science and Philosophy. It has a range of application so universal, and so utterly beyond the sphere of human observation and experiment, whilst it appears to present a demand on human reason and credulity of so mighty and illimitable a character, involving processes and cycles of processes, that it would seem more a mark of insanity than of wisdom to attempt its solution. Many there are of the best and wisest of men whose highest aspirations in the regions of philosophy have been to discover this grand principium of all our philosophies. It is the undiscovered fountain of natural truth, by whose waters the Muses delight to dwell, and from whence stream forth continuously and in plenitude those showers of scientific truth which, in the history of man, have so copiously fallen on the successive scenes in his intellectual progress. As an attempted solution, Swedenborg has offered us his Principia. In this work, therefore, he proposes to explain the outbirth of Creation from the Infinite, and to trace the steps of each successive substance and attendant process of formation and development, from the first living force, through the elemental world, until he arrives at the solid and inert substances and matters of which the earths in the universe consist. And it is worthy of remark, that every subsequent discovery has done something, more or less, towards the confirma

tion of his views. Throughout the long course of his experience, however much he repudiated his first efforts, or proclaimed the futility and unsoundness of his first speculations and reasonings, he never once cast aside his Principia, or renounced the fundamental doctrines, formulæ, or first principles, by which he was guided in his youthful investigations. From the first he appears to have seen clearly, and to have marked out in its broadest outline, the path which subsequently led him, like Columbus, to a region of undiscovered truth, unsurpassed (world-wide as the extent of human knowledge now is) in richness, beauty, and fruitfulness. From the first he appears to have discovered those new methods by which he made his new attempts at a philosophical explanation of the universe; and which constituted a new guide by which he soared higher and penetrated far beyond the limits of previous investigation. Often has the question been asked-Are the principia of his first works consistent with those of his last works? To this we would reply-It speaks much in their favour to find that they are consistent; so much, indeed, that, with regard to his theory of creation, we find it both convenient and necessary to present the principia of his last works as the most suitable introduction to the principia of his first.

In his highly philosophical work on the Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, published in 1764, we have the same theory of creation as that given in the Principia, published in 1733-4. It is admitted that he viewed the whole principia of this subject from a deeper ground and with a different light in 1764 than in 1733-4; nevertheless the principia are the same. In the above work we find the following succinct statement of Swedenborg's Theory of Creation: we feel persuaded no thesis could surpass or even equal it in simplicity; none equals it in the areal extent of facts upon which it is based; and none bids so fair, judging from the auspicious smile of Science in relation to modern discoveries, of being the accepted thesis of the philosophical world.

THEORY OF CREATION.

I.-The Simple, or Natural Point.

"That the Lord from eternity, or Jehovah, produced from himself the sun of the spiritual world (which surrounds him as an atmosphere or halo of glory), and from it created the universe and all things therein," n. 290.

"Now as the atmospheres are the prior things by which that sun presents itself in ultimates, and as those prior things continually decrease in ACTIVITY and EXPANSION to ultimates, it follows, that when their activity and expansion cease in ultimates, they become substances and matters like those on the earth,” n. 303.

"As the atmospheres decrease (in activity and expansion) in descending, it follows that they become continually more COMPRESSED and INERT, that they are no longer atmospheres, but substances at rest,” n. 302.

*

*

"The origin of carths, treated of in the preceding article, may shew, that the substances and matters of which they consist * are the ends and termination of the atmospheres, whose heat has ended in cold, their light in darkness, and their activity in inertness," n. 305.

If in this theory we substitute the terms ACTIVE and FINITE for activity and expansion, we shall then have a beautiful summary of the Theory of Creation in the PRINCIPIA: every successive degree of activity and expansion will then represent a new active and finite. In the latter work, Swedenborg has placed the primal generative force, issuing immediately from the Infinite, in a conatus towards spiral motion, which from its being circular in all its dimensions, he regards as one perpetual ens possessed of the highest perfection and the mightiest capabilities, because being at once most highly mechanical and most highly geometrical. This primary movement, connecting the finite with the Infinite, he called the SIMPLE, or first natural point. It means, in fact, the disposition of the Infinite Himself to produce creation-the potential or initial act of intending. This concentration to a certain determinate end, though the end or limit comprises an infinitude of particulars, and an endless duration of things, is nevertheless regarded as the first limit or determination of the infinite capabilities of the Divine Nature. As yet there is no creation; consequently, nothing mechanical nor geometrical, for these imply finitude and boundary. Of this SIMPLE, he says, "it is pure and total motion," vol. i. chap. ii. n. xii.; and that “it belongs to the Infinite and exists in the Infinite;" and in the next number (13) he defines it to be "an internal state or effort (conatus) to motion; hence he says

"Thus it will be like effort or conatus itself; for in conatus not only is motion everywhere present, but with it also its force, direction, and celerity. This conatus, or effort towards motion, may also be called internal state," n. 13.

The reader of the Principia must not suppose that this SIMPLE is something separate and apart from the Infinite. No!-but on the contrary, it is the internal state or conatus to action of the Infinite itself— it is the effort, the disposition, or first end, towards which the Infinite and Divine Nature is being directed. It simply means the first act in Creation, of the Infinite, in a state of potency, endeavour, or intent. It must, therefore, be obvious, that this intent or endeavour towards the realization of a definite object or end would be, not only the first, but the only limit to the Infinite as the subject. The basis of this first endeavour or intent would be the Infinite. Hence Swedenborg says of this first point or simple,

"It stands between the two, and looks, as it were, both ways, having respect as

well to the immense Infinite, as to the immense finite. On the one side is the pure * * * on the other side is the mere finite," vol. I. chap. ii. n. 10.

Infinite

We press the above caution on the attention of the reader, because we have observed with regret, that even the best writers on this subject have mistaken, most palpably, the theory of the SIMPLE as given in the Principia. In the most elaborate exposition of this work which has appeared in this country, (in the New Church Quarterly Review) the talented writer (unknown to me even by name) explains his conception of the SIMPLE in the following words :—

* *

"We have already said that the theory of the elements begins with the natural point. We feel that a right conception of the "Principia" depends on a right apprehension of the initial principle, or fundamental unit of the series. We would say to one class of our readers, that the degree which answers to the point in this philosophy is the spiritual-natural; thus it is that spiritual power which may be conceived to exist immediately within the purest elements of the natural world.” No. I. p. 4.

This, we are sorry to say, is a misapprehension and mistake.* For although Swedenborg designates it as the first natural point, he never represents it as being the first point above the beginnings of the natural world, neither does it answer to the last point or degree in the spiritual world, called by this writer the "spiritual-natural;" because if so, it would be something out of and apart from the Infinite, which it is not. For Swedenborg says, vol. i., chap. ii., n. 12, "it (the simple) belongs to the Infinite, and exists in the Infinite,"--not "exists in" anything separate and apart from the Infinite, as is the case with the spiritualnatural, or lowest degree of the spiritual world; but "exists in the Infinite" itself. Hence Swedenborg says of the first natural point or simple, n. 13:

:

"All we can say of it being, that such motion actually exists in the universal Infinite. Yet the Infinite is utterly incomprehensible: hence an idea of this motion as existing in the Infinite becomes still more incomprehensible."

As we have stated, the writer in the Quarterly conceives it to be a degree in that spiritual world which, though out of the Infinite, is nevertheless a medium between the Infinite and the natural world. Hence he says:

66

Or, as it may now be interpreted, a world in itself, mediating between the Infinite and the natural world. No. I. p. 5.

This "world in itself" is conceived to be the spiritual world, and

* See this Periodical for 1845, p. 147, where the Editor, in his introductory Review to the first volume of the Principia, when the work first appeared in an English translation, has given a true exposition of this first Principle.