the principles of Taste). He described philosophy as the science of properties, which can be known by other means than that of Faith. G. Fr. Meier,' a disciple of the former, commented on the treatises of his master, and enlarged on certain questions. 371. Gradually (about the middle of the eighteenth century) this school lost much of its credit, and the peculiar and pedantic formalities of the Wolfians were turned into ridicule. Metaphysics, too, sank in the public esteem; and the minds of men became directed more to the variety and multiplicity of objects to which a principle may be applied, and less to the investigation of a simple principle itself: to the extension of the limits of philosophy, rather than to the consolidation of that which was already acquired. The empiricism of Locke daily gained ground, and in consequence of this and of the prevailing spirit of the age, and a renewed taste for the history of philosophy, a syncretical, eclectic, and popular spirit began to prevail, more adapted to pursuits of elegance and popular utility, than to the abstract research of remote principles. 1 Died at Halle, 1777. SAM. GOTTH. LANGE, Leben C. F. Meier's, Halle, 1778, 8vo. GE. FR. MEIER, Versuch einer allgemeinen Auslegungskunst, Halle, 1756, 8vo. Metaphysik, Halle, 1756, 4 Bde, 8vo. Beweis, dass die menschliche Seele ewig lebt. 2te Aufl., Halle, 1754, 8vo. Vertheidigung desselben, Halle, 1753. Beweis, dass keine Materie denken könne. Beweis der vorherbestimmten Uebereinstimmung, Halle, 1743, 8vo. Theoretische Lehre von den Gemüthsbewegungen, Halle, 1744. Versuch eines neuen Lehrgebäudes von d. Seelen der Thiere, Halle, 1756, 8vo. Gedanken von dem Zustande der Seele nach dem Tode; Beurtheilung des abermaligen Versuchs einer Theodicee; Gedanken von der Religion. Anfangsgründe der schönen Wissenschaften, Halle, 1748; 2te Aufl. 1754, III Th. 8vo. Philosophische Sittenlehre, Halle, 1753-1761; 5 Th. 8vo. Betrachtung über die natürliche Anlage zur Tugend und zum Laster, Halle, 1776, 8vo. Recht der Natur, Halle, 1767, 8vo. Versuch von der Nothwendigkeit einer nähern Offenbarung, Halle, 1747, 8vo. Untersuchung verschiedner Materien aus der Weltweisheit, Halle, 1768-1771, 4 Th. 8vo. 2 The French spirit of persiflage contributed much to this effect. Witness the Candide of VOLTAIRE, first published 1757. See, A Complete Collection of the Controversial Writings published in the course of the Dispute between Maupertuis and Samuel König, Leips. 1758, 8vo. EMPIRICAL MYSTICISM. Swedenborg. Emanuel Swedenborg, a Biography; by J. J. G. WILKINSON, Lond. 1849. EMERSON'S Representative Men (containing Swedenborg the Mystic). H. G. Bohn, Lond. 1849. TAFEL, Sammlung von Urkunden betreffend das Leben und der Character Eman. Swedenborg's, Tubingen. CLOWES, Letters to an M.P. on Swedenborg. HINDMARSH, Vindication of the Character of Swedenborg, 12mo. SVENSKT, Biographiskt Lexicon, öfver namnkunnige Svenske, män Article Emanuel Swedenborg.' See also part II of DR. KAHL's work: Nya Kyrkan, Lund. 1852, containing much new information on Swedenborg. 372. About this time there appeared a man, whose merits were overlooked by the contemporary and succeeding generations, but who has assumed a loftier stature and mightier proportions as years have rolled on, and distance has enabled us more justly to estimate his altitude. Emanuel Swedenborg occupies a prominent position among the master-minds of humanity. Sprung from an eminent Swedish family, he was born at Stockholm in 1688, and passed a considerable part of his life tranquilly in London, where he closed a long and happy career in 1772. In his earlier years he devoted himself with ardour to the physical sciences, and explored them with a keen spirit of research, anticipating many subsequent inquiries. A tendency to spirituality may be traced even in his earlier scientific works, though it was reserved for his later years to develop his gift of Seership. On attaining his fiftyseventh year (A. D. 1745), he threw aside material researches, and dived into the mysteries of the spiritual world, which he has reported with a clearness, dignity, and consistency that have seldom if ever been emulated. It is not our province or purpose to decide the question of his Seership, but we may be permitted to remark that to all impartial and reflecting minds his historical appearance presents a problem that still awaits solution. The smile of incredulity begins to die upon the lips of the conscientious sceptic, and the opprobrious terms dreamer' and 'madman' are yielding to you ran the more courteous epithet of Mystic. In vain will sack the archives of his family or personal history for a trace of insanity. Equally fruitless will be your endeavour to trace any symptoms of incoherence or raving in his methodical pages. If he must needs be mad, there is a rare method in his madness; and if the world insists on his being a visionary, it must admit that his visions are something anomalous in their systematic and mathematical form. But we have yet to learn that visionaries and dreamers can write a cool business-like style, and pen dry and well-digested folios; nor is it a common thing to find a madman deficient in sallies of imagination, and remarkable for strong common sense. Such is the problem and anomaly presented by this remarkable man, whose gift of seership is attested by such characters as Kant and the sister of the great Frederic.1 The solution we leave to the skill of the gentle reader, as it does not fall within our province. His Philosophy. Swedenborg's principal philosophical and theological works are: SWEDENBORGII Opera philosophica et mineralia, Dresd. 1734, 3 vols. folio. Economia Regni Animalis, 2 vols. 4to. Lond. 1740--41; Amst. 1742. Regnum animale, anatomice, physice, et philosophice perlustratum, Hag. Com. 1744-5, 3 vols. 4to. The same, translated, with remarks, &c., by J. J. G. WILKINSON, 2 vols. 8vo. Arcana Coelestia quæ in Genesi et Exodo sunt detecta, Lond. 1749-56, 8 vols. 4to. De nova Hierosolyma et ejus doctrina cœlesti, 4to. Lond. 1758. Doctrina novæ Hierosolymæ de Domino, Lond. 1758; Amst. 1763-4. Apocalypsis Revelata, Amst. 1766. Vera Religio Christiana, seu universalis theologia, Amst. 1771, 4to.; Lond. 1780. Most of his works have been translated into English, and published by or under the patronage of the Swedenborgian Society. 373. Swedenborg's Philosophy, as developed in his scientific as well as theological works, may be characterized as a very decided system of Empirical Realism, distinguished for an almost diaphanic introvision into the human heart, for consummate simplicity, and consistency. He regards the 1 See the account of Swedenborg's vision of the Fire of Stockholm, as recorded by Em. Kant; and that of his disclosures to the Queen of Sweden respecting her deceased brother. Emanuel Swedenborg: a Biography; by J. J. G. WILKINSON, 8vo. p. 121, 126, and 158. science of Correspondence as the Key of Knowledge, a Divine Philosophy unlocking the treasures of the Spiritual as well as Natural worlds, and sending Thought at a bound from the Zoophyte to the Seraphim. The material world is the ultimate and pedestal of the universe, filled with various creations, corresponding to others in the higher-ascending Spheres of the Universe. Thus Nature is in truth a Revelation and a Divine Book, whose letters, the Groves, Hills, and Rivers, the Firmament and the Lamps of Heaven, are hieroglyphic representatives of corresponding spiritual Realities. The doctrine of Degrees forms a pendant to the science of Correspondence in Swedenborg's Philosophy. Degrees, which he classes in two series, i. e., Continuous and Discrete, carry the mind by the Patriarch's Ladder, from Earth to Heaven; and, scaling the Empyrean, conduct us from 0 to the Throne of God. The Continuous Degrees are evident and familiar to all, whereof an obvious example is presented in the ascending series of organic vitality, from the plant to Man. Discrete Degrees constitute a series of a different description. They are the same things mirrored or reechoed on different platforms through the medium of Correspondencies. Thus God is the Sun of the Spiritual World, whose Heat and Light are Love and Wisdom. The Psychological Analysis of Swedenborg is remarkable for its agreement with the conscience and experience of all who reflect on what transpires in the chambers of their own heart. His remarks, indeed, are alarmingly searching, and seem to proceed from one who united to a profound knowledge of mankind, a natural kind of clairvoyance that penetrated into the inmost recesses of men's thoughts and motives. His philosophy savours much more of Life than of the Lamp. He divides the Mind into Will and Understanding; the seats of the Affections and of Thought. It is the former that constitutes the character; man being what his loves are, according to the elevation or depression of his affections, a little lower than the Angels, or crawling worm-like in the dust. Man, regarded as a psycho-physiological being, consists of three parts: 1st, The Spirit, which is essentially the man; 2nd, Its inner garment, or spiritual body, identical with the Soul of St. Paul's Epistles, and which constitutes the medium of union between the Spirit; and 3rdly, its outer garment or material body. The latter is woven around it by the Spirit through the law of Correspondences. Hence a perfect analogy exists between the mental faculties and the bodily organs. Death, according to Swedenborg, is nothing more than the casting off an outer skin, or the shelling of the mature and ripened spirit within. The mind may be again subdivided into three parts: 1st, The inmost or Celestial-Spiritual principle, by which man communicates directly with God, angels, and heaven. 2nd, The Rational and Internal, which constitutes the intellectual and scientific principle; and the External, natural, or sensuous, which brings man into connection with the material world. The metaphysical reader will easily trace an analogy between Swedenborg's Celestial-Spiritual, Rational, and Sensuous principles, and the Intuitive Reason, the Logical Understanding, and the Sensational Perception (Anschauung) of Transcendental Philosophy. There is, however, one broad distinction between them: Swedenborg's Celestial-Spiritual Principle grasps an objectivelyreal and substantial world of Spirits; and his Sensuous Principle grapples with the solid reality of an objective world of matter, whilst the Transcendentalist, both in his Intuition and his Sensation, hobbles in a world of subjective ideas and representations, that hold his mind in a strait-waistcoat. On an impartial review of his system, it will be found to be characterized by that best of wisdom, which consists in its adaptation to the normal understanding, and its agreement with the most cherished instincts of the human heart. Swedenborg's Position as a Psychological Phenomenon. 374. It is refreshing, in the eleventh hour of the eighteenth century, the age of Atheism, Libertinism, Freemasonry, and Rosicrucianism, to meet a man who united a healthy, plain, and practical view of Life, Man, and Nature, with the sublimest, and at the same time time, the most scientific handling and treatment of things spiritual and eternal. In the eyes of an impartial and a discriminating posterity, Emanuel Swedenborg will obtain an elevated rank in the |