SWE'DENBORG, EMANUEL, was b. in Stockholm, Jan. 29, 1688, and died in Lon don, Mar. 29, 1772. His father was Jesper Svedberg, subsequently bishop of Skara. Swedenborg's lifetime divides itself into two distinct periods; the first, ending with his' 55th year, was given to business, science, and philosophy; the second, of nearly 30 years, was consecrated to theology and spiritualism. Swedenborg was educated at Upsal, and traveled for four years in England, Holland, France, and Germany. On his return to Sweden, he was appointed by Charles XII. to an assessorship of mines; and rendered some service to that monarch as military engineer. The Swedenborg family was ennobled in 1719, and the name changed from Svedberg to Swedenborg. Sweden borg is sometimes styled count and baron, but erroneously; he was neither, though he had a seat in the Swedish house of nobles. His mind at this time was busy with mechanical and economical projects. He published short treatises on algebra, giving the first account in Sweden of the differential and integral calculus; on a mode of find ing the longitude at sea by the moon; on decimal money and measures; on the motion and position of the earth and planets; on the depth of the sea, and greater force of the tides in the ancient world; on docks, sluices, and salt-works; and on chemistry as atomic geometry. In 1724 he was offered the professorship of mathematics at Upsal, which he declined from a dislike of speculative science. Abandoning his desultory studies, he remained silent for eleven years, and devoted himself to the duties of his assessorship and to a systematic description of mining and smelting, and the construction of a theory of the origin of creation. The result appeared at Lcipsic in 1734, in three massive folios, beautifully illustrated, entitled Opera Philosophica et 3fineralia. The second and third volumes describe the manufacture of copper, iron, and brass, and contain an exhaustive record of the best methods in use in last century. The first volume, entitled Principia, or the First Principles of Natural Things, being new Attempts toward a Philo sophical _Explanation of the Elementary World, is an elaborate deduction of matter from " points of pure motion produced immediately from the infinite." This was followed in 1734 by a treatise on The Infinite, and the Final Cause of Creation; and the Intercourse between the Soul and the Body, carrying the doctrine of the Principles into higher regions, and resolving the soul into points of motion, and one in substance with the sun. Dis satisfied with his conclusions, he determined to track the soul to its inmost recesses in the body. His studies in human anatomy and physiology with this end, in view, appeared as CEconomia Begni Animalis, in two volumes, 1741, and as 12egnum Animate, in three volumes unfinished, 1744 45. At this point, his course was arrested, and he entered on his 'career as seer, by which he is known to fame. The particulars of the
,transition lay in obscurity until 1858, when G. E. Klemnaing, royal librarian, Stock holm, discovered Swedenborg's diary, kept in 1744. It contains the record of a variety of dreams, visions, and strange communings. After that date, he professed to enjoy free access to heaven and hell. He resigned his assessorship in 1747, that he might devote himself to his office of seer. In 1749 he made his first public appearance in his new character in the issue in London of the Arcana Ccelestia, completed in 1756 in eight quartos. His life henceforward was spent between Stockholm, London, and Amster dam, in writing and printing a variety of works in exposition of his experience and doctrines. There is little in any of these which is not comprised in the Arcana Ccelestia, and a few notes on its contents may serve as a description of the whole. With many digressions, the Arcana Calestia is a revelation of the inner sense of Genesis and Exodus. The early chapters of Genesis are a fragment of an older word, preserved at this day in Tartary, and are not historical in a manner-of-fact sense. Adam signifies the most ancient church, and the flood its dissolution; Noah, the ancient church, which falling into idolatry, was superseded by the Jewish. The spiritual sense pervades the Scrip tures, with the exception of Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles. No fault is found with these books, but inasmuch as they do not possess the internal sense, they are not the word. The Scriptures are read in heaven in the spiritual sense, but as that sense treats exclusively of God and the human mind, it is void of every reference to earthly scenes, persons, and events. By reason of its symbolism of the inward sense, the letter of Scripture is holy in every jot and tittle, and has been preserved in immacu late perfection since the hour of its divine dictation. The Jewish dispensation having reached its period, God appeared in Jesus Christ. He assumed human nature in its basest condition in the Virgin, wrought it into conformity with himself, "glorified and made it divine." The effluence from the redeemed humanity is the Holy Spirit. In a sense the reverse of Socinian, Swedenborg was a Unitarian. He saw God in the Savior, and regarded him as the sole object of worship. The church initiated by the divine advent came to an end in last century, and Swedenborg witnessed the last judge meat effected in the year 1757 in the world of spirits. Then commenced a new dis pensation, signified by the New Jerusalem in the Revelation, of which Swedenborg was the precursor, and his writings the doctrine. To the Objection, that the doctrine is strange and novel, he replied, that mankind were not prepared for its 'reception, and that the early Christians were too simple to understand it.