Emanuel Swedenborg : the Man and his Works. By Edmund
Swift, Junior. (James Speirs.)—We cannot find that Mr. Swift tells us anything that is new about Swedenborg ; but he brings into prominence some facts that are not sufficiently borne in mind, when the character of the man is to be estimated. The common idea of him is included in the one statement that he was a visionary. But it is forgotten that till he was nearly sixty years of, age, he was known as an acute man of business, and one who had studied science with very considerable success. It is this scientific eminence of his —and in this respect he was much in advance of his age, anticipating in outline some of the discoveries of modern times—that makes his attitude as a seer all the more remarkable. There is nothing that we can remember quite like it in the history of the human mind. Of course, there is the resource of saying that in his latter years he was deranged. But of this derangement there is no kind of evidence. On the contrary, there is very strong testimony to the fact of his complete sanity. "Never," says one who seems to have been a competent witness, "did be manifest dur- ing his whole life the slightest symptom of aberration." Still, the difficulty of classing his mind remains. It must be confessed, indeed, that his habit of interspersing his "personal narrations," i.e., descrip- tions of his interviews with spirits, good and bad, among his books of exegesis and speculation, produces an impression of strangeness that it is difficult to reconcile with the idea of perfect soundness of mind. Whether he was possessed of this or no, it is certain that in sanctity of life, unselfishness, and complete devotion to duty, he was quite admirable. Mr. Swift's book, though not very attractive in style, may be useful as an introduction to those who know nothing of Swedenborg. Ho is certainly a phenomenon worth studying,
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