Swedenborg, A Hermetic Philosopher E-Book

Ethan Allan Hitchcock

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 391

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The writer of this book desires to say that, in preparing the work, it has been no part of his design to express his individual opinions upon the topics discussed. His purpose has been to suggest the opinions of others, especially of a class of men scarcely recognized as existing in the world. The art they profess, called after the name of Hermes, Hermetic Philosophy, is so little known at the present day that the name of it by no means indicates it. The adepts profess to be, or to have been, in possession of a secret, which they call the gift of God. The art has been prosecuted under many names, among which are Alchemy, Astrology, and even Chiromancy, as well as Geomancy, Magic, &c., under all of which names it has had deluded followers, who have been deceived, as those who claim to be true artists say, not by the art itself, which never " did betray the heart that loved it," but by their own selfish passions, which play the Asmodeus with so many that the few who escape delusion are mystical, not to say mythical, beings who are supposed to have lived upon dreams.

Leseprobe

Swedenborg, A Hermetic Philosopher.

Ethan Allan Hitchcock

Contents:

Emanuel Swedenborg – A Biographical Primer

Swedenborg, A Hermetic Philosopher.

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Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

Chapter IX.

Chapter X.

Chapter XI.

Chapter XII.

Conclusion.

Swedenborg, A Hermetic Philosopher., Vol. 1, E.Hitchcock

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

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ISBN: 9783849641078

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Emanuel Swedenborg – A Biographical Primer

By Thomas Hitchcock

Swedish philosopher, born in Stockholm, Jan. 29, 1688, died in London, England, March 29, 1772. He was the son of Jesper Swedberg, bishop of Skara, the name being changed to Swedenborg in 1719 on the occasion of the ennobling of the family. This advancement entitled him, as head of the family, to a seat in the house of nobles of the Swedish diet, but did not confer the title of baron, as has been supposed. Emanuel was educated at Upsal, completing his studies in 1709. After two years of travel in England, Holland, and France, he went to reside at Greifswald in Pomerania, then a Swedish town, and busied himself with scientific research. He also wrote some Latin fables, which were published under the title of Camena Borea. A collection of Latin poems, written by him during his travels, was also published about the same time in a volume entitled Ludus Heliconius. In 1716 he returned to Sweden and established a periodical called Dædalus Hyperboreus, devoted to mathematics and mechanics, which appeared irregularly for two years. During this time he had become intimate with Christopher Polhem, an eminent engineer, and Polhem introduced him to Charles XII., who appointed him assessor extraordinary of the college of mines, and associate engineer with Polhem. For two years Swedenborg maintained close personal relations with the king, and assisted him much in his military operations. During the siege of Frederickshald, at which Charles met his death, Swedenborg constructed, under Polhem's direction, the machines by which several vessels were transported overland from Strömstad to the Iddefiord, 14 miles. At the king's suggestion, it is said, Polhem betrothed his daughter to Swedenborg; but as the young lady preferred another man, Swedenborg relinquished his claim and never married. From 1717 to 1722 he published pamphlets on scientific subjects; among them one describing a method of determining longitude by means of the moon. In 1721 he made a short tour on the continent, visiting mines and smelting works. On his return in 1722 he was promoted to be full assessor of mines, and for the next 12 years he devoted himself to the duties of that office, refusing the professorship of mathematics at Upsal in 1724. In 1734 he published Opera Philosophica et Mineralia in three large folio volumes, illustrated with numerous plates, viz.: vol. i., Principia; vol. ii., De Ferro; vol. iii., De Cupro et Orichalco. In the same year also appeared his Prodromus de Infinito. In 1736 he began another tour of travel, which, with study and writing, occupied him for several years. In 1740-'41 he published his Œconomia Regni Animalis, in two parts, and in 1744-'5 his Regnum Animale, in three parts. Between 1729 and 1741 he was elected successively a member of the academy of sciences at Upsal, corresponding member of the imperial academy of sciences at St. Petersburg, and member of the academy of sciences at Stockholm. His series of scientific publications ended in 1745 with the treatise De Cultu et Amore Dei, &c., in which is set forth, under the form of a prose poem or allegory, his theory of the process of creation. Thereafter, as he says, he was called by God to the work of revealing to men a new system of religious truth. For that end he was permitted to converse with spirits and angels, and behold the wonders of the spiritual world. That he might be more free to perform his task, he resigned his assessorship, retaining half the salary by way of pension. He devoted himself first to the study of the Bible in the original, and then to the writing of books explanatory of his new doctrines, which were published entirely at his own expense. From 1749 to 1756 appeared the Arcana Cœlestia (8 vols. 4to), containing a commentary on Genesis and Exodus, interspersed with accounts of “wonderful things seen and heard in heaven and in hell.” This was followed in 1758 by the De Cœlo et Inferno, De Telluribus in Mundo, De Ultimo Judicio, De Nova Hierosolyma, and De Equo Albo. In 1763 were published the four doctrinal treatises: Doctrina Vitæ, De Fide, De Domino, and De Scriptura Sacra, with a Continuatio de Ultimo Judicio, and the treatise De Divino Amore et de Divina Sapientia. In 1764, the Divina Providentia appeared; in 1766, the Apocalypsis Revelata; in 1768, De Amore Conjugiali; in 1769, Summaria Expositio Doctrinæ and De Commercio Animæ et Corporis; and in 1771, the Vera Christiana Religio. Besides these, he left at his death an immense mass of manuscripts, of which the following have been since printed: Itinerarium, Clavis Hieroglyphica, Opuscula, Apocalypsis Explicata, Adversaria in Libros Veteris Testamenti, Diarium Spirituale, Index Biblicus, Sensus Internus Prophetarum et Psalmorum, Dicta Probantia, De Athanasio Symbolo, De Charitate, Canones, Coronis Veræ Christianæ Religionis, and Invitatio ad Novam Ecclesiam. Copies of a few of these manuscripts have recently been reproduced by the photolithographic process, by subscription, not so much for circulation as for the sake of preserving the contents of the originals from destruction by decay. — Swedenborg's manner of life was simple and modest. He spent much of his time, in later years, in Holland and England, for which countries he expressed great admiration on account of the freedom of speech and writing permitted there. He made no efforts to gain proselytes to his doctrines further than by printing and distributing his writings, and never referred to his intercourse with the spiritual world except when questioned. Several instances are reported of his obtaining information from departed souls respecting affairs unknown even to their families, and describing events in distant places in advance of news by the ordinary means of communication. It is related that, as he lay on his deathbed in London, Ferelius, a Swedish clergyman, solemnly adjured him to tell the truth in regard to his teachings. Swedenborg raised himself half upright in bed, and placing his hand on his breast said with emphasis: “As true as you see me before you, so true is everything I have written. I could have said more had I been permitted. When you come into eternity, you will see all things as I have stated and described them, and we shall have much to say concerning them to each other.” He then received the holy supper from Ferelius, and presented him with a copy of his Arcana Cœlestia. A day or two afterward he peacefully breathed his last. His body was buried in a vault of the Swedish church in Prince's square, a little east of the tower. A eulogium was pronounced upon him in the Swedish house of nobles in October, 1772, by Samuel Sandels, which accords him high praise, not merely for learning and talent, but also for uprightness and fidelity in the discharge of his duties as a public functionary. Several of his acquaintances have also left written testimony to his virtuous character. — Swedenborg's scientific works have long since ceased to be of practical value, but are still highly interesting as collections of facts, and as exhibiting their author's peculiar method of philosophizing. The system he followed was substantially that of Descartes, of whom he continued to the end of his life to speak with admiration, and this led him to conclusions resembling in some striking points those of Spinoza, who was likewise a Cartesian. His “Economy of the Animal Kingdom” is the best of his many productions anterior to his theological career. In it he attempts to deduce a knowledge of the soul from an anatomical and physiological knowledge of the body, and evolves many doctrines which he afterward elaborated in his theological works. Indeed, some of his disciples hold that his seership was the natural result of his intellectual and moral development, and by no means an abnormal condition of mind. According to his own account, it came upon him gradually, and neither astonished nor alarmed him, although in its early stages he was subject to great mental excitement, the phenomena of which may have given rise to exaggerated stories of his insanity. The works written by him subsequent to this change in his mind are quite as systematic and coherent as his earlier productions, and only his claim to a divine mission, and his frequent descriptions of what he saw and heard in the spiritual world, mark them as peculiar. They are consistent from first to last, and though they appeared at intervals during a period of 27 years, they nowhere deviate from the fundamental principles laid down at the outset. — The general features of Swedenborg's theology are presented in his treatise called the “True Christian Religion.” He teaches that God is one in essence and in person, and has been revealed to men as the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Lord is a trinity, not of persons but of principles, and it is these principles which are spoken of in the Scriptures as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Father is the divine love, the Son the divine wisdom, and the Holy Ghost the divine operation or energy acting upon the universe. The Lord is infinite, eternal, self-existent, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, and not only the creator but the sustainer of all creation, which without him would cease to exist. For the sake of redeeming mankind he assumed a natural body born of the Virgin Mary, and glorified it or made it divine, so that it is now invisible to men, and also usually to the angels except as the sun of heaven. Redemption consisted, not in suffering vicariously the punishment of men's sins (for that could not be done, and, if it could, would be useless), but in actual combats, by means of the assumed humanity, with the powers of hell, and overcoming them. This victory restored to man spiritual freedom, which had begun to be impaired by diabolic possessions as narrated in the Gospels, and enabled him to work out his salvation. This he does by looking to the Lord, with faith in him, by repentance, and above all by a life according to the commandments of the decalogue. The chief points that Swedenborg insists on in religion are faith in the Lord and the avoidance of evils as sins against him. Upon everything else, such as outward worship, prayer and meditation, and works of eleemosynary charity, he lays but little stress. The essence of charity is love to the neighbor and occupation in some useful employment. The Word, he says, is the divine truth itself, written to reveal the Lord to man and to serve as a medium of conjunction between earth and heaven. This Word consists of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, the Psalms, the prophecies, the four Gospels, and the Apocalypse. The other books bound up with these in our Bibles are not the Word, although good and useful to the church. The distinction between the two consists in this: that the Word contains an internal or spiritual sense, which the rest of the Bible has not. This spiritual sense is symbolical, and may be discerned by the application of the law of symbolism resulting from the universal correspondence of natural with spiritual things. Thus, the garden of Eden and all things mentioned as existing in it symbolize the human soul and its affections and thoughts; and the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the alienation of mankind at a remote period from their original state of innocence. Hence, too, the decalogue forbids not merely outward sins, but the inward spiritual sins corresponding to them, and the Psalms and prophecies relate not merely to David and the Jews, but to experiences of the human soul independent of dates and localities. At the same time the literal sense alone can be relied on as a basis of doctrine, and Swedenborg is careful to cite it profusely in support of his teachings. The reason he gives for his mission is that the knowledge of true doctrine had been lost and the church destroyed by a false theology and accompanying evils of life. By the promulgation of the truth revealed to him a new church has been established by the Lord, and thus the prophecies in the Apocalypse of the descent of the New Jerusalem have been fulfilled in their symbolical sense. The second coming of the Lord, predicted in Matt, xxiv., has also been accomplished in the same way, a last judgment having been effected in the spiritual world in the year 1757, so that we are now living under a new dispensation. The treatise on “Heaven and Hell” embodies Swedenborg's teachings on the nature of those two realms, and their relations to this world. They exist, he says, not in some other region of space, but within the natural world, as the soul of man exists within his body, being in fact in the souls of men and resting in them as our souls rest in our bodies. At death the body, which is the material envelope of the soul, is cast aside, never to be resumed, and consequently its resurrection is not to be looked for. The soul is the man himself, and is a perfect human being, with a spiritual body of its own, and rises into a conscious perception of the spiritual world, of which the man had previously been unconsciously an inhabitant. He sees and feels and possesses all the other senses, and retains all his personal characteristics. After a longer or shorter preparation in an intermediate state called the world of spirits, which lies between heaven and hell, he is drawn by his own elective affinity to the place where he belongs, and remains there to eternity. Both heaven and hell consist of innumerable societies, each composed of human beings of similar and concordant affections; and both are divided into three distinct regions, according to the degrees of perfection or depravity of their inhabitants. The Arcana Cœlestia, Swedenborg's largest work, is mainly an exposition of the internal or symbolical sense of Genesis and Exodus, with accounts of his experiences in the spiritual world, and various doctrinal teachings interspersed between the chapters. “The Apocalypse Revealed” and “The Apocalypse Explained” are similar expositions of the Apocalypse. In his “Conjugial Love” Swedenborg expounds his doctrine of the relations of the sexes. Males, he says, are masculine and females feminine in soul as well as in body. The masculine element is love clothed with wisdom, while the feminine is wisdom clothed with love. Hence the characteristic of man is wisdom or understanding, and that of woman love or affection. Marriage is the conjunction of two souls who complement each other, and by their union make one complete being, just as the will and the understanding make the individual. Hence the only true marriage is of one man and one woman, and it exists in the next world as well as in this. Polygamy is a degraded state, but not a sin with those whose religion permits it; but adultery is destructive of the life of the soul, and closes heaven against those who confirm themselves in it. The treatises on the “Divine Love and Wisdom” and the “Divine Providence” embody Swedenborg's spiritual philosophy, and exhibit the symmetrical relations of the various parts of his religious system. Love, he says, is the life of man. God alone is Love itself and Life itself, and angels and men are but recipients of life from him. He is very Man, and our humanity is derived from him, so that it is literally true that we are created in his image and likeness. His infinite love clothes itself with infinite wisdom and manifests itself in ceaseless operation, producing, maintaining, and reproducing the boundless universe, with all its innumerable parts and inhabitants. In like manner men, being made in the image of God, also have love or the will, and wisdom or the understanding, and the two produce in them their finite operation. It being the nature of love to desire objects upon which to exercise itself, God could not but create the universe. The creation of this and other solar systems, all of which are inhabited, was effected by a spiritual sun, which is the first emanation proceeding from God, and which is seen in the spiritual world as our sun is seen by us. By means of this spiritual sun natural suns were created, and from them atmospheres, waters, earths, plants, animals, and finally man. Angels, spirits, and devils are men who have been born and died on this or some similar planet. Hence, all things were created from God, and not out of nothing. The spiritual world is related to the natural as cause is to effect, and the supreme first cause of all is God himself. These three, end, cause, and effect, constitute three distinct or discrete degrees, which are repeated in various forms in all created things, and on a grand scale in the universe as a whole. Creation, being from God, is, like the individual man, an image of him, and hence is in the human form in its greatest and least parts, and with more or less approximation to perfection. As we are finitely men, because God is an infinite Man, so all animals, plants, and even minerals wear a resemblance to man, and throughout all nature there is an incessant effort to evolve the human form. In the sight of God and the angels, larger and smaller bodies of human beings and the societies of heaven and hell appear organized like men, and Swedenborg calls the universe the Grand Man (Maximus Homo). As infinite love was the end and infinite wisdom the cause of creation, so the divine life and power are constantly active in sustaining and directing it. This activity is the Divine Providence, and it reaches to every smallest particular of nature and humanity. Man has freedom, because without it he could not be an adequate recipient of the divine love, and by the abuse of his freedom he has introduced evil into the world. The Divine Providence seeks, without destroying this freedom, to lead man back to his original integrity. Hence all the wonderful dealings of God with man recorded in the Scriptures; hence the incarnation; and hence the various forms of religion which exist in the world, all of which embody more or less the essentials of salvation, namely, the worship of God and abstinence from evils as sins against him. The smaller treatises of Swedenborg are mostly extracts from his larger works, with amplifications and additions. — The fullest account of him and his writings is that of William White (2 vols., London, 1867, since republished in one volume). See, also, “Documents concerning Swedenborg,” by R. L. Tafel (London, 1875 et seq.). All of his theological and some of his scientific works have been translated into English. The theological works have also been reprinted in Latin by Dr. J. F. I. Tafel, of Tübingen, Germany, and partially translated and published in French, German, Italian, Danish, and Swedish. Societies for promoting their circulation are in operation both in the United States and in Europe. The principal writers who have undertaken the exposition of Swedenborg's doctrines in England are John Clowes, Robert Hindmarsh, C. A. Tulk, Samuel Noble, J. J. G. Wilkinson, and Jonathan Bayley; in France, E. Richer and J. F. Les Boys-des-Guays; and in the United States, George Bush, Theophilus Parsons, E. H. Sears, Henry James, B. F. Barrett, W. B. Hayden, and Chauncey Giles. For an account of the ecclesiastical organization based upon Swedenborg's doctrines.

Swedenborg, A Hermetic Philosopher.

ADVERTISEMENT

THE writer of the following pages desires to say that, in preparing the work, it has been no part of his design to express his individual opinions upon the topics discussed. His purpose has been to suggest the opinions of others, especially of a class of men scarcely recognized as existing in the world. The art they profess, called after the name of Hermes, Hermetic Philosophy, is so little known at the present day that the name of it by no means indicates it. The adepts profess to be, or to have been, in possession of a secret, which they call the gift of God. The art has been prosecuted under many names, among which are Alchemy, Astrology, and even Chiromancy, as well as Geomancy, Magic, &c., under all of which names it has had deluded followers, who have been deceived, as those who claim to be true artists say, not by the art itself, which never " did betray the heart that loved it," but by their own selfish passions, which play the Asmodeus with so many that the few who escape delusion are mystical, not to say mythical, beings who are supposed to have lived upon dreams.

I propose now, without pretending to solve the problem, to suggest the true difficulty in the study, which I take to be this, that the Alpha in the art is also the Omega, and the Omega the Alpha, and the two are one. Hence the difficulty is something like that of finding the commencement of a circle. Another mode of suggesting the difficulty is by saying that the object is analogous to an attempt to discover the place of that force in nature called gravity or gravitation. In mechanical calculations this force or power is referred to a certain centre, called the centre of gravity; yet every one knows that the absolute centre is a mere point and physically nothing at all, yet there is no particle of matter free from the influence of this power, and every, the most infinitesimal particle, has its own centre. So is it with what the Hermetic philosophers call their Mercury, which they say is everywhere seen in action, but nowhere in essence.

I am aware of the fact that some speculative spiritualists of the present day have much to say of what they call imponderables, but I am not as yet convinced that any actual thing in the universe can be an imponderable, except possibly those invisible things called thoughts and affections; yet even these, in some sense, seem to be the most powerful and ponderable of influences, moving the entire being of man in spite of prejudices and of ignorance the most absolute and immovable in themselves.

It is to little or no purpose to give a mere name to a subtle influence whose mode of action is unknown, and whose existence is only recognized through an observation of disconnected effects, our knowledge of which is chaotic and remains chaotic because no principle of action is discovered, and yet, how many of us know what life is, except precisely in this way? We see it everywhere, " the birds of the air fly with it, the fishes of the sea swim with it, we carry it about with us everywhere," yet we know not what it is.

Let it be merely supposed now, that a recluse proposes to himself the problem, What is Life? but, as this word is common and is imagined to carry some meaning with it, while yet the student enters upon the study confessing his ignorance, it is thought convenient to assume another name. Let it then be called Mercury, from some remote analogy of this sort; that, if a small portion of this mineral be dashed upon a smooth extended surface, it will separate into an infinity of little globules, each one of which has the entire properties of the whole, and like so many mirrors reflects so many universes, all similar to each other.

Any other word in place of Mercury, as Salt for example, may be used, or a word may be invented without any meaning at all, as Hileg, to represent the subject sought for, which is to be found not by the mere definition of a word, but by the properties or principles of the thing, which are to be admitted, not upon authority, but by observation and experience in life, always keeping in view " the possibility of nature," on the principle that though the artist may err, " nature when rightly handled cannot err."

With these preliminary remarks I shall proceed to the object I have in view.

E. A. H., NEW YORK, August, 1858.

Chapter I.

IT is more than probable that, on reading the title-page of the following work, some may ask, what is meant by Hermetic philosophy? I think proper, therefore, to premise a few words on that subject, not to explain it in detail, but to indicate some of its principal features.

I published last year a small volume of Remarks upon Alchemy, the object of which was to show that the so-called Philosopher's Stone, so much sought after by the Alchemists of the Middle Ages, was a mere symbol, the genuine Alchemists being in fact Hermetic philosophers a class of men who have never been clearly defined to the general reader, owing, in great part, no doubt, to the nature of their studies and convictions. Many attempts, indeed, have been made to unveil them, and to describe their philosophy, but without results, so far as I have seen; the subject being so remote from the ordinary avocations of life, and because also of the common prepossessions of man in respect to what constitutes the true knowledge of God, and the beatitude of man.

In my Remarks, I did not attempt to point out precisely the nature of this philosophy, as such an attempt would have been the height of presumption. That which I chiefly intended, was simply to show from Alchemic books, some of the conditions set forth by the Alchemists themselves, though very mystically and obscurely, as indispensably requisite in him who would possess the philosopher's stone.

A mere accident a very casual circumstance some three or four years ago, threw into my hands a small volume on Alchemy, the preface to which alone satisfied me that there must have been two classes of Alchemists: and the perusal of the book assured me that, while some "money loving sots " employed themselves in experiments upon all sorts of metals and other materials in search of gold, there was another class of men in pursuit of the philosopher's stone by very different means: by devout contemplation upon the nature of God and of man upon the human soul and its capacity for knowledge, for happiness, and for immortality; and the object was a discovery of the means for attaining the true end of man; not an ephemeral pleasure, but a permanent beatitude not a good for a day, but for all time. The impression derived from reading this one work on alchemy induced me to look further, and without much effort I obtained a considerable number of volumes, over three hundred, of a strange character, on the philosopher's stone and hermetic philosophy; some of which are of course worthless, but all of which show, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the philosopher's stone was a mere symbol for human perfection, or for something supposed to be essential to that perfection. There is not a single volume in my possession that could have been written by any one in pursuit of actual gold, though many of the works show that their authors had but very crude opinions as to the real object of the philosophers.

It is not my purpose now to comment at length upon this subject. Referring the reader to my Remarks, I will simply say, that after much study, I came to the opinion that, while MAN was the subject of alchemy, and his perfection was the object of the art, that object required for its attainment certain means, which were, however, as carefully wrapped up in symbolism as the end itself. At length, I became convinced that those means were as clearly stated in Scripture as the use of human language will allow. In short, all of my studies drew my attention to the declaration of the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount; " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God: " for it appeared very clear that the philosophers had in some way connected the perfection of man with a knowledge of God, the former leading to the latter, yet the latter being as a sign of the former. But this knowledge of God was not a mere outward belief in the existence of a great but undefined power over nature, which even the most ignorant savages acknowledge, but an inward experience or spiritual sight, by which the subject of the experience was brought into some sort of communion with the Spirit of God, so as to realize the knowledge as a possession.

"When the object was thus far recognized, as I considered, my attention was gradually carried upon the means of attaining it, as obscurely indicated by these writers, and I could not fail to see them chiefly in the text just recited.

I found in alchemic and hermetic books one pervading doctrine, common to all of them, though expressed very obscurely; and it was this that, while every writer made use of a word of his own choosing to designate the undescribed matter of which the philosopher's stone was to be made, they all prescribed as a first step in the work of making the stone, a process of purification. Whatever other directions are given, they all tell us to wash the matter, to purify the matter, &c., and they have much to say of what they call the philosopher's soap, the soap of the wise, or the vinegar of the wise, &c.

After comparing many books together, and weighing carefully the circumstances obscurely hinted at, I became convinced that the matter of the philosophers was man, and that the soap referred to, the vinegar, the oil, &c., was no other than the conscience; but the conscience, acting freely and not under external and violent influences. While the conscience is one thing itself, it takes a great variety of names according to the condition of the subject upon which or in which it acts. To one it is a messenger of peace and of joy inexpressible, while to another it whispers woe unutterable, and pours out vials of wrath upon the terrified and doomed soul; and this it does, independently of the power of man, who has no control whatever over this all-pervading and ubiquitous spirit. This is the spirit that is " in the midst " when two or three are gathered together in the name of God, and which can neither be kept out nor in, by " shut doors " ever so strongly bolted.

At first, indeed, it seemed a very simple thing, altogether insufficient, as a basis, for so many books and for such results as appeared to be claimed for it; but I observed that the philosophers, as they call each other, speak of their art as both simple and difficult: like all other arts perhaps, easy to those who are skilled in their practice, but difficult to the uninstructed; or like the yoke of Christ, easy in one sense, to the willing and obedient, but a fearful labor to the selfish and the obdurate.

Be this as it may, I kept my attention upon it, and, continuing to read Hermetic books, I found that the unenforced and natural office of the conscience served as a key for the explanation of many otherwise inexplicable passages in Hermetic writings; and I finally rested in the conviction, that whatever the truth might be in itself, the Hermetic writers intended to indicate that a pure heart, or what the Psalmist calls a " right spirit," is the way to the philosopher's stone, if it is not the stone itself, the pearl of great price; for this pearl is not a mere hope, no, not even the hope of heaven, but it is heaven itself.

I had long seen, as I thought, that the knowledge of God is essential to the peace of man, and that this knowledge must be something different, as I have said, from the mere recognition of an unknown powerful being over nature, which " the strong seeks to conquer, and the weak to avoid; " and seeing, as I thought I did, that the object of the Hermetic philosophers was the perfection of man, and that this perfection was to be found in some knowledge of God in a peculiar sense, and that the way to this knowledge lay through the purification of the heart, I was carried, I say, to the text of Scripture just recited, yet in such a manner as to see the operation in something like a circle; for it appeared that while the pure in heart are said to see God, this condition itself is not attained but by the agency or power of the Spirit of God. This " circular " operation is especially referred to by the alchemist, or Hermetic philosopher, Artephias, as stated, page 90 of my Remarks. It is, as I consider, the very same point in philosophy which is so much insisted upon in religion, where we are told that, while faith is essential to salvation, it is not attainable by the " natural man," unassisted by the grace of God. There is much injudicious preaching on this subject, however well intended, by which many honest minds are greatly perplexed and severely tried without benefit; and, still worse, many hasty and bold wits are driven to take refuge in a sort of logical infidelity, out of which it is extremely difficult to extricate themselves.

I will not now dwell upon this point further than to say, that the difference between the desire of happiness and the desire of being worthy of happiness, or the difference between the love of God's blessings and the love of God, &c., may show the difference between the conditions of different men, so as to indicate who may and who may not feel that they are tending to that state to which the Lord referred in the text I have recited.

If now I should say that the blessing and the condition necessary for its attainment, were believed to be the gifts of God, not attainable by the unassisted efforts of man, without urging metaphysical reasons for it, I should undoubtedly state one of the reasons why a certain class of men, appearing in all ages, have drawn a veil over what they have to say on this subject. They have felt that all the instruction man is able to give to man, on the subject of God and of God's blessings, must terminate in referring man to God, as the author and finisher of a faith which is said to partake of his very nature.

In popular estimation religion and philosophy seem to stand opposed to each other; but this results chiefly from regarding the forms and ceremonies of religion as its substance, on the one side, and considering mere learning, or memory knowledge, as philosophy on the other. But if philosophy be defined as wisdom, and philosophers be regarded as lovers of wisdom, we may see a channel through which the philosopher may come into harmony with one in whom religion is not a ceremony but a sentiment. But this is not the place for an essay on this subject.

In my volume of Remarks upon alchemy I undertook to show, by citations from the writings of alchemists and Hermetic philosophers, as I have already said, that the subject of the Hermetic art is MAN, and that the object of the art is the perfection of man. I demonstrated that the Hermetic writers communicated with each other by means of a conventional language, writing of salt, sulphur, and mercury; of Mercury, Sol, and Luna, &c., &c., through an endless variety of expressions, instead of man, or of body, soul, and spirit; and that by the transmutation of metals, the genuine alchemists meant the transformation of man from a state of nature to a state of grace. I made it appear, by abundant extracts with easy interpretations, that the Hermetic writers had, in fact, but one subject; and that it was, or shall I say it is, MAN, including his relation to nature on the one side, and to God on the other, an inseparable trinity: that, though their science or art is obscure in itself, and is disclosed, or rather hidden, in exceedingly dark, metaphorical, and figurative language, they nevertheless all treat of MAN; of his mind as a spirit, and of his body as an earth; that they used a multitude of expressions, seemingly pointing to other things, especially to chemistry, but in reality explicable by a due knowledge of man, as the image of God, and the central and most important being of God's creation.

I endeavored to point out some of the reasons why those writers concealed themselves from general observation by their enigmatic modes of writing, of which there were many, and expressed the opinion that no reason now exists for not making them known in their true character, that of religious philosophers; somewhat, it may perhaps be justly thought, too much given to mysticism, especially if measured by what are called the practical tendencies of our age.

I admitted that there were pretenders to the Hermetic art, who brought disrepute upon the art itself, by practising their impostures upon the simple, easily deceived, and upon the avaricious, whose cupidity drew them to a study, the first principle of which excludes every thing selfish, base, and mean.

I also admitted that many, with no evil design, assumed the garb or outward dress of the Hermetic writers, who were not masters of the art, and that these also contributed to bring the proper subject or object of the writers into disrepute, by attempting to carry a purely moral design into the field of physical science, vainly striving to make the Hermetic key supply the absence of patience and study in the pursuit of the natural sciences, into which no short road of entrance is likely ever to be discovered, so as to dispense with the necessity of industry and continuous application.

I pointed to the conscience as the true natural instrument, provided by God, for a healthy renovation of man, to the exclusion of the passions, especially the degrading passion of fear, which ought only to be used when gentle means fail, as we read that stones were resorted to when tufts of grass failed to bring the " rude boy " from the forbidden fruit.

In admitting, as I did, that mistakes were made by some who imagined themselves in possession of the Hermetic secret, my mind did not fully and clearly rest, at the moment, upon Emanuel Swedenborg, a man of immense learning and unexceptionable personal character, who has risen in this age to be the head of a considerable body of Christians who believe that the New Jerusalem has recently descended upon earth, or is about to come down from heaven to bless the world.

As I desire to guard against being misunderstood on a subject which I am sure is important, and wish above all things not to mislead any one, I must explain that, by referring to the conscience as the natural instrument of the purification of man, I do not mean to be understood as saying that this is the peculiar secret of hermetic philosophy; but that it is the way to it. The secret itself, we are told, has never been discovered, and never will be discovered by any one until, by a suitable moral and spiritual discipline, the seeker shall feel in a condition to stand unabashed in the presence of God under the simple but momentous text of Scripture, " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; " not that the wicked do not see God also, but they see him as another personage.

I suppose I must attribute the opinion I have recently adopted with respect to Swedenborg, in part, at least, to a habit of looking beyond the letter, in the interpretation of obscure and mystical writings, acquired or practised in the preparation of my Remarks on Alchemy and the Alchemists. Whatever the cause may have been, I was surprised, a few weeks since, on looking into Swedenborg's Heavenly Arcana, at being reminded of the use made by many of the hermetic philosophers (the alchemists of the middle ages) of the first verses of Genesis, and I was thereupon induced to look a little further into the resemblances to be found between the writings of Swedenborg and those of the hermetic philosophers. The result has been without denying the genius and knowledge of Swedenborg a decided opinion that he was a follower of the hermetic class of writers, and that his writings are to be judged and interpreted from the standpoint of hermetic philosophy, however difficult it may be to acquire the right position for that purpose; for it is no easy matter.

A mere isolated coincidence of expression or thought on a particular point, between the writings of Swedenborg and those of the alchemists, would be of little or no importance; but if it shall appear that, besides many remarkable points of identity between Swedenborg and the mystic class of writers to which I refer, the principle of interpretation employed by Swedenborg upon the first books of Moses, and especially upon the first verses of Genesis, can be substantially pointed out in the writings of the alchemists, though not applied precisely as Swedenborg applied it, it cannot fail to surprise many, and must be of importance in estimating the claims of Swedenborg to special illumination, whether those claims be made by himself, or by his admirers or followers in his behalf.

If there was a hermetic secret, or something passing under that name, as the philosopher's stone, for example, and no one doubts this, it is exceedingly improbable, that the secret should not, in some form or other, come to the surface.

That it did exhibit itself in many forms during the middle ages, and even very lately, can be easily shown; so that there is no natural presumption against the position I take, that Swedenborg's mystical writings are modelled after those of the hermetic writers, and may be interpreted from the standpoint of hermetic philosophy; and this, too, without assuming that Swedenborg was what was called an adept in the fullest sense. According to my understanding of hermetic books, the true secret of the hermetic art cannot be written it-, can only be written about; and the attempt to write about it directly, is a very sure method of losing one's self in a cloud of words conveying to the judicious no genuine instruction. It amounts to this, and I say it with all possible reverence, that when God speaks in man, the man (in man) must be silent; and not only this, the man must be silent that God may speak, which we may suppose the true ground of the much talked of Pythagorean silence.

We have an immense field of natural inquiry open before us, in which all of our natural faculties may be employed usefully, both in learning and in teaching; but it is said that there is one subject which God reserves to himself, and teaches only to a " select few of the simple and true," who may not at all be acquainted with the sciences commonly so called; not that ignorance of any kind can be an advantage to us, but that no kind of natural science or knowledge can supersede the conditions necessary for the attainment of what is called the knowledge of God. It may be said that there is no mystery or secret in this; that every one admits it; yet the more considerate may see in it the very mystery of godliness, the profoundest secret of life, the secret about which the hermetic writers employed themselves, and in view of which, as I intend to show, Swedenborg wrote his mystical books, dropping the terms of salt, sulphur, and mercury, in favor of ens, cause, and effect, yet substantially writing in the vein of the hermetic art, treating of man as a spirit; or, as man on the one side a spirit, and on the other an earth; of man as, by nature, an "inchoate" production, tending to perfection, but needing the help of a divine art to advance him thereto.

We have now a large class of Christians, generally, as I believe, of more than ordinary intelligence, and, as I also think, usually distinguished for gentleness and amiability, who are known as Swedenborgians, though I believe they prefer to be called members of the New Church, or members of the New Jerusalem Church. They have grown in numbers and importance very gradually; unlike many sects, in this respect, that have sprung into being from the local preaching of some enthusiastic fanatic, whose appeals to the passions have overborne the reason, and through the imagination and the feelings, have effected organizations of great extent, and even considerable duration. Swedenborg was not a preacher, nor do we know historically that he was an oral teacher to any great extent. He was a writer, and a very voluminous one. In his early years he was employed in practical life, and in the acquisition of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, and was, without doubt, one of the most learned men of his age.

Swedenborg was born at Uppsala, or, as some accounts say, at Stockholm, in 1688, and died at London, at the age of 84=, or 85 for there is a question as to the precise year of his birth. Somewhere near the middle period of his life his thoughts and labors took a decidedly religious turn. In referring to the occasion of it, he speaks of the opening of his internal sight, as if something like a supernatural influence had been exerted upon him, which he attributed to the LORD, a name of vast importance in Swedenborg's writings.

After the opening of his internal sight, as Swedenborg called it, he wrote almost exclusively upon the subject of religion, and left behind him a library of volumes of his own works, containing his opinions upon religion, and his interpretations of Scripture not according to the letter, but according to the spirit, that is, according to his own spirit, as many may say; or, as some believe, according to the teaching of the Lord, by means of the opening of his internal sight.

The sect of Swedenborgians, as I will call them, has grown up, as I have said, gradually; and the members are generally well-informed and sincere; for the most part, reading and thinking people; as, indeed, they are measurably obliged to be, because the doctrines of the sect, next to the Scriptures, are to be found in books written with a vast deal of thought, and without the slightest appeal to the passions.