In the present condition of our knowledge it would be absolutely foolhardy to seek to explain them; our psychology is not yet far enough advanced. There are a great many things which we are forced to admit, without the power to explain them in any way. To deny what we cannot explain would be pure folly. Could any one explain the world's system a thousand years ago? Even now, can we explain attraction? But science moves, and its progress will be endless.
Do we know the whole extent of the human faculties? The thinker cannot for a moment doubt that there may be forces in Nature still unknown to us,—as, for example, electricity was less than a century ago,—or that there may be other beings in the universe, endowed with other senses and faculties. But is terrestrial man entirely known to us? It does not seem so. There are facts whose reality we are forced to admit, with no power whatever to explain them.
Swedenborg's life offers three of this nature. Let us put aside for a moment planetary and sidereal visions, which appear more subjective than objective. We will remark, by the way, that Swedenborg was a savant of the first order in geology, mineralogy, and crystallography; a member of the Academy of Sciences of Upsala, of Stockholm, and of St. Petersburg; and we will content ourselves with recalling the three following facts.
The 19th of July, 1759, this philosopher landed at Gothenburg on his return from a journey to England, and went to dine with a certain William Costel, where there was quite a large company. At six o' clock in the evening Swedenborg, who had gone out, came back to the drawing-room pale and anxious; he said a great fire had at that moment broken out at Stockholm at the Südermoln, in the street in which he lived, and that the fire was spreading rapidly towards his house. He went out again and returned, lamenting that a friend's house had just been reduced to ashes, and that his own was in the greatest danger. At eight o'clock, after being out again, he said joyfully, "Thanks be to God, the fire has been extinguished at the third house from mine!"
The news of this spread throughout the city, which was all the more excited because the governor gave it attention, and many people were anxious for their property or friends. Two days afterwards the royal messenger brought a report of the fire from Stockholm; there was no disagreement between his account and that which Swedenborg had given. The fire had been extinguished at eight o'clock.
This anecdote was written by the celebrated Emmanuel Kant, who had desired to make an inquiry into the facts, and who adds, "What can be alleged against the authenticity of this occurrence?"
Now, Gothenburg is two hundred kilometres from Stockholm. Swedenborg was then in his seventy-second year.
Here is the second fact:—
In 1761 Madame de Marteville, widow of a minister from Holland to Stockholm, received a demand for the sum of twenty-five thousand Dutch florins (ten thousand dollars), from one of her husband's creditors whom she knew her husband had paid, and a second payment of which would greatly embarrass, almost ruin her. It was impossible to find the receipt. She went to see Swedenborg, and a week later she saw her husband in a dream; he showed her the piece of furniture in which the receipt had been placed, together with a hairpin set with twenty diamonds, which she also believed to be lost. "It was at two o'clock in the morning. Greatly elated, she rose, and found everything at the place indicated. Going back to bed, she slept until nine o'clock. About eleven o'clock, M. de Swedenborg was announced. He told her that he saw M. de Marteville's spirit the night before, and that he informed him that he was going to his widow."