Gustavus was to put an end to the party strife of the “Period of Liberty,” as it has been called. His own reign belongs properly to it, for he reaped the benefit of the seed it had been sowing. The Period of Liberty, with all its faults, forms an important chain in the cultural and political development of Sweden. Its form of government made necessary a varied and active part in public affairs, educating all classes of officials to a high degree of efficiency and the people at large to self-government. The Riksdag, through parliamentary activity and importance, developed an authority which, although too composite to govern itself, was enabled to act as a shield of steel against all abuse of the executive power. The national life never gathered a richer harvest of men of genius who worked for the progress of their country and for that of the world. The heroism of the Swedish people during the preceding period of suffering and distress bore fruit in men like Emanuel Swedenborg, the inventor, naturalist, philosopher and founder of a new religion; Charles Linnæus; the founder of modern botany; Andrew Celsius, Junior, the inventor of the centigrade thermometer; John Ahlstrœmer, the pioneer of industry; John Ihre, the able philologist, and Olof von Dalin, the poet, humorist, and, with Sven Lagerbring, the first modern historian of Sweden. The Period of “Liberty,” viz., of an Aristocratic Republic, was the golden era of Swedish science, the latter for the first time becoming of universal fame and of universal importance. The scientists of this period belong to the fathers of modern research, basing their conclusions upon personal observation, in strong contrast to their fathers and precursors of the chauvinistic barocco period.
Emanuel Swedenborg, the most remarkable man whom Sweden has ever brought forth, was born in Stockholm, June 29, 1688. His father was Jesper Svedberg, bishop of Skara, in West Gothland, and his mother Sara Behm. The tendency toward mysticism, an inheritance from his father, was noticed in him at an early age. He has told of himself that between the age of four and ten his thoughts were exclusively occupied with religious subjects. While in prayer, he sometimes entered a somnambulic condition, revealing things which surprised his parents, who said that angels spoke through him. As a child, he had the idea of God as one, without any conception of a Trinity. Later he received instruction in the systematic theology of his day. His father gave him a thorough training in the Oriental and classical languages. The early mysticism of the boy was supplanted by a thirst for knowledge of the phenomena of life and nature, coupled to a burning desire to illustrate his reading by practical experiments. Having entered the University of Upsala, he at first devoted himself to the study of the classical languages and literature, later to that of mathematics and natural science. When the university was visited by the plague in 1710, and almost all courses of instruction were interrupted, Swedenborg made a journey for scientific purposes to England, Holland, France and Germany. He returned in 1714, enriched with valuable results. In 1716-18 he published the first scientific journal of Sweden, “Dædalus Hyperboreus,” treating subjects of mathematics and physical science. In 1716 he came in close personal contact with Charles XII. at the university town of Lund. The king, being deeply impressed by his great learning and practical ability, appointed him assistant assessor of the college of mining. Swedenborg had, by the scholar Eric Benzelius, been made acquainted with the idea of the old Bishop Brask, of the time of Gustavus I., to “cut up the land” between the North Sea and the Baltic to make a navigable route through Sweden. Swedenborg gave close attention to this scheme, and communicated his plans to Charles XII., who became very much interested in them. Christopher Polhem was selected to build the great canal, and Swedenborg was made his assistant. We know from the sketch of Polhem’s life why the great work failed of accomplishment. Swedenborg gave a proof of his superior genius as a practical engineer during the siege of Fredericshall. Tordenskiold made the sea unsafe and had hedged in the Swedish fleet at Iddefiord. The Swedish boats and galleys were then carried overland to the town of Strœmstad, travelling the main road for fifteen miles on rolling machines devised by Swedenborg. After the death of Charles XII., whom he highly respected, Swedenborg travelled to Saxony and Hungary to study the mining industry of these countries. Returning in 1722, he entered for the first time upon his work of the college of mining, becoming assessor a few years later. In 1719 he was ennobled with his brothers and sisters, when the change of name from Svedberg to Swedenborg was made. In 1724 he declined to accept the chair of mathematics at the University of Upsala, dividing his time between his official work and his studies, until 1747, when he resigned from his position with a pension of the same amount as his salary. His religious works were commenced in 1745, and after that time he made repeated journeys to London or Amsterdam to have these printed, as they could not be published in Sweden on account of the strict and highly orthodox censure of that period.
In 1744 the event occurred which Swedenborg in various places of his works has described as the opening of his spiritual sight, or the manifestations of the Lord to him in person. He had not, by geometrical, physical and metaphysical principles, succeeded in grasping the infinite and the spiritual, or their relation to the nature of man, but he had touched on facts and methods which seemed to conduct him in the right direction. He thought that God had led him into the natural sciences in order to prepare him for his later spiritual development. The visions of his boyhood returned, now conceived by a nature enriched by the experiences of a life spent in ardent and scientific research. The great seer remained a man whom everybody loved and respected. People who did not believe in his visions feared to ridicule them in the presence of this august savant. His manner of life was simple, his diet chiefly consisting of bread, milk and large quantities of coffee. He made little distinction between night and day, and sometimes lay for days in a trance. His servants were often disturbed at night by hearing him engaged in what he called conflicts with evil spirits. His intercourse with spirits was often perfectly calm, in broad daylight, and with all his faculties awake. He held that every man and woman has the same power of spiritual intercourse, although not developed in the same degree as it was found in him.
The work which established the scientific reputation of Swedenborg was published, in 1734, in three massive folios, at the expense of Duke Ludvig Rudolph of Brunswick. The second and third volumes describe the best methods employed in Europe and America in the manufacture of iron, copper and brass. The first volume contains a philosophical explanation of the elementary world which has aroused admiration as a beautiful, daring and consistent creation of human genius, worthy of being placed side by side with the works of Newton, and replete with remarkable ideas and anticipations of later discoveries. Swedenborg indicated the existence of the seventh planet forty years before Uranus was discovered by Herschel. He was the first to form an idea of the development of nebulæ from chaotic masses to concrete heavenly bodies, a hypothesis later perfected by Herschel, and the first to offer the theory, later developed by Buffon, Kant and La Place, of the solar origin of the planets and their satellites. As in astronomy, so also in physics and geology he preconceived great discoveries. His experiments and theories in physics have been confirmed by the discoveries of the polarity of light and the galvanometer and its magnetic properties. Swedenborg discovered before anybody else the great importance of magnetism and the fact that magnetism and electricity are manifestations of the same power. He made observations concerning air and water which have been confirmed as to their correctness by Priestley, Cavendish and Lavoisier, who long were supposed to have been the first discoverers. In geology, he was the first to demonstrate that the Scandinavian peninsula, except the southern part of Scania, was a rising continent, proving the earlier level of the sea to have been much higher and the inland lakes to have stood in connection with the sea. Through his remarks on bowlders, he gave rise to the later theories of Berzelius and Sæfstrom of a bowlder period. Upon these researches followed great and remarkable works of anatomy, which, by later anatomists of the first rank, have been declared to be classics in the literature of physiology. His immense work, “Arcana Cœlestia,” and other theosophical writings which he has placed as a foundation for the New Church, and on which his present fame rests, were not so celebrated in his days as his scientific works. Like the latter, they were all written in Latin.
The new religion, founded by Swedenborg, more spiritual than the old, has proved equally attractive to the individual and idealistic thinkers of all sects, Protestants and Catholics, Unitarians and Theosophists. Swedenborg made no attempt to establish a sect, and the New Church as an organization is the result of a movement which was started after his death.
In his personal appearance Swedenborg was a middle-sized man of strong constitution. His head was of a fine shape, the color of his face somewhat dark and its expression pensive, but his blue eyes were large and radiant. His disposition was amiable. He was a man of the world, fond of music and society, especially of that of cultured women, and was often seen at court. He had a tendency to stutter when speaking fast, for which reason he used a slow diction, characterized by choice and mature expressions. In his youth, he frequented the house of Christopher Polhem and fell in love with his daughter Emerentia. Both Polhem and Charles XII. favored the idea of seeing them united, the young girl of fourteen giving her consent. But young Emerentia was secretly in love with somebody else, and her health and disposition suffered under the strain. When Swedenborg discovered the truth, he gave his betrothed freedom from her allegiance. He ceased to visit the house of Polhem and never entered any other relation of love.
In 1770, at the age of eighty-two, Swedenborg for the last time visited Amsterdam. John C. Cuno, who then saw him, thus described the impression which the aged visionary and thinker made upon him: “He looked so touchingly pious, and when I gazed into his smiling eyes of a heavenly blue, it always seemed to me that truth itself spoke from his lips.” Swedenborg left Amsterdam for London, where, on Christmas eve, 1772, he was struck by hemiplegia. After a few weeks he recovered his speech, and his faculties were clear to the last. The chaplain of the Swedish legation asked him if he had not formulated the doctrines of his new religion in order to gain fame, and if he wished to recall it all before he died. The yet partly paralyzed man raised himself into a sitting position, saying: “As true as it is that you see me here in front of you, as true is also all that I have written, and in eternity you will find a confirmation of it.” The chaplain asked him if he wanted to receive the sacrament. Swedenborg answered: “I need it not; for I am already a member of the other world; but your intention is good, and I will with joy receive the sacrament in token of the bond of unity between heaven and earth.” Swedenborg died March 29, 1772, and was buried in the Lutheran church of London.
Swedenborg was shrewd in worldly affairs and discussed politics and finance in the Swedish Riksdag for nearly a score of years after his visions and theological writings had begun to occupy most of his time.
If the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg at first were apt to discredit the results of his manifold scientific research in the eyes of those who did not share his theosophical views, the renown of the great religious thinker in later times has outshone the fame of which, as the versatile scholar and philosopher, he was so eminently worthy. With his younger contemporary, Charles Linnæus (or Carl von Linné), the case was different. There was in his career no radical change to divert or throw an umbrage over the fame he had won as a scientist of the very first rank.
Charles Linnæus, the most celebrated of Swedish scientists, was born at Rashult, in Smaland, in 1707. His father was a minister of a very subordinate charge of the state church. The neighborhood in which the young Linnæus grew up was not fertile, but rich in flowers, which were the toys and comrades of his childhood. He made but little progress at his work in the college of Vexio, being more fond of collecting and examining plants than of studying Greek and Latin. It was the wish of his parents that he should become a minister and the assistant of his father; but the youth had so little inclination to pursue the life or studies of a clergyman that he at last found it necessary to tell his parents so. He had found a friend and protector in Doctor Rothman, a district physician, who encouraged him to follow his ambition of becoming a naturalist and physician. Doctor Rothman supervised his studies in botany and succeeded in teaching him Latin by giving him the natural history of Pliny to study. In this manner Linnæus, who at college showed utter dislike for the classical languages, learned to write and speak Latin with ease. His teachers, who at first had advised his parents to let him quit the book, in order to take up some trade, were made aware of his gifted nature, but as he was found deficient in the regular courses, their recommendation, necessary for his admittance to the University of Lund, was very carefully worded. “The youths in our colleges may be likened unto little trees in a plant school, where it happens, although but rarely, that young trees upon which the greatest care have been lavished do not turn out well, but resemble wild stems, yet, when removed and transplanted, change their wild nature and develop into beautiful trees of agreeable fruit. Likewise, and for no other purpose, this youth is sent to the university, where he may venture into a climate favorable to his growth.” There was an accurate but unconscious prophecy concealed in this beautiful “recommendation,” which, curiously enough, has chosen the similes which were considered indispensable in the artificial language of the period from the world of plants, when speaking of the future flower king of the North.