Swedenborg affirms that the moon is inhabited. We know that even those scientific men who hold to the doctrine of a plurality of worlds, do not believe in the habitability of the moon; because, say they, it lacks alike water and atmosphere. To say that it has no atmosphere is very unphilosophical. The atmosphere may not be of the same density as that of our earth; but that it should have no sphere or aura around it, we cannot for a moment believe. Swedenborg tells us that the Lunarians are dwarfs, like boys of seven years old, with robust bodies and pleasant countenances. They do not speak from their lungs, on account of the attenuated nature of their atmosphere, but from a quantity of air collected in the abdomen.
It is but just to state that Swedenborg speaks of Saturn as the outermost planet of the solar system, he not being permitted to anticipate Herschel or Neptune. An opponent might make merry over this, and say: “Don’t you see that Swedenborg was but a dreamer? How could he know aught of the inhabitants of other earths when he did not even know that beyond Saturn rolled two immense worlds?” We reply, that it would have been disorderly for him to have become possessed of such knowledge by spiritual means. “But how so?” Because it would have compelled belief in the spiritual doctrines he taught, without due thought and examination, as soon as science had established the existence of these orbs; because miracles and prophecy are not permitted in these times, for they force and destroy man’s freedom. How easy it would be for the Lord to witness to the truth of His Word by supernatural signs in the natural world! Yet he does not, although belief in his Word, and life according to it, is essential to man’s highest happiness. Belief so induced would be worthless, because compelled. It may be said that this is mere special pleading; but it is not so. The laws laid down in a later work of Swedenborg’s, on the “Divine Providence,” fortify, in a most rational manner, the truth as we have endeavoured to set it forth. It is also to be remarked that natural truth must be discovered by its appropriate means,—natural investigation. It was necessary that Swedenborg should be skilled in all natural science previous to his illumination, so that he might possess a basis for many spiritual facts which could neither have been expressed nor made intelligible without at the same time giving their correspondence in nature. It would have been altogether contrary to the Divine order to have taken Swedenborg in his early youth and ignorance, and, making him a seer, have communicated natural truth to him in a supernatural manner.
3. “The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine” is a brief exposition of the leading truths of the New Church. After each of its chapters follow references, (in some cases more extensive than the chapter itself,) to the “Arcana Cœlestia.” These references, so numerous in Swedenborg’s writings, do not form a dry and unreadable index, but may be looked on as a series of precepts pertaining to moral and spiritual life. Were we gathering a volume of gems of thought, we should find an abundance to suit our purposes in these references.
This work has been printed as a cheap pamphlet. We know of no other work which could more appropriately be placed in the hands of a stranger desiring to know, without much reading, the nature of those doctrines which Swedenborg was commissioned to reveal to the world.
CHAPTER XV.
Anecdotes.
The trite observation that the lives of literary men are devoid of those incidents which make up a stirring and lively biography, applies with great truth to the career of Swedenborg. His quiet and unostentatious life afforded but few materials for anecdotes; hence we have but faint traces of his outward course. While writing the works we have just noticed, from 1747 to 1758, the principal portion of his time must have been passed in London. Few men in those days were capable of sympathy or communion with the elevated and spiritualized mind of Swedenborg. Yet though living as it were alone, he could not have been melancholy or desolate. Under the care and guidance of the Lord, favored with the company and converse of angels, and enjoying the consciousness of fulfilling high and holy duties, he had every reason to be the cheerful and contented man that contemporary testimony represents him. His evenings he used often to spend with his printer, Mr. Hart, of Poppin’s court, Fleet street. Mrs. Lewis, his publisher’s wife, knew him, and “thought him a good and sensible man, but too apt to spiritualize things.” Beyond a few particulars such as these, we know nothing of his private life.
On the 19th of July, 1759, we find Swedenborg at Gottenburg. Here occurred the following circumstance, of which Immanuel Kant, the celebrated transcendentalist, is the narrator.