Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . ranscendence wascritical,— God, the Soul, and Immortalitywere not *^ constitutive ^^ but only ^^regulat-ive** elements of knowledge, incapable of demonstration or negation;with Swedenborg the transcendence was positive — into a world ofthings ^^heard and seen.** Were Swedenborg merely the seer, or oneof the many who have ^* seen visions** and left an account of them,his name, however regarded by his followers, could have no place ina history of letters or of philosophic thought. His extraordinary expe-rience of intromission, as he cl
Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern . ranscendence wascritical,— God, the Soul, and Immortalitywere not *^ constitutive ^^ but only ^^regulat-ive** elements of knowledge, incapable of demonstration or negation;with Swedenborg the transcendence was positive — into a world ofthings ^^heard and seen.** Were Swedenborg merely the seer, or oneof the many who have ^* seen visions** and left an account of them,his name, however regarded by his followers, could have no place ina history of letters or of philosophic thought. His extraordinary expe-rience of intromission, as he claims, into open intercourse with angelsand spirits for a period of some thirty years, cannot be said to con-stitute a philosophical moment in itself, being unique and incapableof classification. It is only the system of universal laws governingthe relations of the two worlds, which he claims to have brought tolight,— especially the law of Discrete Degrees and their Correspond-ence.— that gives his writings their philosophic value, and that entitles. ^?>- Emanuel Swedenborg 14238 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG them, by the side of Kants philosophy of criticism, to appeal to theworld as the philosophy of revelation. Like Kant, Swedenborgs early studies and investigations hadalmost universal range. The tastes of both inclined them to the clas-sics, to invention, to the study of fire and iron, of tides and winds,and of the starry heavens. The so-called Nebular Hypothesis, untillately attributed to Kant as having a prior claim in its discovery toLa Place, is now at length admitted by undisputed authority to havebeen anticipated by Swedenborg in his ^ Principia ^ nearly thirty yearsbefore Kant.* Unlike Kant, however, in one respect, who never traveled fartherthan forty miles from Konigsberg, Swedenborg was as extensive atraveler literally as in the researches of his magnificent , Italy, Germany, Holland, and England were familiar from hismany journeyings. His books wer
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