borg, perhaps you will not deem a few words upon some of the differences between them, unsuitable as a sequel to that paper.

1. In the first place, a great divergence is observable respecting the ANGELS, who are asserted by Behmen to have been created before Man, who, on their fall, was appointed to fill the place held by them, and who also fell in his turn. It is not required now to enter into the arguments for and against such a view, but I cannot help remarking, that all attempts on the part of Man to establish finite existences higher than his own, appear to be merely matters of naming. It is not, I apprehend, in the power of any man to admit a higher finite than himself, except in the same sense that most persons would admit Shakespeare to be greater than themselves, yet only a Man. The "beings of higher grades than our own," as the phrase sometimes runs, are, in plain English, only superior Men, because the very form and quality of our minds forbid us to attribute any thing but what is Human, even to the most exalted idea of Being; if we will have something different to Man, it can only really be by going below him.

If this view be at all sound, it would not seem that Behmen, on that point, gives us any real idea, or any power of explaining real ideas. We should only have to substitute the word Man where Angel occurs, and no one would find out any mistake or difference.

2. Another striking opposition is to be found, arising out of Behmen's statement respecting ADAM, who, according to him, was not either male or female, but truly the "Image of God," containing both the masculine and feminine principles within himself; but he suffered his internal harmony to be disturbed, and desired to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which caused the separation to become necessary, implied in the creation of Eve. Then came the bringing forth of children in sorrow, instead of their being "magically" born from ADAM himself, in his perfect state, together with all the other evils which now afflict mankind. No terms can well be stronger than those in which Behmen expresses himself on those subjects connected with the division of mankind into two sexes; and it follows naturally, and is expressly asserted by him, that when, after death, the human being enters the spiritual world, and becomes an Angel, in a beautiful human form, he, or she, returns to the state from which Adam fell. His words are"Such a Man as Adam was, before his Eve, shall arise, and again enter into, and eternally possess, Paradise; not a Man, or Woman." (Myste rium Magnum, c. 18, v. 3.) Without entering into the respective philosophies of these assertions, and the opposite ones of Swedenborg, it may be allowed to observe, that certain facts and feelings seem to be

opposed to them. For instance, the painter is instinctively led to personify certain ideas by forms distinctly feminine, as Righteousness and Peace kissing each other, the guardian angel of a child, and so on; nor is it, I think, too much to say, that all persons who feel, but do not theorise, on such subjects, conceive of their friends or relatives who have died, as absolutely male and female; also, numerous facts, rejected only from non-examination, belonging to the states of Deep-seers, or Clairvoyants, point in the same direction. Let me add, that Behmen confirms his view by quoting, in the merely literal sense, the text-" They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage." (Luke xx. 35.)

A consideration of this point involves the question of the Internal sense of the Word, to which, if permitted, I would, at some time, devote a separate article, as I suppose that it is on that point that the difference between the two writers is most striking and important.

A third difference is found in the views of the two authors respecting the Planets, not one of which, in the universe, is considered by Behmen to be inhabited, except our own earth. It must not be understood that this is merely a capricious assertion; it is part of a system, but the peculiar grounds are not of a nature that can well be gone into now. However, to persons not of Behmen's school, it will appear no small objection to the view, that it takes away or limits real Ideas, meaning, Ideas which the mind can really frame, not mere Naming. For instance, it limits our power of carrying out or completing the Idea of a GRAND MAN. This Idea, proved to a certain extent by such phrases as "the Body politic," "the Head of the Nation," &c., is also clearly announced by Behmen himself, when he says,— -"As the condition and constitution of an Angel is, in his corporeal body, with all the members thereof, such is the condition of a whole kingdom, which together is, as it were, one Angel." But we can also frame an Idea of other worlds, and, indeed, actually see them; also we can think of their being inhabited, and, having gone so far, we not only can, but must, frame the Idea of a Grand Body Politic, composed not of individual Men, but of Worlds, and then it follows, that in such a Body Politic, some Worlds must belong to the feet, and some to the head. Then if we admit, with Swedenborg, that there are reasons to believe that the place of our earth in this Grand Man, is low (or external), we might rationally admit the existence of superior beings, that is, superior Men, and see in the Human Body a reflexion or image of what the superiority is. It would seem, then, that Behmen's idea, taken singly, is Destructive, as opposed to the real Constructiveness of Swedenborg's.

46

There is a fact worth consideration in connexion with this subject, which is, that the illumination of the most gifted Man is limited. Neither Swedenborg nor Behmen knew that there were Planets beyond Saturn,* and the latter, indeed, expresses a very positive conviction to the contrary. Of course, I do not mean that they could not have acquired the knowledge, had they, from any ground, sought for it, but simply that it did not come to them; indeed, it is a peculiar value of Clairvoyant facts," that they prove, even to the most natural man, if he will but look at them, the possibilities of such a translation to the Planets as Swedenborg relates of himself. If persons in the comparatively low state called Clairvoyance, can see into "impossible places," it becomes certain that his testimony, if rejected, must be so from other grounds than any natural impossibility. I should hope, therefore, that those New Churchmen who at present are averse to any entertainment of those facts, will reconsider their opinion, as it is as well to be armed at all points in defence of our honest beliefs, and it must be the tendency of all truths mutually to sustain each other.

I note, as common both to New Churchmen and Theosophers, a strong disposition to FIND every thing in their favourite author. This, as regards ourselves, has been touched upon by Mr. Wikinson in his

* Swedenborg asserts more than once that there are myriads of planets in the universe; and in his work on that subject, he describes the inhabitants of several earths out of, or beyond, our solar system. He also shews the rationale and the necessity of this, to constitute the "Grand Man" an image of the Infinite.-EDITOR.

+ He who is unacquainted with the areana of heaven, cannot believe that Man is capable of seeing earths so remote, and of giving any account of them from sensible experience-but let such a one know, that the Spaces and Distances, and consequent progressions, which exist in the Natural World, are, in their origin and first cause, changes of the state of interior things, and that with Angels and Spirits they appear according to such changes; and that therefore Angels and Spirits may by such changes be apparently translated from one place to another, and from one earth to another. The case is the same also with man as to his spirit, and therefore he also may be so translated, whilst his body still continues in its own place. This has been the case with myself, since by the divine Mercy of the Lord it has been given me to converse with Spirits as a Spirit, and at the same time with men as a man. The sensual man is not capable of conceiving that man as to his spirit can be thus translated, inasmuch as the sensual man is immersed in Space and in Time, and measures his progressions accordingly.-Earths in the Universe, page 89.›

Now that this philosophy is true, is absolutely testified by Clairvoyance, and what is true of one mile, may be true of millions.

That motions, progressions, and changes of place, in another life, are changes of the states of the Interiors of life, and that, nevertheless, it really appears to Spirits and Angels as if they actually existed.-Arcana Coelestia, No. 1273 to 1277, 1377 3356, 5606, 10734.

admired Preface to the Animal Kingdom. Alluding to certain "claims made for our author by his injudicious friends," he observes that it is true that all these things, and many more, lie in ovo, in the universal principles made known through him," but they were NOT DEVELOPED

BY HIM IN THAT ORDER WHICH CONSTITUTES ALL THEIR NOVELTY, AND,

IN FACT, THEIR DISTINCT EXISTENCE." I would respectfully submit, to both New Churchmen and Theosophers, whether this be not the true view of all attempts to find in any author that which he never found in himself.

For the behoof of those to whom the idea may be as new as it was a few weeks ago to myself, I will mention, that in the old Arminian Magazine are some articles in which Swedenborg is spoken of, as in some respects, a copier of Behmen; and lately, conversing with a Theosophic student, that gentleman expressed to me his conviction that what genuine truths were to be found in Swedenborg, were from no other source. To ourselves, of course, the letter to Dr. Beyer is sufficient evidence to the contrary; but I presume the question is only part of a much greater one, viz., the special Illumination of Swedenborg himself: that granted, it follows that where Behmen obtained Light, Swedenborg obtained it also; and if denied, the lesser point is of no consequence. However, having read with some care both the Arcana Calestia and the Mysterium Magnum, on the whole, I suppose, the greatest productions of their several authors, I will venture to state my own feeling, which is, that Individuality and Originality, in two books on the self-same subjects, could not be more powerfully shown than in those very extraordinary works. ALFRED ROFFE.

P.S.-I omitted in the last paper, to say that I procured the Theosophic Essay, the "Past, Present, and Future," at Mr. Ward's in Paternoster Row. Appended to the essay is a highly interesting Prospectus,

Stockholm, February, 1767.

* By your friend, Sir, I have been asked several questions, to which be pleased to receive the following as an answer :

I. My opinion concerning the writings of Behmen and L- ? Answer: I have never read them, as I was prohibited reading dogmatic and systematic theology before heaven was opened to me, by reason, that unfounded opinions and inventions might thereby easily have insinuated themselves, which with difficulty could afterwards have been extirpated, wherefore, when heaven was opened to me, it was necessary first to learn the Hebrew language, as well as the Correspondences of which the whole Bible is composed, which led me to read the Word of God over many times--and inasmuch as the Word of God is the source whence all theology must be derived, I was thereby enabled to receive instructions from the Lord, who is the Word.-Hobart's Life of Swedenborg, page 137.

relating to the works of Behmen, his great expositor, Mr. Law, St. Martin, and the MS. of Freher, containing Illustrations and Symbols, explanatory of Behmen's Philosophy.

REVIEW.

EMANUELIS SWEDENBORGII Economia Regni Animalis in Transactiones divisa, quarum hæc Tertia de Fibra, De Tunica Arachnoidea, et De Morbis Fibrarum agit, anatomice, physice, et philosophice perlustrata. Ex Autographo ejus in Bibliotheca Academiæ Regiæ Holmiensis asservato nunc primum edidit Jac. JOH. Garth WILKINSON, Regii Collegii Chirurg. Londin. Memb.

262. Londini, W. NEWBERY, 1847.

8vo., pp. xii. and

THIS is the title of the last work published by the Swedenborg Association, and which consists of the third part of Swedenborg's Economy of the Animal Kingdom, left by him in manuscript, but evidently ripe for the press. Inasmuch as the work has been necessarily first published in the Latin, we propose to introduce a few short specimens of it to the reader in English, that he may judge in some degree for himself of its style and importance.

The work consists of three chapters, the first of which treats on the Human Fibre, respecting which it may be expedient to premise a few words of explanation. In Swedenborg's theory of the body, the framework of organization exhibits a regularly progressive development from simple to compound, and from the structures of one degree to those of another. In the simple living substances, and the higher degrees, higher qualities reside, and the higher forms are embodied, and these are degraded, or graduated downwards, in a series, as the substances increase in magnitude, augment in composition, and become more and more solid and appreciable to the senses. Hence the theory imports (like mathematics), that the solid organ, whatever it be, is made up of thinner and thinner membranes, as it were fine plates; and the membranes of threads or fibres; and these fibres themselves, as new solids, of finer membranes, and so of finer fibres, until we arrive at the first end or limit of the body, in the simplest fibre of all. The idea here is so plain and simple, that we fear the reader may lose it on that very account; that instead of understanding it, he may understand past it, and leave it unseen from its very clearness. Conceive, therefore, that according to a usual image, the body is the garment of the soul; a garment infinitely full of folds, flaps, pouches, pockets, fringes, doublings,