(I see that RACISM has crept on awkward feet into our midst. I suppose it is better it be out in the open. At least he cuts a low-brow and ridiculous figure. So I suppose we will be hearing quotes from Streicher...)
I think you will enjoy this: Really interesting insights into Swedenborg, Spencer, Paine, Adam Smith, Fourier, Bentham, Huxley, Ernst Haeckel, and Comte!
infidels.org
IF others who read this book get as much information as I did from the advance sheets, they will feel repaid a hundred times. It is perfectly delightful to take advantage of the conscientious labors of those who go through and through volume after volume, divide with infinite patience the gold from the dross, and present us with the pure and shining coin. Such men may be likened to bees who save us numberless journeys by giving us the fruit of their own.
While this book will greatly add to the information of all who read it. it may not increase the happiness of some to find that Swedenborg was really insane. But when they remember that he was raised by a bishop, and disappointed in love, they will cease to wonder at his mental condition. Certainly an admixture of theology and "disprized love" is often sufficient to compel reason to abdicate the throne of the mightiest soul.
The trouble with Swedenborg was that he changed realities into dreams, and then out of the dreams made facts upon which he built, and with which he constructed his system.
He regarded all realities as shadows cast by ideas. To him the material was the unreal, and things were definitions of the ideas of God. He seemed to think that he had made a discovery when he found that ideas were back of words, and that language had a subjective as well as an objective origin; that is, that the interior meaning had been clothed upon. Of course, a man capable of drawing the conclusion that natural reason cannot harmonize with spiritual truth because in a dream, he had seen a beetle that could not use its feet, is capable of any absurdity of which the imagination can conceive. The fact is, that Swedenborg believed the Bible. That was his misfortune. His mind had been overpowered by the bishop, but the woman had not utterly destroyed his heart. He was shocked by the liberal interpretation of the Scriptures, and sought to avoid the difficulty by giving new meanings consistent with the decency and goodness of God. He pointed out a way to preserve the old Bible with a new interpretation. In this way Infidelity could be avoided; and, in his day, that was almost a necessity. Had Swedenborg taken the ground that the Bible was not inspired, the ears of the world would have been stopped. His readers believed in the dogma of inspiration, and asked, not how to destroy the Scriptures, but for some way in which they might be preserved. He and his followers unconsciously rendered immense service to the cause of intellectual enfranchisement by their efforts to show the necessity of giving new meanings to the barbarous laws, and cruel orders of Jehovah. For this purpose they attacked with great fury the literal text, taking the ground that if the old interpretation was right, the Bible was the work of savage men. They heightened in every way the absurdities, cruelties and contradictions of the Scriptures for the purpose of showing that a new interpretation must be found, and that the way pointed out by Swedenborg was the only one by which the Bible could be saved.
Great men are, after all, the instrumentalities of their time. The heart of the civilized world was beginning to revolt at the cruelties ascribed to God, and was seeking for some interpretation of the Bible that kind and loving people could accept. The method of interpretation found by Swedenborg was suitable for all. Each was permitted to construct his own "science of correspondence" and gather such fruits as he might prefer. In this way the ravings of revenge can instantly be changed to mercys melting tones, and murder's dagger to a smile of love. In this way and in no other, can we explain the numberless mistakes and crimes ascribed to God. Thousands of most excellent people, afraid to throw away the idea of inspiration, hailed with joy a discovery that allowed them to write a Bible for themselves.
But, whether Swedenborg was right or not, every man who reads a book, necessarily gets from that book all that he is capable of receiving. Every man who walks in the forest, or gathers a flower, or looks at a picture, or stands by the sea, gets all the intellectual wealth he is capable of receiving. What the forest, the flower, the picture or the sea is to him, depends upon his mind, and upon the stage of development he has reached. So that after all, the Bible must be a different book to each person who reads it, as the revelations of nature depend upon the individual to whom they are revealed, or by whom they are discovered. And the extent of the revelation or discovery depends absolutely upon the intellectual and moral development of the person to whom, or by whom, the revelation or discovery is made. So that the Bible cannot be the same to any two people, but each one must necessarily interpret it for himself. Now, the moment the doctrine is established that we can give to this book such meanings as are consistent with our highest ideals; that we can treat the old words as purses or old stockings in which to put our gold, then, each one will, in effect, make a new inspired Bible for himself, and throw the old away. If his mind is narrow, if he has been raised by ignorance and nursed by fear, he will believe in the literal truth of what he reads. If he has a little courage he will doubt, and the doubt will with new interpretations modify the literal text; but if his soul is free he will with scorn reject it all.
Swedenborg did one thing for which I feel almost grateful. He gave an account of having met John Calvin in hell. Nothing connected with the supernatural could be more perfectly natural than this. The only thing detracting from the value of this report is, that if there is a hell, we know without visiting the place that John Calvin must be there.
All honest founders of religions have been the dreamers of dreams, the sport of insanity, the prey of visions, the deceivers of others and of themselves. All will admit that Swedenborg was a man of great intellect, of vast acquirements and of honest intentions; and I think it equally clear that upon one subject, at least, his mind was touched, shattered and shaken.
Misled by analogies, imposed upon by the bishop, deceived by the woman, borne to other worlds upon the wings of dreams, living in the twilight of reason and the dawn of insanity, he regarded every fact as a patched and ragged garment with a lining of the costliest silk, and insisted that the wrong side, even of the silk, was far more beautiful than the right... |
