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The general results of the controversy were greater freedom of
thought and a direct stimulus to unfettered philosophical and scientitic
research. In 1710 the Royal Society of Sciences of Upsala was organized
and counted among its members during the century such men as
Swedenborg, Celsius and Linnæus. The direct influence of the Cartesian
phi-losophy upon the founders of the Society will be discussed below.
In the case of Swedenborg the influence of the Cartesian
Controversy soon appears upon examining his early scientific writings. He also
refers favorably to Descartes in connection with some remarkable
theo-ries in physiological psychology, and even in his later theological works,
in a treatise »De Commercio Animae et Corporis», (1769), which reports a
discussion in the spiritual world by the followers of Aristotle, Leibniz,
and Descartes, the Cartesians are victorious. We must, however, here
confine the discussion to the early scientific works of Swedenborg, which
are chiefly of geological, physical and cosmological content.
Beginning with mathematical, physical, Chemical and mechauical
researches, partly published in the »Daedalus Hyperboreus», the earliest
scientific magazine of Sweden, edited by Swedenborg at Upsala, 1716 —
1617 1, the young investigator applies himself to geological questions at
a time when geology as a science did not exist, and makes a number
of remarkable discoveries which have been discussed in detail by A. G.
Nathorst in the Introduction to Vol. I. of this series. Swedenborg was
also deeply interested in astronomy, and when his early studies had been
reported in a series of publications which appeared from 1716 to 1722,
we find him turning his attention during the next decade to general
cosmological problems. At the same time he was collecting information
concerning the metals and smelting processes, in connection with his
duties as au assessor in the Royal College of Mines. The results of
his work were published in 1734 at Dresden and Leipsic in three folio
volumes entitled »Opera Philosophica et Mineralia», printed in handsome
style by the munificence of the Duke of Brunswick-Liineburg. The first
volume contains the »Principia Rerum Naturalium», the second and third
are works on »Iron» and »Copper» 2.
followed him to Örebro, the Cartesian psychologist Andreas Rhydeuus, eubsequently
professor at the University of Lund, kept alive the flame which his teacher had so
zealously guarded. Rhydeuus was the uncle and educator of Nils Retzius, the
father of Anders Jaiian Retzius.
1 The D.edalus will be published in Vol. IV. of this series.
2 The three volumes of the »Opera Philosophica et Mineralia» will be included
in the present series.
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