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thereby anticipating Buffon, Kant, Wright, Laplace and other writers.
In so far as the doctrine of vortices is concerned, Swedenborg probably
derived it from Descartes, but he differs with Descartes as to the origin
of the planets, for whereas Descartes derives them from outer space,
Swedenborg derives them from the original chaos of the sun and planets.
So far as Buffon is concerned, he had Swedenborg’s work in his library
two years after it was published, and did not publish his own theory of
the origin of the planets by the crashing of an enormous meteor into the
sun, the matter of the planets being thus splashed out into space, until
many years later. Of this theory it must be admitted that it crudely
re-sembles Swedenborg’s in so far as the solar origin of the planets is
concerned, and it also reminds us of the theories of certain modern writers who
hold that masses in space may crash into one another and produce nebulae.
As for the theories of Kant and Laplace, and their relation to Swedenborg’s
»Principia» theory, we may here quote the remarks of Nyren, who wrote
on the question many years ago.1
»It cannot be denied that the essential part of the nebular hypothesis,
namely, that the whole solar system has been formed out of a single
chaotic mass, which first rolled itself together into a colossal ball and
subse-quently by rotation separated a ring from itself, which then during the
con-tinued rotation broke up into several parts, and finally contracted into the
planetary masses, was first expressed by Swedenborg. The work of Kant
here in question, Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, was
published in 1755, that is 21 years later; Laplace did not publish his
hypothesis until 62 years later. It should further be observed that
Swedenborg has in all probability given his hypothesis the more correct form,
that, namely, as Laplace also later on supposed, the planets were formed
out of broken up rings, (on the basis of the vortical theory Swedenborg
found but one ring necessary) not, as Kant supposed, immediately out of
conglomerations formed from the original mass of vapor.»
If we examine Swedenborg’s earliest works in their chronological order
we find that the three component parts of his early philosophy of nature,
namely, 1) the theory of vortices, 2) the origin of the earth and planets,
and 3) the constitution of matter out of grades of particles, — that these
1 Vierteljahrschrift der Astronomischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 14, 1879. See recent
discnssions in the Introduction to Vol. II. of the present series, Stockholm, 1908, by
Professor Dr. S. Arrhenips, and in the Transactions of the International Swedenborg
Congress, London, 1910, by Professor I. Tansley.
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