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EULOGIUM OF SANDEL. 21
in an Academy of Sciences. Suffice it then to say, that
his merit and excellent qualities shine with brilliancy,
even where we are endeavouring to discover in him the
weaknesses inseparable from human nature. I do not
come here to defend errors or unintelligible principles :
but I will venture to assert, and I reckon, gentlemen,
on meeting your approbation in the assertion,-that
where others would have discovered a deficiency of in
telligence and a confusion of ideas, Swedendorg has dis
played an astonishing assemblage of knowledge ; which
he has arranged, according to his system, in such order,
that the elements themselves would have striven in vain
to turn him out of his course. If his desire of knowledge
went too far, it at least evinces in him an ardent desire to
obtain information himself and to convey it to others :
for you never find in him any mark of pride or conceit,
of rashness, or of intention to deceive. If, nevertheless,
he is not to be numbered among the doctors of the
church, he at least holds an honourable rank among sub
lime moralists, and deserves to be instanced as a pattern
ofvirtue and of respect for his Creator.
Never did he allow himself to have recourse to dis
simulation ; and since, following his example, I also
ought to speak with sincerity, I will state in what res
pect I conceive he has erred. I think of a man who has
been engaged all his life in preparing a universal solvent,
-a menstruum capable of dissolving all the productions
of nature and of art,-without ever considering, that,
when he had succeeded in making it, no vessel whatever
could be capable of containing it. Swedenborg was not
satisfied with the usual attainments of the learned : he
wished to pass the barriers which are opposed to man’s
acquirements by the imperfection of his state, especially
while the soul is tied to its frail partner, the body. But
it would be unjust to blame him for this defect, without
more severely condemning those whose duty it is to
know much, and who yet know nothing. And still it
would be inequitable to wish to depreciate a man endowed
with so many other fine qualities.
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