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EULOGIUM OF SANDFX. 33
workshops : and we find him everywhere equally diligent, zealous, and fertile
in emblematical illustrations. .
The applicationwhich the composition of these latter works required, not per-
mitting him to continue to discharge the functions of his office as Assessor of
the Board of Mines, he, in 1747, asked and obtained his Majesty’s permission to
retire from it : who also gmnted the two requests which he added to his peti-
tion ; the first of which was, that he might enjoy, during life, by way of pension,
the AaZ/of the salary attached to his office ; and the second, that this favor might
be granted him without any addition of rank or title ; though these are things
which by the generality are not deprecated but eagerly sought after, and equally
regarded wiih the acquisition of riches.*
These last works of Swedenborg’s, as far as I have been able to judge of them
from a slight inspection, confirm the idea I had previously formed of his system.
He explains in them, according to the laws of the system that he had adopted,
both things visible and invisible : from the former, he draws conclusionsf re-
* We have here, indeed, a rare instance of that moderation and contentedness of mind
by which Swedenborg was so eminently distinguished, and which was so truly in ac-
cord with his spiritual cliaracter. In the English verson of this Eulogium heretofore
published, he is made to desire that the favor he requested might be granted without
derogation either of title or rank : but this is a strange oversight indeed of the translator ;
for both the French copies—that of Pernetti, from which the former English version was
made, as well as that which we have chiefly followed—here agree in the sense which
is given above ; both state that he requested that the favor might be granted him " sans
amelioration de rang ni de titre." Swedenborg had now held an office in the govern-
ment thirty-one years : and no doubt it is customary in that country, as in this, to re-
ward a faithful public servant^ on his retirement, with a pension proportioned to the
length and value of his services, and to raise him to a higher degree of rank or title. It
is elsewhere stated, that such an ofier was actually made to Swedenborg on this occa-
sion : it was proposed to raise him from the first rank of nobility to the second, and
thus to confer on him the title of Baron ; and, most probably, this would have been ac-
companied with an addition to his former income, to enable him to support his new
dignity in a suitable manner : but he, as a man for whom neither wealth nor power had
any attractions, declined the title altogether, and requested that only half of his former
income—^just as much as was sufficient to keep him from want, and to enable him to
publish the works on which he was engaged—^mightbe continued to him. By the way,
this transaction alone is sufficient to evince how totally unfounded is the report which
has been propagated by his enemies in this country, that, a little before this time, he
went mad. If such was, in reality, his unfortunate situation, it would be sufficiently
extraordinary that he should still be permitted, in his own country, to assist, as usual,
in the deliberations of the House of Nobles: but that it should be proposed, at such a
time, to raise him to a higher rank of nobility, and thus to add to his influence, would
have been extraordinary indeed. To think of such a thing, the king of Sweden must
have been mad himself.
—
Editors.
t This and the following statement of M. de Sandel is extremely superficial ; but a
better judgment could not be expected from him, since, as he himself states, he had
not studied and examined the theological writings of his venerable countryman. As,
however, M. Sandel has given Swedenborg credit for the greatest sincerity and veracity,
which he exhibits as the prominent features of his character, we cannot explain what
Swedenborg has written on the spiritual world according to the principle stated by San-
del " as conclusions drawn from things visible respecting things invisible." For Sweden-
borg did not publish what he has written respecting the spiritual world as things con-
eluded from what is visible, or the natural world, respecting what is invisible, or the
spiritual world, but he published them as " matters of fact from what he heard and saw
in the spiritual world." This he has declared in the titles of several of his works. His
assertion was, that the Lord had mercifully opened the sight of his spirit, so that he
could, in a state of perfetft wakefulness, associate with spirits and angels, and thus, from
experience, he became acquainted with the nature of the spiritual world, its relation to
the natural world, and the state of men after death. Every man, he states, has, in his
material body, a spiritual body, for *’
there is a natwral body, and there is a spiritual
body s" (1 Cor. xv.) the organs of which are the only ground of all sensations, since the
3
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