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EULOGIUM OF.SANDEL. 35
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 honorable rank among sublime moralists, and
deserves to be instanced as a pattern of virtue and of respect for his Creator.
Never did he allow himself to have recourse to dissimulation; and since, fol-
lowing his example, I also ought to speak with sincerity, 1 will state in what
respect 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 im-
perfection 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 endow-
ed with so many other fine qualities.
He was the sincere friend of mankind ; and in his examination of the charac-
ter of others, he was particularly desirous to discover in them this virtue, which
he regarded as an infallible proof of the presence of many more. He was cheer-
ful and agreeable in society. By way of relaxation from his important labors,
he sought and frequented the company of persons of information, by whom he
was always well received. He knew how to check opportunely, and with
great address, that species of wit which would indulge itself at the expense of
serious things. As a public functionary, he was upright and just : while he dis-
charged his duties with great exactness, he neglected nothing but his own ad-
vancement. Having been called, without solicitation on his part, to a distin-
guished post, he never sought any further promotion. When his private occu-
pations began to encroach upon the time required for the functions of his office,
he resigned it, and remained content with the title which he had borne while
exercising it for one-and-thirty years.
He was a worthy member of this Royal Academy ; and though before his ad-
mission into it he had been engaged with subjects different from those which it
cultivates, he was unwilling to be an unuseful associate. He enriched our
Memoirs with an article 07i Inlaid Work in Marble, for Tables^ and for other Orna-
ments.
As a member of the Equestrian Order of the House of Nobles he took his seat
in several of the Diets of the Realm ; in which his conduct was such as to
secure him both from the reproaches of his own conscience and from those of
others.* He lived under the reigns of many of our sovereigns, and enjoyed the
* Iq a letter of Count Hopken’s, who had been for many years Prime Minister of
Sweden, published in the Neio Jerusalem Magazine, printed in 1790, that nobleman
states, that the most solid and best written memorials on the state of the finances, pre-
sented at the Diet of 1761, were drawn up by Swedenborg ; in one of which he refuted
a quarto volume on the subject, citing from it the corresponding passages, in the com-
pass of a single sheet. This letter is adduced below.
—
Editors.
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