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TESTIMONY OF EMANUEL KANT. 99
self thoronghly concerning the subject of your request. Permit me, gracious
lady, to justify my proceedings in this matter, inasmuch as it might appear that
an erroneous opinion had induced me to credit the various relations concerning
it without careful examination. I am not aware that any body has ever per-
ceived in me an inclination to the marvellous, or a weakness approaching to
credulity. So much is certain, that, notwithstanduig all the narrations of appa-
ritions and visions concerning the spiritual world, of which a great number of
the most probable are known to me, I have always considered it to be most in
agreement with the rule of sound reason to incline to the negative side ; not as
if I had imagined such a case to be impossible , although we know but very
little concerning the nature of a spirit, but because the instances are not in gene-
ral sufficiently proved. There arise, moreover, from the incomprehensibility" and
inutility of this sort of phenomena, too many difficulties ; and there are, on the
other hand, so many proofs of deception, that I have never considered it neces-
sary to suffer fear or dread to come upon me, either in the cemeteries of the
dead, or in the darkness of night. This is the position in which my mind stood
for a long time, until the accounts of Swedenborg came to my notice.
"These accounts I received from a Danish officer, who was formerly my
friend, and attended my lectures ; and who, at the table of the Austrian ambas-
sador, Dietrichstein, at Copenhagen, together with several other guests, read a
letter which the ambassador had lately received from Baron de Lutzow, the
Mecklenburg ambassador at Stockholm ; in which he says, that he, in company
with the Dutch ambassador, was present, at the queen of Sweden’s residence,
at the extraordinary transaction respecting Swedenborg, which your ladyship
will undoubtedly have heard. The authenticity thus given to the a’ccount sur-
prised me. For it can scarcely be believed, that one ambassador should com-
municate a piece of information to another for public use, which related to the
queen of the court where he resided, and which he himself, together with a
splendid company, had the opportunity of witnessing, if it were not true. Now
in order not to reject blindfold the prejudice against apparitions and visions by
a new prejudice, I found it desirable to inform- myself as to the particulars of
this surprising transaction. I accordingly wrote to the officer I have mentioned
at Copenhagen, and made various inquiries respecting it. He answered that he
had again had an interview concerning it with the Count Dietrichstein ; that the
affair had really taken place in the manner described ; and that Professor Schlegel,
also, had declared to him, that it could by no means be doubted. He advised
me, as he was then going to the army under General St. Germain, to write to
Swedenborg himself, in order to ascertain the particular circumstances of the
extraordinary case. I then wrote to this singular man, and the letter was de-
livered to him, at Stockholm, by an English merchant. I was informed that
Swedenborg poUtely received the letter, and promised to answer it ; but the an-
swer was omitted. In the mean time I made the acquaintance of an English
gentleman who spent the last summer at this place, whom, relying on the
friendship we had formed, I commissioned, as he was going to Stockholm, to
make particular inquiries respecting the miraculous gift which Swedenborg is
said to possess. In his first letter, he states, that the most respectable people in
Stockholm declare, that the singular transaction alluded to had happened in the
manner you have heard described. He had not then had an interview with Swe-
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