Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
’REMARKS ON THE TESTIMONY OF KANT. 103
and as we have already seen, the truth of his havmg received such a divine
commission as he affirms he had, follows, of course. To allow the reality of
his ’
extraordhiary gift,’ and to reject his account of the way and purpose in and
for which he received it, is to make a fact unintelligible, and even incredible,
though admitted to be indubitable. Nor will the attempted solution of some of
the German writers, followed by some in England, at all meet the difficulty.
AV hen they tell us, that his alleged spiritual experience was nothing else than
the vivid embodying of the conceptions of his own mind, they tell us what, so
far concerns the relations in his writings, though not easy to believe, it were
also not easy to disprove. But how does it explain the cases mentioned by
Kant? Supposing Swedenborg able to form so vivid a conception of the de-
ceased M. de Marteville as to fancy he heard him speak ;
yet that a piece of in-
formation respecting a fact in the natural world, thus heard only in imagination,
should be verified by the event, were indeed an extraordinary coincidence. How
lively soever the idea that he might be able to conjure up in imagination of the
prince of Prussia; yet that he should succeed in extracting from this phantom,
the mere creation of his own mind, the knowledge of the secrets between the prince
and the queen, never told to any other person, w^ere also a miracle, such as only
the credulity of sceptics could be capacious enough to take in. And with what-
ever force of coloring he might manage to picture to his fancy a fire three hun-
dred miles off, till at last, believing it real, he becomes alarmed for his own
house ;
yet that everything thus imagined should prove true in every particular, if
nothing hut the activity of his own conceptions had given it birth, were a phenom-
enon to puzzle much wiser philosophers than either Germany, or any other
country, ever beheld, hi declaring, tb.en, that some of the examples are such
as ’ to set the assertion of Swedenborg’s extraordinary gift out of all possibility
of doubt,’ Kant has fixed the brand of folly on those of his own disciples, who
sagely resolve the whole into vividness of conception. Nor is this testimony of
Kant at all weakened by his own defective consistency, in afterwards slandering
Swedenborg’s works. An adequate cause hpre operated: and behef, solely
,
founded on the basis of miracle, is never permanent. When he came to the con-
(
viction of the reality of Swedenborg’s spiritual intercourse, he viewed this merely
’
as an extraordinary fact, and did not connect it with any particular views of
truth. When he afterwards found that the views of truth with which it was
I
connected by Swedenborg, either militated against his own, or w^ould deprive
I
him of the praise of the best of them, the pride of self-intelligence interfered ;
’
and upon the altar of this demon is to be immolated the adversary or the rival.
Then he labors to depreciate, whom, in his letter to Madame de Knoblock, he
had taken pleasure to honor. That letter remains, still honorable to Sweden-
, borg ; and the writer’s departure from the candid spirit which dictated it, reflects
I
disgrace only upon himself."
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
