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CURIOUS MEMORIAL OF SWEDENBORO. 187
*’ As m addition to such profound and universal knowledge Swedenborg joined
the purest virtue and the sweetest manners, he might be expected to meet with
detractors ; he acccrdingly has had them, and he has them still. I have often
heard him publicly decried, but always from one of the three following motives,
and with the intention of preventing his works from being read. Some attribut-
ing everything to chance, and believing in nothing but nature, are afraid that
the luminous works of the greatest naturalist, and the sublimest theosophist that
has yet existed, would give the last blow to their tottering system. Others hav-
ing borrov/ed from him without acknowledging it, are apprehensive that if his
works should obtain more notice, their plagiaries would be detected. The third
class, enjoying a reputation founded on a ialse opinion of their knowledge, but
being unable to conceal their incapacity from themselves, dread the appear-
ance of this polar star, because it would infallibly eclipse them, and soon reduce
them to their just estimation. I know not from which of these motives it was that
an anGnymous writer inserted, about two years ago, in the Courier de I’ Europe, a
pretended notice respecting Swedenborg and his writings, which was nothing
but a tissue of wrong dates, false titles, and palpable calumnies and contradic-
tions : it is thus that self-love, disfiguring, falsifying, and obscuring everything
is the source of every evil, and the scourge of the human race. The first labor,
then, to be undertaken to arrive at the truth is, to combat, to conquer, and to
chain down, this principle for ever. Then the soul of man, recovering its
liberty, and restored to the light for which it was born, may roam ut pleasure
through the whole of nature, and pursuing its flight, may elevate itself even to
that world which ignsrant mortals regard as imaginary, but which will always
be, whatever they may say, the vivifying sphere, and the true home of the
human mind.
" This, Gentlemen, is what I thought it my duty to make public for the benefit
of society, from a regard for truth, and in gratitude to him to whom I am in-
debted for the major part of the little that I know; though, before I met with his
writings, I had sought for knowledge amongst almost all the writers, ancient and
modern, who enjoyed any reputation for possessing it. —I have the honor to
be, &c.
^
" Marquis de Thome.
’’Paris, Aug. 4, 1785."
XXXVl,
CURIOUS MEMORIAL OF SWEDENBORG,
CONCERNING
€HARLES Xn. OF SWEDEN,
Letter of M. Swedenborg, Assessor of the Board of Mines, to M. Nordberg,
Author of the " History of Charles XII.
^ Sir,—As you are now actually engaged upon the Life of Charles XII. , I
avail myself of the opportunity to give you some information concerning that
monarch, which is, perhaps, new to you, and worthy of being transmitted to
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