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TESTIMONY OF PROFESSOR GORRES. 191
XXXVII.
TESTIMONY
OF
PROFESSOR GORRES OF GERMANY,
RELATIVE
TO SWEDENBORG’S SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL CHARACTER.
{From the Intellectual Repository for June, 1845.)
The attention of the public, in every part of Europe and in America, is now power-
fully attracted to Swedenborg and his important claims as a writer on theology and
philosophy. Men of every religious denomination, and men of celebrity in science, are
beginning to pay some attention to the most important writer that has ever appeared in
the history of human knowledge. We greatly rejoice that the author, whose writings
are intended to be so eminently useful to mankind, is thus emerging from the obscurity
in which prejudice and bigotry have so long endeavored to conceal him. And we augur
well for the gradual improvement and elevation of the human mind, in proportion as
we see the works—especially the theological works—of Swedenborg brought before the
public by the distinguished literary characters of the present time. Gorres, we believe,
is a Professor of Roman Catholic Theology at one of the German Universities. He is
a man of influence in his sphere, and is held in great esteem by a wide circle of ad-
mirers. During the progress of the Latin and German edition of Swedenborg’s works,
Professor Gorres was induced to look into his writings, and to lay the results of his
examination before the public. We have not met with the pamphlet in which the
Professor has expressed his sentiments concerning Swedenborg and his writings ; but
we possess copious extracts from it in the " German Magazine for the True Christian
Religion," &c. edited by Dr. Tafel, of Tubingen. Of course. Professor Gorres does not
admit the theology of Swedenborg—since that would be to deny the Romish Church
and its dogmas; nor does he attempt to confute the doctrines of the New Jerusalem.
But it will be seen that he has gone as far as a Roman Catholic divine could go, con-
sistently with the position which he occupies, in awakening public attention to the
v/ritings of Swedenborg.
" Amongst the signs of the present time," says the Professor, " must, without
doubt, be numbered the new edition of Swedenborg’s works, and the movement
which, in certain places, is caused by the doctrines he unfolds. Most persons who
have only read that portion of his writings to which they have had access, might
feel disposed to consider them as the results of a mind involved in an inextrica-
ble maze, or bordering even on infatuation; some also may be disposed to con-
sider them as the product of wilful deception. Others, milder in their judgment,
explain, as Herder did, the enigmatical appearance on the ground of a powerfully
creative imagination, which, actuated by strong impulses become at length
habitual, generates in science as in poetry, wonderful images of a spiritualizing
enchantment which sports in the weakened memory of age with the lively vis-
ions of youth, and which the incautious senses assume for the actual and real
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