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198 DOCUMENTS CONCERNING SWEDENBORG,
XXXIX.
TESTIMONY OF COLERIDGE,
TO THE
LITERARY, SCIENTIFIC, AND THEOLOGICAL
CHARACTER OF SWEDENBORG,
{Extractedfrom Vol. IV. p. 424 of Ms "Literary Remains.’’)
" So much, even from a very partial acquaintance with the works of Sweden-
borg, I can venture to assert, that, as a moralist, Swedenborg is above all praise,
and that, as a naturalist, psychologist, and theologian, he has strong and varied
claims to the gratitude and admiration of the professional and philosophical
student."
To the above may be added, from the Intellectual Repository of April, 1842, some
.farther notices by Coleridge of Swedenborg’s writings, together with his opinion of the
calumny, so often repeated, of his madness.
’•’
It is well known, that Coleridge read the philosophical works of Sweden-
borg with much pleasure and admiration. His notes on many passages in the
(Economia Regni Animalis, and in the De Cultu et Amore Dei, evidently indicate
and prove this to have been the fact. We will here adduce a few of his notes
which he appears to have penned as he xvas reading through the (Economia Regni
Animalis. On the nn. 208 to 214 inclusive, he observes, ’
1 remember nothing in
Lord Bacon superior, few passages equal, either in depth of thought or in rich-
ness, dignity, and felicity of diction, or in the weightiness of the truths con-
tained in these articles’ (S. T. Coleridge, May 27, 1827).
"On 251, he observes, that it is ’Excellent; so indeed are all the preceding in
the matter meant to be conveyed ; but this paragraph is not only conceived with
the mind of a master, but it is expressed adequately, and with scientific precision.’
"There are several other notes to the same effect; but the one to which we al-
lude, as containing an expression of amazement at the calumny that Sweden-
borg should by some be called mad, is the following on the De Cultu et Amore
Dei, on pages 4 to 6, in which Swedenborg briefly states his doctrine of Forms.
’
This,’ says Coleridge, ’ would, of itself, serve to mark Swedenborg as a man of
philosophic genius, radicative and evolvent. Much of what is most valuable
in the physio sop hie works of Schelling, Schubart, and Eschermeyer, is to be
found anticipated in this supposed DementatOj or madman; thrice happy
should we be, if the learned and the teachers of the present age, were gifted
with a similar madness,—a madness, indeed, celestial and flowing from a di-
vine mind!!’ (S. T. Coleridge, Sept. 22, 1821, Highgate.) Such was the opi-
nion of Coleridge of the charge so often calumniously alleged against Sweden-
borg, that he was mad !"
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