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TESTIMONY OF J. D. MORELL, OF ENGLAND. 2IS
independent observer, to find truth ; and the method to be pursued- formec
itself as he proceeded. As any unphilosophical thmker naturally would do^ he
began his career by a wide observation of facts ; his system, therefore, v/a$
cradled in simple inductive processes ; it was analytic, or if we may use £
word implying authority, it was Baconian. Few perhaps who have only
listened to vague rumors respecting: this philosophy, would imagme that i
commenced in a collection of facts far greater than those of which the father o
experimental science himself had any conception.
" After passing successively through the regions of mechanics,, with the cor
responding properties of matter ; after traversing the province of chemistry
throwing light upon the action of imponderable agents, and suggesting the
germ of the atomic theory, by pointing out the geometrical relations existin
between the ultimate atoms, Swedenborg comes at length to the animal king
dom. Here the course of his research begins to gain point and pregnancy
The human body may be regarded as that in which all the operations of natun
are concentrated and perfected. Here, therefore, is a microcosm—a perfec
representation of all being—an image of the whole creation ; here consequent
ly a theatre, upon which philosophy may achieve its noblest conquests. I:
this department, then, we begin to see more clearly some of the scientific formu
las or methods which, evolved, as he tells us, by intense thought and patien
observation, are potent to cast light upon the nat;ure and uses of all things aroun
us. First of all there is the doctrine of forms. Nature, he considered, is purel
mechanical in all her movements ; hence every higher region in which she ap
pears, from the mineral to the man, is represented by movement in a particula
form. All the movements of the mineral kingdom s?re angular, as seen in th
crystal; the next form is the circular, as seen in the bodily organization, ii
the circulation of the blood, &c. ; the highest form is the spiral, the type of spin
itself,*
" In developing the physiology of the human body, another philosophicE
principle comes clearly into view, namely, the doctrine of series. Anxious t:
"know the real structure of the various organs of the human frame, Swedenbor
conceived that the doctrine of monads, and of ultimate atoms, would onb
tring him to a dark, unintelligible point, in which all form or organization
ceased ; and that the notion of the infinite divisibility of matter would lead to t
nonentity, from v/hich nothing could be drawn. Every organ, then, he con
ceived, must be made up of perfect atomistic organs, each one of which ex
presses the thing itself far more completely than the whole ; just as society i;
made up of individual men, and each man is the most perfect pattern of hn
manity. Everything in nature, therefore, consists of a series of perfectly organ
ized atoms—the lungs, e. g. of innumerable microscopic lungs, the heart of nu
merous smallest hearts, and so forth with all the other organs.
. " Having gone through the regions of philosophy, Swedenborg came to th(
eonfines of the province of Spirit itself. Often, he tells us, had he searched fo
«ome light upon the nature of the soul, but as often had been disappointed, unti
* " N. B.—TIaere are other and higher forms enumerated, which refer to the Bpiritoa
world only."
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