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566 SWEDENBORG AS A MAN OF SCIENCE. (Doc. 200.
7
Hiorter,145 on which he had based his criticism of Sweden
borg’s principles, and he added the Magister’s strictures of
Swedenborg’s own computation. These strictures, however,
were easily refuted by Swedenborg in a short reply which he
submitted to the Academy on February 1, 1741, and with
which the controversy closed.
It seems scarcely fair that the Academy of Sciences should
have published in its Transactions Celsius’ attack upon Sweden
borg, without offering him an opportunity in return to defend
himself as publicly; and the result has been that the written
papers belonging to this controversy lay forgotten in the Archives
of the Academy until 1869, when they were exhumed by
Mr. Ahlstrand, the learned librarian of the institution, who
kindly communicated them to the editor of these documents,
during his protracted stay in Stockholm . They follow herewith
in chronological order.
A.
EXTRACT FROM PROFESSOR CELSIUS PAPER, READ BEFORE THE ACADEMY
OF SCIENCES, IN 1740.*
I therefore observed the declination of the magnetic
needle here at Upsal on the 28th of July last, between three
and four o’clock in the afternoon, in clear and warm weather ;
and for this purpose employed the same compass which has
already been described in these Transactions, using therewith
all possible precautions. First I made myself a meridian
line of about six yards long by means of a carefully set
astronomical clock or dial, which I am sure did not devi
ate from the correct time by more than a few minutes ;
and, indeed, in the open air in my garden, to escape all
local attraction of iron ; further, I had no iron implements
of any kind about me such as keys, buckles, &c. In the
direction of the meridian line I stretched a fine thread, under
which the compass was placed in such a manner that the
I
* This paper is contained in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy of
Sciences of the year, 1740, on pages 385-88.
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