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1304 NOTES TO VOLUME II.
she descends into the lower, natural love of the male sex in general ;
and from having been a wife, the custodian of the sacred fire of
conjugial love, she becomes the servant of the merely natural love
of the sex; and, in future, instead of filling the place of a wife, she
can at best aspire to fill only that of a mistress or a concubine.
Another reason why there is a different law for men and women
in this respect is this, that "the male sex," as is well known, "has
stimulations which actually kindle and inflame, but which is not the
case with the female sex."
In conclusion, in characterizing the different mode in which the
subject of marriage is treated by Swedenborg, and the world in
general, we cannot do so in more appropriate language than that
in which this was done by Mr. White in 1856, "This portion of
Swedenborg’s treatise on ’Conjugial Love’ has subjected him to some
gross calumny, which, if sincere, could only have arisen from a very
superficial acquaintance with the principles of its author; and yet it
is hardly possible for a man to write on such subjects, without
provoking the censure of the sickly virtuous, and the hypocritically
pure .... When the spirit of Jesus more fully actuates the church,
and the love of the neighbour prompts to heal the world’s evils by
all efficient means, then, we have no doubt, Swedenborg on Scortatory
Love will be taken into counsel."
IV.
MR. WHITE ON SWEDENBORG’S ALLEGED INSANITY.
In Vol. I, p. 245, Mr. White says, "Most readers of this chapter
will be ready to exclaim, The man had gone mad !-an opinion I
am careless to contest." And again he says, "Not all the jargon
gathered from the most learned treatises of the most enlightened
’mad Doctors ’ will avail to impose such a conclusion on any intellect
in which common sense is stronger than scientific credulity."
The reader of the Documents on reading this statement of Mr.
White will naturally exclaim, Mr. White, then, is opposed to the
stories circulated by the Revs. J. Wesley and A. Mathesius, by
which they endeavoured to prove that Swedenborg went mad! We
shall see.
Mr. White pits Mathesius’ statement which Wesley printed in
1781 (Document 270, B, p. 586 et seq.) against Wesley’s statement
in 1783 (Document 270, A, p. 584) which he made on the authority
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