That slow but commanding influence which he
has acquired, like that of other religious geniuses, must be excessive
also, and have its tides, before it subsides into a permanent amount.
Of course, what is real and universal cannot be confined to the circle
of those who sympathize strictly with his genius, but will pass forth
into the common stock of wise and just thinking. The world has a sure
chemistry, by which it attracts what is excellent in its children, and
lets fall the infirmities and limitations of the grandest mind.
That metempsychosis which is familiar in the old mythology of the
Greeks, collected in Ovid, and in the Indian Transmigration, and is
there objective, or really takes place in bodies by alien will,--in
Swedenborg's mind, has a more philosophic character. It is subjective,
or depends entirely upon the thought of the person. All things in the
universe arrange themselves to each person anew, according to his
ruling love. Man is such as his affection and thought are. Man is man
by virtue of willing, not by virtue of knowing and understanding. As
he is, so he sees. The marriages of the world are broken up.
Pages:
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129