I think of him as of some transmigratory votary of Indian legend, who
says, "Though I be dog, or jackal, or pismire, in the last rudiments
of nature, under what integument or ferocity, I cleave to right, as
the sure ladder that leads up to man and to God."
Swedenborg has rendered a double service to mankind, which is now only
beginning to be known. By the science of experiment and use, he made
his first steps; he observed and published the laws of nature; and,
ascending by just degrees, from events to their summits and causes,
he was fired with piety at the harmonies he felt, and abandoned himself
to his joy and worship. This was his first service. If the glory was
too bright for his eyes to bear, if he staggered under the trance of
delight, the more excellent is the spectacle he saw, the realities of
being which beam and blaze through him, and which no infirmities of
the prophet are suffered to obscure; and he renders a second passive
service to men, not less than the first,--perhaps, in the great circle
of being, and in the retributions of spiritual nature, not less glorious
or less beautiful to himself.
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