KANT'S OPINION ABOUT SWEDENBORG. 347 change has been purposely made by one of the multitudinous adversaries of Swedenborg, who caught hold of the letter before it was printed off, and who had preferred such a slight mutilation to the entire suppression or destruction of a valuable letter. It is more charitable to suppose that somehow an error, either in writing or in reading, has been committed; though the opinion of Dr. Tafel is rather confirmed by the circumstance that in assigning some dates to certain facts, the letter itself has introduced other similar errors, which would show that these dates have been intentionally altered, and made to answer to the date falsely given to the letter. The alleged probability of the 6, in 1768, having been turned into a 5, in 1758, being only hypothetical, it is the task of criticism to show by other arguments, internal or external-but, at all events, real and convincing—that the letter was written after 1766, viz., after the publication of the "Dreams." Dr. Tafel affords sufficiently arguments of this kind; and it will be my task, in quoting the same, to add some further corroboration. 66 In the pamphlet it is expressly stated, that two of the alleged facts only are founded on vague, common hear-say, while he leaves the third fact without comment. A serious endeavour to find out the truth is not mentioned. Kant's judgment about the dreamy and nonsensically visionary character of Swedenborg's own assertions, is altogether slighting and offensive. He had bought the "Arcana Cœlestia" at the heavy price of £7., in comparison with which outlay he had derived but little profit from the book. In fact, he had found nothing worth discussing, nothing but extravagance. The erroneous denomination Schwedenberg," in the first edition of the pamphlet, which in later editions was corrected, shows that Kant had paid but little attention to particulars. Quite otherwise the letter, which distinctly mentions the endeavours Kant had made to get substantial information and evidence, even to the last conclusive step of charging a reliable, intimate friend, an Englishman, with authentic investigation on the spot, after which he unhesitatingly asserts that nothing could be objected to the full truthfulness of the facts. Though some inquiry already, in 1762 or 1763 (thus before the issuing of the pamphlet), had been made, by applying to an officer who had joined the Danish army under St. Germain (from which circumstance we are justified in inferring that the application was made after the death of the Russian Empress Elizabeth in 1762, when Peter III. threatened the Danish monarchy with invasion, to oppose which the Danish army, under St. Germain, was gathered on the frontier, probably about 1763), we now learn by the letter that Kant, with renewed ardour, continued the resultless inquiries. He had happened to make the 348 KANT'S OPINION ABOUT SWEDENBORG. He acquaintance of an Englishman, who became his intimate friend, and who himself went to Sweden, to Gothenburg and Stockholm. It was the reliable information, from the letters of this friend, which allowed him now, in his own letter, to assert, in direct contradiction to his expressions in the "Dreams," that his friend had been able to interrogate all the most respectable people on the spot itself, which took away every doubt about the reliability of the stories, and about the trustworthiness of the reports. As Baron Grimm, the reputed infidel, after having proclaimed the authenticity of the reports, exclaims—“ Mais le moyen ď y croire," so Kant exclaims-" What could you object against the veracity of these visions?" but abstains wisely from explaining the same. leaves the question open. "The last letter," he tells us, "I got from my friend, informs me that he has visited Swedenborg in Stockholm, spoken with him, and had been astonished at the wonderful things he had learned. Swedenborg is throughout a rational, gentle, and upright man, a perfect scholar, of whose writings he will send me specimens. Swedenborg affirms unreservedly that the Lord has imparted to him the peculiar gift of conversing ad libitum with departed spirits, and he himself alleges notoriously proving facts." Without expressing any disbelief, Kant is only eager in the letter to justify himself against being thought over credulous. "I have never pretended such things to be impossible," he says; "how little do we know about the nature of spirits? but I have only stated the want of satisfactory evidence." These remarks hint evidently at the opinions expressed in his pamphlet. Kant, after such distinct assertions, could by no means have written his "Dreams." Dr. Tafel is quite right in observing that it would be tantamount to accusing Kant of preposterous lying, when presuming that he, after summing up such evidence, could have made the downright opposite assertions which are found in his pamphlet ; and we are justified in concluding that it was only after he had published his pamphlet, that Kant got access to such sources of information as he before in vain had longed for, and which entitled him to retract, at least before inquiring friends, the disparaging views which he had embodied in his former pamphlet. Nor is there, as Tafel likewise observes, any reasonable doubt about the English friend whom Kant had entrusted with a closer investigation on the spot, and on whose testimony he confidently relied, and about the very period of this better information. Mr. Green is the only Englishman we know of who had become Kant's intimate friend, and with whom, until Mr. Green departed this life, in 1792, he had lived in the closest intimacy. And as Kant in his letter speaks of his English friend in such terms of reliance and intimacy, which only KANT'S OPINION ABOUT SWEDENBORG. 349 compelled to refer the letter to From letters of other friends, existed in 1768. It is further could be used about Mr. Green, we are the period of this particular friendship. we know that this friendly relation already more related that the acquaintance was made, and immediately converted into friendship, on the occasion of a dispute about the political conduct of Great Britian towards her North-American colonies. Kant took the part of the complaining colonies, while Mr Green defended the British Government, but was so forcibly struck by the noble eloquence, and the power of reasoning, of his antagonist, that from that moment he became his admiring friend. Now, it is clear that such a discussion in Königsberg could scarcely take place before 1766, when Pitt had made his formidable speech-"I rejoice that America has resisted," &c., and the Declaratory Act of George III. had been passed. The period of the letter is thus sufficiently ascertained. The acquaintance with Mr. Green could not be made before 1766, and the investigation could scarcely take place before 1767 or 1768; and by the dates of Swedenborg's sojourning in Stockholm, we may be enabled to trace still further exact indications; so that we may unhesitatingly state that the letter, with the false date, at all events was written a good while after the issuing of the pamphlet. When carefully analysing the disparaging pamphlet itself, we may easily perceive that neither the reviewer in Macmillan's Magazine, nor Professor Matter in his "Swedenborg," has been successful in stating the true view and tendency of Kant in that pamphlet. The ironical tone and playful manner in which Kant indulges, have drawn their attention away from the real gist and meaning of his very elaborate treatise. First of all, he wishes the reader to understand that, notwithstanding his leaning to such manifestations, or his natural attachment to supernatural influence, he is not at all prejudiced by credulity or by superstitious views, but is able altogether to maintain his rational, critical ground. He wishes furthermore to show how the discussion about such phenomena could be conducted in conformity with strict rationality; how the intricate subject of spiritual influences ought to be treated; and what consequences reason itself would arrive at. Thirdly, he is most anxious to show that his rational principles are not at all derived from Swedenborg. He says (in the Leipzig edition of 1838, Vol. III. p. 95.)— "The system of Swedenborg is unfortunately very similar to the philosophical exuberations of my brain. It is not impossible that my rational views might be thought absurd on account of that affinity. As to this offensive comparison, I declare that you either must suppose a greater intelligence and truth to be at the bottom of Swedenborg's writings than the first impression would allow, or that 350 KANT'S OPINION ABOUT SWEDENBORG. it is a mere accident, like a 'lusus naturæ,' when he coincides with my system. Nevertheless you perceive (in his fancies) such a wonderful coincidence or agreement with all that the deepest meditation of reason itself could bring forth about such matters, that the correspondence must strike you as a singular lusus of nature." You see distinctly that Kant is, in a high degree, vexed by the suspicion that he had borrowed his system from Swedenborg; and this grievance is apparently the main cause why the great rationalist so repeatedly throws blame upon Swedenborg,-calling him an enthusiast or dreamer. The offensive suspicion must have been expressed by men of literary authority, and from different sides, to induce Kant to write his interesting pamphlet, in order to clear himself from an imputation which threatened his fame and authority as an original thinker. After having dispelled this suspicion, which appears to have vexed beyond description the ambitious founder of a new system of philosophy, Kant could safely express his just appreciation of the Swedish Seer, and this, at least within the narrow circle of personal friends, he has done in his later letter. Another question is, whether Kant, notwithstanding his denial, has not really borrowed his leading ideas and principles from Swedenborg. I am inclined to think he has; because there is scarcely one of those sound and rational ideas in which Kant excels which had not already been indicated and insisted upon by Swedenborg. And as the elaborate rational dissertations of Kant are at a later period-viz., after he had perused the writings of Swedenborg-it is quite natural to think that he had been struck by the evidence of those rational truths which are so prominent in the works of Swedenborg, though by Swedenborg they are brought into a true connection with the Divine Word, and interspersed with a spiritual experience whose reality as a "visa et audita e eoelo" Kant hesitated explicitly to admit. The great merit of Professor Matter consists in this, that, as a Frenchman, he not only shows Swedenborg to have been the great medium for disclosing the spiritual truth in the letter of the Word, and thus to have been the apostle of a New Church, but to have been also the apostle of reason-the exponent teacher of that rationality without which no real progress towards spiritual truth is possible. We are justified in presuming that Kant was prepared for the perception of those rational views and ideas which he met in the writings of Swedenborg. When you see nearly all the great philosophers of Germany inspired by the truths of Revelation, without acknowledging the source of their intuitions, the illusion in which Kant was caught is no longer a wonderment. KANT'S OPINION ABOUT SWEDENBORG. 351 Some recent writers* have alluded to Kant's" Anthropology" as confirming his disparaging views about Swedenborg. This is a mistake, and I should be glad to learn that it is not a wilful mistake. Kant, in his "Anthropology," sec. 22, it is true, teaches, in conformity with the views stated in his pamphlet, "that the human soul, as the receptive organ of spiritual sensations, may itself also be subjected to illusions, thinking the inner impressions to be external manifestations, or even to be inspirations, degenerating into enthusiasm (schwârmerei) and spiritseeing by a mistake (betrug) of the internal sensorium." He mentions, as examples, Bourignon and Pascal, but not Swedenborg; so it is far from evident that Swedenborg is implied in the preceding "also." In section 36 he mentions Swedenborg, and calls him an enthusiast (schwârmer) expressly, and only, because he thinks the outward worldly phenomena to be mere symbols of a hidden intellectual world. You easily see that this limited imputation is only a wrong conception, which Kant derived, either from not being able to comprehend the symbolic character of the representative churches, or from not understanding Swedenborg's explanation of the spiritual world as being the real cause of the phenomena in the natural world. The fault is altogether Kant's. Neither in the one nor in the other place do you detect an impeachment of the testimony to the truthfulness of Swedenborg. The third, or principal, aim and bearing of the "Dreams" thus having been laid bare, we may cast a glance on the two other mentioned aims-viz., the one which is to show that he (Kant) is far from leaning to superstition and idle stories, as he is only looking out for evidence, i.e. satisfactory evidence; and this being given, secondly, that he is far from rejecting such manifestations either as impossible or as unreal, but is able in the eye of reason, or of his rational system, somehow to account for them, and to explain them. He is far from joking when declaring that many a rational mind, like himself, will have been puzzled by being placed between evidence on the one side and rational difficulties on the other. He admits the rationality of supposing the reality of spirits and of a spiritual world, if you are only cautious not to attribute qualities to the same which are distinctly peculiar to the external world, the only object of our senses and external apperception to which, while in our human terrestrial state, we are bound. "You might thus," he says, page 64, "consider the human soul even in this present life to be simultaneously connected with two worlds, of which the soul, * I hint at G. H. Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy, 1857, p. 531. |