which had successively filled up the arena of life. Volumes have already been written on this subject, and the future microscopist will find his richest treasures to lie in this field of investigation. As a representative or type of form, the human body may be dissected with the knife and compared with other forms, but as an aggregate of uses it must be studied as a book, as the divinest of all books except the Bible, for it is a physical commentary on the Bible. This aspect of the value of anatomy the present age is scarcely prepared to appreciate. On the subject of the human form we cite the words of an eminent New Churchman: "Its anatomy is the conglomeration of schools, in which the advancement of learning may be carried on in many ways, either directly or indirectly. For the physician, it is a theatre of health and disease, or of general sensations, according to which therapeutics proceed. For the mechanic, it is mechanical; for the geometrician, geometrical; for the philosopher, philosophical. For the moralist it is full of moral rules and instructions. For the economist it is the highest instance of economy. For the statesman it is the truest example of power and gentleness, winding ways, and direct forces, action and equilibrium, subordination and coordination, government and constitution. In short, for all classes it is the best analogical piece of physics that can be imagined, or indeed, that can exist."

4. Peculiarities of the Human Form.

The human form being the masterwork of organization must present features which distinguish it from all other forms, and indicate its superiority. These have been long noted by physiologists, but we will pass some of them briefly in review.

a. The erect attitude. The head is so articulated with the neck, and the extremities with the trunk of the body, that the erect position is natural to man. No other animal can pretend to share this advantage with him, and we involuntarily associate the full possession of it with superiority and nobility of mind. In the language of correspondence to be erect is to be celestial, and as the human spirit is the only form capable of being made celestial, so the human body is the only form to which the upright position is a normal state.

b. Size of the Brain. In the size of the cerebral hemispheres, in the complexity and development of their internal parts, and in the depth and number of their convolutions, the human brain far exceeds that of all animals even of those which most resemble man- the ape and orang-outang. It is here indeed that we should anticipate a great difference, as the brain is the medium of mental manifes tation.

c. Relation of the Cranium and Face. The facial angle which expresses this relation is a tolerably fair index of mental power. An appreciation of this fact lies couched in the common opinion that a bold, high forehead is a mark of intellect. The facial angle of the European averages eighty degrees, that of the Malay or Asiatic seventy-five, that of the African seventy. The Greek sculptors understood the significance of this feature, for they made their statues of Jupiter Tonans with the forehead protuberant even beyond the level of the face. Now in the adult chimpanzee, which of all the monkey tribe approaches

nearest to man, the facial angle is only thirty-five degrees, and in the orang-outang it is no more than thirty. In other animals it is still less. It has been remarked that the facial aspect of the young ape is strikingly similar to that of the human infant. This resemblance decreases with the advance of growth; one animal retains forever the stamp of the brute, the other, in the interior of whose being a spiritual plane is opened, acquires the unique and expressive physiognomy of

man.

d. The structure of the Hand. The celebrated Sir Charles Bell wrote a work on the human hand as an evidence of creative design, and he defines that instrument as an organ belonging exclusively to man. Carpenter asserts that the structure of the whole frame must conform to that of the hand, and must act in reference to it. "That," says Cuvier, "which constitutes the hand, properly so called, is the faculty of opposing the thumb to the other fingers so as to seize the most minute objects." This is the faculty which acting as a laborer under the guiding mind has enabled man to build the pyramid and construct the microscope, to fell the forest and to rear the city. The hand is worthy of the signification of POWER which it bears in the science of correspondences.

e. Possession of Speech. The varied expressions of which the countenance of man is capable, are representative of emotions and thoughts which occur in the soul. But this method of mental communication is comparatively ineffectual in the present condition of the human race. Accordingly we find an apparatus connected with the organs of respiration for the production of sound. The innumeral vocal utterances of the lower animals appear to be excited by their instinc tive or emotional states, but another element enters into the constitution of man. He is capable of reflection, and articulate language is representative of his thought. Affection may produce a sound, but thought is required to modify and modulate it into a part of speech expressive of an idea. Many prior and superior phenomena, spiritual and physical, are involved in the pronunciation of a single word. There are many other characteristics which would enter largely into the natural history of man, all of them confirmatory of Swedenborg's psychology, which we have not the space to particularize.

5. Relation of Astronomy to Microscopic Anatomy.

This caption may appear fantastic or even absurd to those who are unfamiliar with the all-embracing character of Swedenborg's philosophy. But a theory which propounds the real connection between the natural and spiritual worlds, while it analyzes the minutest fibres of the body must not shrink from the consideration of the starry heavens. Notwithstanding the telescope has revealed to us 75,000,000 of suns, we are restless under limits which our imperfections impose on our vision, and would pierce beyond the Ultima Thule of discovery to acquire some idea of the size, shape, and structure of the universe. Swedenborg left nothing recorded on this subject which we can construe into a positive assertion, but his disciples have taken up the thread of speculation and pursued it with ingenuity. One of the most talented and useful of these, the author of the "Letters to a Man of the World," has broached a theory, that the whole material universe

when aggregated is precisely in the human form. His train of argument we briefly recapitulate. The natural body corresponds to the spiritual body and precisely resembles it in form. The natural world corresponds to the spiritual world as the body does to the soul. The form of the spiritual world is that of God-Man; therefore, the form of the natural world must be the same; for form is a spiritual substance, and when it becomes ultimated it is recognized by our natural perceptions under the conditions of size, shape, and structure. His physical arguments in support of this hypothesis are necessarily limited. He enlarges upon the infinity, or rather, the indefiniteness of space, to show that the aggregate of solar systems visible through our instruments, is scarcely a molecule in the great mass of creation. He then supposes an ultimate molecule to exist in the human body similar in structure to a solar system. In defence of this, he urges the porosity of matter and the universality of interstitial spaces between its particles, and brings forward a speculation of a French philosopher, that the atoms of matter revolve around each other in a manner analogous to that of the planets around the sun.

view we are obliged to dissent, and we think upon conclusive grounds. The material world is the continent or basis into which spiritual forms are inserted or infused for the production of uses. Every form is determined and limited by its use. An animal, a plant, a crystal, a world, have different uses and different corresponding forms. The lowest use in the spiritual world is first ultimated in the natural world, and appears to us as an immense globe of matter for the me chanical support of all things elaborated from its bosom. We cannot conceive how its use can even be changed, and of course its form will be persistent. It has attained its maximum of development. But other forms proceed to higher degrees, all, however, inferior to the highest degree occupied by the human body. When a use can no longer be fulfilled or is no longer required, its corresponding form perishes. Many species of plants and animals have become extinct, but man and the earth which sustains him will exist forever. We believe that no aggregation of matter, microscopic or infinite, can possibly take the human form unless it is animated by the human soul, and executes the functions of humanity. The last clause could not conceivably be predicated of a Grand Material Man, alone and unsustained in the midst of space, for we are now reasoning of space, and must reason from it. For this reason God is not the soul of the universe in the sense inculcated by Spinoza and others. For this reason also, when Jehovah would come into contact with the lower planes of nature, he was obliged to assume the form of the man Christ Jesus. But Swedenborg expressly declares that no extension can be given without a tendency of that extension to assume the human form. Some relation then must exist between astronomy and human anatomy. The microscope has certainly established no such positive analogy as that which M. Gendrin's theory proposes. The universality of interstitial spaces establishes nothing. If the molecules of the human body do not perform the functions of a solar sys tem, we see no reason for their presenting the relative arrangement of the sun and planetary orbs. Where then is the relation to be

found? We think it is to be found in the unity of material development which we pointed out in a previous essay. We there showed that organization always begins at the same point, and proceeds through the same phases. Every cell or nucleus of material substance is a centre of action in other words, a centre of influx. The Divine Love is the motor, and the Divine Wisdom the modifying power in every case. Under one condition a planet, under another a crystal, under a third an organized being is produced. None but the very earliest stages of embryogeny can reveal any analogy between the solar system and microscopic anatomy. The human body and the solar system in their present developed condition seem to have no more relationship than this, that they are formed of the same material, governed by the same physical laws, and possess a general cellular or globular structure. With regard to the material universe we believe that our solar system is the unit or type of that universe, and that all systems have emanated from and revolve around some great centre.

Swedenborg's doctrine of the human form which we have thus briefly canvassed may be called the central point of his philosophy. It is a subject of much ridicule among those who from ignorance or interest are prejudiced against the system. One of its corollaries the denial of a resurrection of material body is particularly obnoxious to the so called orthodox denominations. Their doctrinal works, their exegetical labors, their funeral discourses, their monumental inscriptions are all redolent with prophecies of our future anastasis. They cry out that we tear from them all that is sacred in their recollections of the dead when we deny the cherished dogma of a material resurrection. But we feel assured when we consign dust to dust that the spirit returns to God who gave it, never to be shackled with the fetters of earth again. Nor does this reflection cloud our bright anticipations of a spiritual state of existence, when we shall see each other, not as in a glass darkly, but face to face. And there the study of the human form will be the highest employment of intellectual power, for every advance will improve our conceptions of the Maker and Preserver of all.

APHORISMS. Lessons of wisdom are taught by our most ordinary actions viewed in the light of correspondences. The washing our hands with soap and water is representative of spiritual purification; for as the oil or fat in the soap will not unite with the water without the presence of salt; so natural truth, signified by the water, will not unite with spiritual good, to which the oil or fat corresponds, without an ardent desire for conjunction on the part of man, which desire is represented by the "salt." And, as with washing, the filth of the flesh can only be removed by the combination of the soap with the water, so spiritual purification can only be effected by the conjunction of good with truth.

ALL uses, even the lowest, are from the Lord, and he is present at their performance.

DOCTRINE OF ALL FORMS.

BY W. H. B., IN N. C. REP., VOL. I.

IN Part Third of the Economy of the Animal Kingdom, Sweden. borg has given an exposition of the Doctrine of Forms, which, we believe, as yet remains untranslated into English. We had hoped to see a translation by some one well qualified to give a precise and ele gant version worthy of the original. We shall not attempt what we deem ourselves incapable of performing sufficiently well. The work of translation we leave to others. We shall, however, attempt to give an exposition of the Doctrine as we have learned it, following the original more or less closely as we may deem proper; and at the same time illustrating and confirming it by such examples and sug gestions as may present themselves to our mind.

In the first place it may be well to understand what is the signifi cation of the term "form" and the term " figare." Form is the es sential determination, or the determinate fluxion, of parts, points, substances and forces. Thus we have a form of motion, a form of modification, and a form of substances. We cannot conceive of form without at the same time having the idea of a fluxion. Figure is the limit of extension, or the boundary of such fluxion, that is, the termination of such essential determination. Or figure may be other. wise denominated external form. Figure or external form is an image or likeness of internal form. Yet the converse does not hold true; for we may cut away the angles, and shape the planes of a cube into the figure of a sphere; yet the internal form or essential determina. tions, as well as the interior qualities, remain unchanged. Yet from unchanged figure we may learn the quality of the form: as from the countenance we may recognize the character of the soul.

THE ANGULAR FORM.

The Angular is the most imperfect, as well as the ultimate, of forms. It consists of angles and interjacent planes, is composed of lines merely rectilinear, which are otherwise determined than uniformly to a common centre; as may be seen in triangles, quadrangles and all other forms known to plane geometry. If from assumed points in the planes of such forms we demit lines perpendicularly, then such lines will not converge to a fixed centre, but will be parallel to, or continually intersect each other. In the circle or sphere all the lines falling from the periphery or superficies are concentrated in one point; and if we desire by external force or pressure to reduce it permanently to an angular form, all its determinations must undergo a mutation, so that the lines converging to its centre must remove themselves therefrom, to other points out of the centre, and intersect others falling perpendicularly from other rectilinear planes; otherwise the circle or sphere will resume its own form.

Thus it appears that in these forms, the determinations are opposite, or more or less contrary, falling upon and intersecting each other more or less obliquely or directly, and since in each intersection and coming together, there is a cessation of progression, a termination of fluxion, and an extinguishment of forces; it follows that such forms