Page:Arcana Coelestia (Potts) vol 1.djvu/9

Rh able variety of style and excellence, it is unquestionable that the volumes of this edition manifest a vast amount of painstaking and valuable labor, and the present Reviser here desires to acknowledge his great indebtedness to the work of the Rotch Translators and Editors.

The fourth American edition is that of which the first volume is now before the reader, and it claims to be no more than a revision compiled from the best previous translations and revisions, the most successful renderings of which have been carefully selected in conjunction with a close continuous comparison with the original Latin. Nevertheless new translation has been introduced in all cases in which no previous satisfactory rendering of words or passages had been made.

The translation of the group of words that includes Cognoscere, Cognitio, Scire, Scientia, Scientificum, Scientificus, and in the plural, Scientifica, presents what is probably the greatest difficulty that is encountered by the translator of Swedenborg's theological works. Used by him with definite and distinct meanings, in English we have only the words "Know" and "Knowledge" wherewith to render them, for "Cognize" and "Cognition," and "Science" and "Scientific" are by no means the equivalents of the corresponding or cognate Latin words. Yet on account of the correspondential distinctions, and also of the doctrinal ideas, involved, it is imperative that Swedenborg's distinctive use of these Latin words should in some way be conveyed to the English reader.

By Scire, Scientia, and Scientifica, Swedenborg indicates mere that is, the knowledge men have in the external memory without application to life and practice (see his definition of these terms in Arcana Coelestia, n. 27, 1486, 2718, 5212); whereas Cognoscere and Cognitio are used in the stronger sense of actual and real knowledge of the matter in question, either by experience or in some other way; as when we say, "I do not think so; I  it." This is Cognoscere.

An interesting example of the peculiar force there is in the former class of words is Swedenborg's expression fides scientifica. To render this, as has been done, "scientific faith" may do but little injury to the learned reader who is able to think