Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/127

IX ] "levels of organization" and "theory of emergency"). He supposed that the manner in which this took place was by something he termed "influx."

And "influx"?

Now the philosopher and mystic began to fill in the spaces left by the scientist. "All these opinions combine to form a perfect unity . . . when we acknowledge the omnipresence and universal influx of God in all created things according to the modified character and capacity of each." 51

Giving a name, however, to the creative force was as far as he intended to go. "To know the manner in which this life and wisdom flow in is infinitely above the sphere of the human mind, there is no analysis and no abstraction that can reach so high, for"—here the scientist supremely affirmed his faith—"whatever is in God, and what law God acts by, is God." 52

In the ninth century A.D., another spiritual giant wrote, "There are as many unveilings of God [Theophanies] as there are saintly souls."

John Scotus Erigena (John, the Irishman), in other words, saw that the idea of God must break differently through the prisms of different personalities. Swedenborg's personality and what had been happening in it must therefore again be considered, as well as the form of religion he had found he could confess without being untrue to his science.