Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/23

II] thought he had about fifty in this world and about the same number in the other.9

Curious evidence, this, not only of spiritual humility but of a kind of essential sanity. The victim of the Messianic delusion never hesitates to claim the whole of the other world; he considers himself the custodian of the whole truth, even if stiff-necked people will not bow to him in this world.

Of course Swedenborg believed that the picture he had fitted together was the right one, but not because he personally would thereby be aggrandized.

With all his stubborn energy he had searched through many sciences, countries, dreams, and visions, caring only for an account of human existence—past, present, and future—which not only would fit his personal religious experience but would have the system and the clarity of science.

This was partly a need of his nature. And partly it was because he was born into one of the most fantastic corners of medieval irrationality that had survived in eighteenth-century Sweden—his father's house.