Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/52

38 must have been quite a throng to hear him, as well as his two official opponents. The Bishop was also present, so that perhaps Emanuel was not wearing all the finery of laces and knots of ribbon with which academic disputants liked to bedeck themselves, but he was no doubt in his best.

Far from his fields of science, the essay dealt with selections from the sayings of a Syrian slave, Publilius Syrus, who had become a favorite Roman author of mimes or short plays. These sayings would now be called "wisecracks," and the Romans were as fond of them as the Americans. The Romans were not afraid of putting wisdom as well as cracks into them. Probably only a classic subject could have been chosen for the disputation, but Emanuel's choice of this one was neither perfunctory nor accidental. He says himself that he put a lot of work on it. This is evident, since each saying in Latin is accompanied by all the interpretations of it that he could hunt up from the learned of all ages, including Erasmus, Scaliger, and even "Rabbelais." Classic authors had also been combed for similar maxims.

There are about seven hundred sayings of Publilius extant, arranged alphabetically. Of these Emanuel chose the first group,15 getting no further than through "D," but it contained such topics as Love, Money, Friendship, Avarice. Aspects of human mind and manners were dealt with in the brief black-and-white style dear to youth looking for short cuts to experience; in fact these were pellets of practical psychology, a subject which was always to interest both young Swedberg and the mature Swedenborg. Some of the sayings would reappear many years later in his writings, such as "He hurts the good who spares the evil," and the comments on love he was to expand at great length. In his book on love 16 he was to be very charitable toward hot-blooded young men troubled by early sexual development, and he may have thrown a backward glance to the handsome youth of twenty-one who was earnestly declaiming on June 1, 1709, that "The mind may choose to love but not to cease loving," and "Time not mind makes an end of love," and "Love cannot be wrenched away, it can slip away." As for the malady's origin, "tears of love rise in the eyes, they fall in the breast." The state itself had psychological disadvantages. "To love and to be wise is hardly granted to God." "An angry lover much deceives