Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/72

58 12. Item. A mechanical carriage which shall contain all kinds of works moved by the going of horses.

Item. A flying carriage, or the possibility of staying in the air and of being carried through it.

14. Item. Concerning new constructions of cords or springs and concerning their properties.

Number 13 on this list was odd, a little arrow pointing in the midst of engineering to Emanuel's future interest. It was: "A method of conjecturing the wills and affections of men's minds by means of analysis."

Except for this and for the wholly hypothetical submarine and airplane, it was a list with practical application to the Sweden of his day. The proper utilization of Sweden's water power was important, and various engines of war were calculated to appeal to the hard-beset Swedes. The Russians were threatening to attack the country; King Charles XII, after having failed spectacularly against Russia and having been an obstreperous prisoner of the Turks, was on his way home, on horseback, with only two companions. But he was still King, an absolute monarch, an undaunted commander-in-chief, and war seemed likely to be the main business of Sweden for some time to come.

Soon after he sent the list of inventions home, Emanuel moved from Rostock to Greifswalde in Pomerania, which was a Swedish province. Charles, still on horseback, arrived in the nearby town of Stralsund in November and prepared to defend it against Danes, Hanoverians, and Prussians. Emanuel wrote a Latin ode to the "Phoenix of the ancient Gothic race," but he took ship home before the siege of Stralsund began, arriving in Sweden at the end of June, 1715. He had been thinking for himself now, for over five years, and his great desire was to encourage the growth of science in Sweden and thereby help the impoverished country. As he had written before he left Greifswalde, if only a Scientific Society could be established in Sweden as in other countries for the study of physics and mechanics, perhaps in time their usefulness to mining works and manufactures might become known and the government might then take an interest.

Emanuel Swedberg meant to be useful. He wanted to be a new broom.