Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/89

VII ] point" was supposed—an abstraction on which Euclid based geometry, the point "which has position but no magnitude." This was the seed, as it were, which contained the latent energy of the universe. According to Swedenborg it was a particle consisting of pure "urge—to-motion" (conatus), a point of latent force.

The rapid movements of these points of force (which would now be called the wave aspect of the point) eventually produced all the qualities of solid matter. They did this by means of two forms of force, which he called finites and actives, and their primary combinations resulted in the four constituents of the cosmos. These he called the four "atmospheres," or "auras," or, sometimes, the "elements."

The function of the first, or "universal," was gravitation. The function of the second, or "magnetic," was magnetism. The function of the third, or "ether," was to carry light, heat and electricity, while the function of the fourth, or the air, was to carry sound waves.

As for gravitation, modern science still sees it as in a class by itself, "steadily refusing to show any kinship to other physical phenomena." 5 That is, gravitation is universal in its sphere of operation.

As for magnetism, "though closely related with electricity, magnetism is yet distinct," its velocity has not been measured, and it permeates glass, a nonconductor of electricity. Sir W. F. Barrett, in his preface to Swedenborg's Principia (London, 1912) mentions Swedenborg's "remarkable prevision of the molecular structure of a magnet," and the latter believed that in a magnetic field lay the inception of all other forces known to science.6

As for the ether, Swedenborg's idea of it was the same as that of modern scientists until Einstein, but the fact that electricity, heat, and light have the same velocity has been cited as evidence for supposing "a common cause, plane or atmosphere from or in which they act." 7

Swedenborg seems to have thought of each of these four elementary atmospheres or forces as being within each other in a causal relationship, even as the atoms are within the molecule, the proton, electron, etc. within the atom, and still lesser units within these, like a Chinese egg.