Page:Immanuel Kant - Dreams of a Spirit-Seer - tr. Emanuel Fedor Goerwitz (1900).djvu/174

 156 "This account I received from a Danish officer, who was formerly my friend, and attended my lectures ; and who, at the table of the Austrian Ambassador, Dietrichstein, at Copenhagen, together with several other guests, read a letter which the Ambassador about that time had received from Baron de Lutzow, the Mecklenburg Ambassador in Stockholm, in which he says that he, in company with the Dutch Ambassador, was present at the Queen of Sweden's residence at the extraordinary transaction respecting Swedenborg, which your ladyship will undoubtedly have heard. The authenticity thus given to the account surprised me. For it can scarcely be believed, that one Ambassador should communicate to another for public use a piece of information which related to the Queen of the Court where he resided, and which he himself, together with a distinguished company, had the opportunity of witnessing if it were not true. Now, in order not to reject blindfold the prejudice against apparitions and visions by a new prejudice, I found it desirable to inform myself as to the particulars of this surprising transaction. I accordingly wrote to the officer I have mentioned, at Copenhagen, and made various inquiries respecting it. He answered that he had again had an interview concerning it with Count Dietrichstein; that the affair had really taken place in the manner described; and that Professor Schlegel, also, had declared to him that it could by no means be doubted. He advised me, as he was then going to the army under General St. Germain, to write to Swedenborg himself, in order to ascertain the particular circumstances of this extraordinary case. I then wrote to this singular man, and the letter was delivered to him, in Stockholm, by an English merchant. Information was sent here, that Swedenborg politely received the letter, and promised to answer it, but the answer was omitted. In the meantime I made the acquaintance of a highly-educated English gentleman who spent the last summer at this place, and whom, relying on the friendship we had formed, I commissioned, as he was going to Stockholm, to make particular inquiries regarding the miraculous gifts which Swedenborg is said to possess. In his first letter, he states that the most respectable people in Stockholm declare that the singular transaction alluded to happened in the manner you have heard described by me. He had not then had an interview with Swedenborg, but hoped soon to embrace the opportunity; although he found it difficult to persuade himself that