Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/105

 in Paris he notes, "I made the first draught of the introduction to my new treatise [Economy of the Animal Kingdom], namely, that the soul of wisdom is the knowledge and acknowledgment of the Supreme Being." Here in Paris and in Italy he found the best opportunities for anatomical studies, and in Amsterdam for printing his Œconomia Regni Animalis, on the completion of which he returned home in November, 1740. This quarto volume of 582 pages represents, however, but a small part of the author's labors during these four years. Very much more is contained in the great pile of notes, observations, and deductions which he brought home in manuscript, from which important treatises have since been and are still being published.

Not simple phenomena, but their hidden causes Swedenborg was always seeking. The philosophy of his century was leading to negative results, to disbelief in the power of reason to conclude anything in regard to the Divine Being, however clear to moral sense may be His existence. Kant's results, as summed up by Lewes, are these:—

"The attempt to demonstrate the existence of God is an impossible attempt. Reason is utterly