Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/125

 to Rational Psychology, regarding this as the first and last of those sciences which lead to the knowledge of the animal economy. "But whereas the soul," he goes on to say, "lives withdrawn so far within that she cannot be exposed to view until the coverings under which she is hidden are unfolded and removed in order, it hence becomes necessary that we ascend to her by the same steps or degrees and the same ladder by which her nature in the formation of the things of her kingdom descends into her body. By way therefore of an Introduction to Rational Psychology, I will premise the Doctrine of Series and Degrees—a doctrine of which in the preceding chapters I have made such frequent mention, the design of which is to teach the nature of order and its rules as observed and prescribed in the succession of things."

The first chapter of Part Second is devoted to the motion of the brain, the second to the cortical substance of the brain, and the third to the human soul. Confessing the difficulties in the search for the soul and his frequent disappointments, he says—

At length I awoke as from a deep sleep when I discovered that nothing is farther removed from