Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/130

 definite series of continued studies, year by year, to be completed in 1747 with that of "The City of God." These studies had been pursued with such diligence that in June, 1743, he petitioned the King and the Royal College for a new leave of absence, that he might go abroad and complete and see through the press a new work of not less than five hundred sheets. Leave having been obtained, Swedenborg repaired to Holland to consult the chief libraries and then to print a portion of what he had prepared, in two quarto volumes of 438 and 486 pages, entitled Regnum Animale—The Animal Kingdom. In his Prologue to the first volume he said—

"Not very long since I published the Economy of the Animal Kingdom . . . and before traversing the whole field in detail, I made a rapid passage to the soul and put forth an essay respecting it. But on considering the matter more deeply, I found that I had directed my course thither both too hastily and too fast—after having explored the blood only and its peculiar organs. I took the step impelled by an ardent desire for knowledge."

Now he proposes to traverse the whole kingdom of the body, hoping that by bending his