Page:Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church.djvu/99

 and their vortical revolutions until they arrived at their present orbit; likewise to the constitution and laws of the different elements, the motions of all which are alleged to be vortical; likewise to the constitution and laws of the three kingdoms of nature, the animal, vegetable, and mineral: so that the entire Principia aims to establish a true theory of the vortices, founded upon a true system of corpuscular philosophy."

The Principia is too deeply mathematical and reasoned with too subtile intuition for common readers to follow. For this reason, in part, it has been neglected by later scientists; but also because they with more perfect instruments have devoted their attention chiefly to experimental observation. For a century the atomic theory sufficed them, but now they are going far deeper and are closely approximating Swedenborg's theory of matter as compounded of first finites—as he calls them—in intense vortical motion. Not that this theory was originated by him. It was held in a way by the old Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras, and was revived by Descartes. But Swedenborg elaborated it beyond his predecessors, and beyond our ability to follow. To him also is now ascribed