_Mathematics_, especially geometry, algebra and mechanics, and
_astronomy_ in particular, were the predominating interests with
SWEDENBORG, when, after having completed his university studies, he
entered upon his first foreign journey (1710). He had at that time the
good fortune to come into personal contact with (ISAAC NEWTON?),[13] JOHN
FLAMSTEED[14] and EDMUND HALLEY[15] in England, and with the renowned
mathematicians PHILIPPE DE LA HIRE and PIERRE VARRIGNON[16] in France,
and to enter into an interchange of scientific ideas with them. And
the impulses derived from teachers of such great insight and skill did
not take long in manifesting themselves. In 1714 SWEDENBORG was able
to send home accounts of a great many _mechanical inventions_ which
he had made and the ›correctness of which he proved by mathematical
and algebraical calculations.›[17] As examples of these discoveries
may be mentioned his flying machine,[18] submarine boat, steam engine,
mitrailleuse, sluice constructions, etc.[17] After his return to Sweden
he found opportunities of putting into practice some of these projects,
when (in 1716) he was appointed assessor extraordinary in the College of
Mines and ordered to assist CHR. POLHEM ›with the construction of his
buildings and inventions›. But he was rich in ideas and quick-witted
enough to be able, together with these official duties, to plan and set
on foot the publication of a periodical devoted to natural science,
›_Daedalus Hyperboreus_›, the first scientific periodical in Sweden,
and to furnish it abundantly (during the years 1716-1718) with valuable
articles concerning new inventions, _projects and problems for scientific
investigations and experiments_.[19] In the year 1718 he has completed
a new method of reckoning with the number 8 as the base; and the
following year he publishes a still better ›Proposal to divide our money
and measures, so that the calculation would be easy and all fractions
be abolished›, and this system is nothing less than the _Decimal
system_![20] He also published during these years an ingenious method of
determining the longitude by means of the moon, a problem upon which the
learned had at that time been engaged for several years.[21]
SWEDENBORG thus succeeded in penetrating very deeply into the
mathematical and mechanical sciences, and therefore at first it must
arouse astonishment that he did not accept the professor’s chair in
mathematics at Uppsala University when this was offered him. He wished
for freedom to study in other departments also. And, as we shall see, he
soon turned his interest in another direction, namely to geology.
However, it was also a characteristic in SWEDENBORG, worthy of
admiration, that in spite of his deep penetration into the sciences and
the bold ideas of his creative genius, he nevertheless strove, at the
same time, to retain contact with practical life and there cause the
results of his investigations to bear fruit. It was also this purpose
which to a great extent influenced him not to accept the offered
professorship in mathematics, which he feared would force him into a
direction too theoretical. In this respect there were, as some of his
biographers have shown, several points of similarity between SWEDENBORG
and his patron, King Charles XII., namely, ›the unusual combination of
the boldest imagination and a pronounced practical tendency›.[22] And
as both were animated by the same ›burning inclination for all that is
great in thought and deed›, and by the same love of the fatherland,
therefore, when these two men found one another, there was an interesting
cooperation. Professor HOLMQUIST has given a very good description of
this in his essay alluded to above, from which I shall here reproduce
some extracts:
— — — ›But SWEDENBORG had also in the course of his conversation with
Charles XII. advanced several new proposals which won, in part, the
King’s approval. SWEDENBORG suggested the establishment of a company to
promote the exportation of Swedish iron and tar (a suggestion later put
into practice by the Iron Office), set forth his plan for an observatory
in Uppsala and brought up for discussion the establishment of salt works
in Sweden in order to help his country against the terrible dearth of
salt during the war: all these ideas he also committed to writing in
pamphlets: ’_Om sättet för handelns och manufacturernas uphjelpande_’,
’_Memorial om Salt Siuderiers inrettning i Swerje_’ and ’_Om nyttan och
nödvändigheten af ett Observatorii inrättande i Sverige_’ (preserved
in manuscript in the Diocesan Library of Linköping).[23] Of the ideas
just mentioned, it was in the first place the one on salt boileries
which claimed the King’s attention and which he commissioned SWEDENBORG
to put into practice. It still remains, however, to mention the most
remarkable of SWEDENBORG’s projects. Through ERIC BENZELIUS he had
come into possession of an old letter of Bishop HANS BRASK, in which
the idea of a water way from the western coast straight across Sweden
is expressed. SWEDENBORG, inspired by this, laid before the King the
_suggestion for a canal from Göteborg through Lakes Vänern and Vättern
to the Baltic_, which aroused the King’s enthusiasm. SWEDENBORG was
commissioned to investigate the possibilities for the realization of this
gigantic undertaking. — — — Shortly after this we find him in Uddevalla
investigating the possibility of establishing salt-works, in connection
with which SWEDENBORG at once set out to construct salt-pans and other
apparatus better than those in use in the defective old salt-works at
Strömstad. — — — We afterwards find him again at Trollhättan, Vänern,
Gullspång and Hjälmaren examining the situation for the canal and locks
and finding ’all to be possible and not of such great expense as had been
supposed’. SWEDENBORG had passed over to the modern idea of an inland
canal through Hjälmaren and Mälaren directly to Stockholm.› With justice
it may be said that here he gives the impression of a very sharpsighted
and energetic engineer, who possessed the power of turning his thorough
theoretical education to practical use.
It may thus be clearly perceived, from everything I have referred
to above, how comprehensive and penetrating were the researches of
SWEDENBORG in the mathematical (and especially the mechanical) branches
of science, and what fruitful discoveries had been made by his searching
eye.
SWEDENBORG’S GEOLOGICAL, MINERALOGICAL, CHEMICAL, PHYSICAL AND
COSMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS.
SWEDENBORG’s comprehensive interest now turned itself to new fields of
work: to _geology_, _mineralogy_, _chemistry_, _physics_ and finally to
_cosmology_, without giving up his first subject, _mathematics_.
And he also now exhibited the same thoroughness as before, beginning
with examinations, experiments and observations, partly original, but
also collected from predecessors. For he says: ›It seems to me that an
infinite mass of completed experiments is a good ground to build upon, to
make the trouble and expense of others serve one’s end; that is to work
with the head over that which others have worked over with the hands.›
(See HOLMQUIST, Op. cit. and the letter from SWEDENBORG to ERIC BENZELIUS
of May 2nd, 1720, in the edition of the Acad. of Sciences, I., p. 304).
The result of this period of labour SWEDENBORG embodied in a number of
works, among which may especially be mentioned: ›_On the Height of Water
and the Strong Tides in the Primeval World. Proofs from Sweden._›[24]
SWEDENBORG here furnishes proofs that our North, in olden times, lay
for the most part under deep water. And he based his deductions on a
great many researches and sharpsighted observations, and wherever it
was possible he tested the correctness of his conclusions by means of
experiments. This is the work which J. J. BERZELIUS, A. E. NORDENSKIÖLD
and A. G. NATHORST have praised so highly, and in some places it has
been considered to be ›one of the most ingenious contributions to the
history of geology›. SWEDENBORG also worked out during this period the
great work: ›_Miscellanea observata circa res naturales et praesertim
circa mineralia, ignem et montium strata_›, (printed in Leipzig 1722 and
lately reprinted in the edition of SWEDENBORG’s scientific writings of
the Royal Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., 1907, pp. 59-191), and finally
the gigantic work: ›_Opera philosophica et mineralia_›, (published in
Dresden and Leipzig, 1734, in three large folio volumes). The last work
contains among other things SWEDENBORG’s cosmology, and it is here that
he developes his famous _nebular theory_, which so closely reminds one
of the theory worked out in later years by Kant and Laplace, that one
strongly suspects that SWEDENBORG’s utterances, in one way or another,
lie at the bottom of it. Concerning this work much has been written
during recent years, and therefore it may be sufficient here only to
refer to the statements made in regard to it by Professor S. ARRHENIUS in
his introduction to the above-mentioned edition of Swedenborg’s writings,
Vol. II., where he says: ›If we briefly summarize the ideas, which were
first given expression to by SWEDENBORG, and afterwards, although usually
in a much modified form,—consciously or unconsciously—taken up by other
authors in cosmology, we find them to be the following:
The planets of our solar system originate from the solar
matter—taken up by BUFFON, KANT, LAPLACE, and others.
The earth—and the other planets—have gradually removed
themselves from the sun and received a gradually lengthened
time of revolution—a view again expressed by G. H. DARWIN.
The earth’s time of rotation, that is to say, the day’s length,
has been gradually increased—a view again expressed by G. H.
DARWIN.
The suns are arranged around the milky way—taken up by WRIGHT,
KANT and LAMBERT.
There are still greater systems, in which the milky ways are
arranged—taken up by LAMBERT.›
During this period of his investigations SWEDENBORG enters into very
deep speculations. He desires to grasp the innermost constitution of
things, their causes and origin, and seeks to attain this end through
a long process of analyses and by applying a geometrical explanation
to the phenomena in the world of the senses. This method he employs
in explaining the inner constitution of chemical bodies, and likewise
the varieties of physical phenomena, etc. He thus comes at last to
the—geometrical points: through the combination of these, in different
ways, have all things of the universe originated in a mathematically
definable manner; and the motion of these points is the all connecting,
life-giving power.[25]