The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-18
LECTURES ON sWEDBNBORG.
His Services to Psychology Reviewed
by the Rev. 4. L. Higgins.

His Services to Psychology Reviewed
by the Rev. f. L. Higgins.
The Rev. T. L. Higgins delivered his fifth
lecture last night in the series on Sweden
borg at the Swedenborgian Church, on
O'Farren street, near Webster. The sub
ject was: ''Swedenborgs Service to Psy-
chology." Mr.. Higgins said:
The one object which characterized
Swedenborg's scientific and philosophic
investigations was the quest of the soul /;
and it is interesting to note in this connec-
ton the striking coincidence of Sweden
borg's researches in this direction with
those of Aristotle, whom Swedenborg speaks
of as the chief philosopher of the gentiles.
The coincidence was not so much in the
similarity of their contents-although this
was striking-as in the similarity of their
methods. Both used the experimental
method, and this led them into similar
paths of investigation. Swedenborg thus,
as no other writer, deserves the proud title
of the Aristotle of Modern Philosophy.
'Swedenborg began his search for the
soul with careful study of mathematics,
chemistry and metallurgy, and thence pro-
crossed through every region of science
giving particular attention finally to
human anatomy. He recognized that no
degree OF theorizing and supposition was
equivalent to one clearly demonstrated
fact. And so he sought to learn all there
was to be learned about the soul in her
proper kingdom, which was the human
body. Accordingly, after having mast
cred the various sciences he comes
TO the theme, first of the economy of the
animal kingdom, as it is called, but whose
name should be economy of the kingdom
of the ANNA or soul. Then, when a fur
Their progress had been made he wrote the
Animal Kingdom or properly Kingdom
of the Anima."
''In this investigation in search of the
soul by the aid of science, Swedenborg did
not, however, discover the soul itself, but
he did discover its method of operating
upon or into the body, and also that there
spiritual things. Just what it was that
corresponds he did not by the aid of science
discover. This was afterward, as he
claimed, revealed to him from heaven.
But the fact that the correspondence ex-
listed became very plain to him before his
illumination, and prepared him for the
great work he afterward performed as a
theological writer and expounder of the
spiritual sense of the Bible, which, he de-
clares, is written according to the law of
correspondence between the natural and
spiritual world.
with a knowledge gained from the
mastery OF every science, he became the
worlds spiritual Moses to lead humanity
out of it's Egyptian bondage to supersti-
ton and the fear of death into the knowl-
edge that death is step in life. But all
his natural sciences had first to be illu-
minated by a higher science, even revela-
ton from the Lord himself and by the
opening of his spiritual sight and hearing
before he could understand just what the
soul was. When this revelation came to
him then he was able to serve psychology
as no other man has done nv showinU thai
the human soul or spirit is a spiritual body
in the human form. and that by CORE
spondence it dwells in and animates the
natural body, while the latter lives. and
that the spirit of man is such perfectly
organized body in the human form that
when the natural body dies the spirit will
never again need its minlstrations"