III. Of Kinds of Knowledge, according to

Swedenborg.
" Moreover, it should be known that there are three degrees of Love and Wisdom, and thence three degrees of Life, and that the human mind, according to these degrees, is formed as it were into regions, and that life in the highest region is in the highest degree, and in the second region in a lower degree, and in the last region in the lowest degree. These regions are successively- opened in man ; the last region, where life is in the low- est degree, is opened from infancy to childhood, and this is done by the senses. The second region, where life is in a higher degree, from childhood to youth, and this is done by knowledges from the sciences ; and the highest region, where life is in the highest degree, from youth to manhood and onwards, and this is done by the perception of truths, both moral and spiritual. It should be further known, that the perfection of life consists not in thought, but in the perception of truth from the light of truth ; the differences of the life with men may be thence ascer- tained ; for there are some who, as soon as they hear the truth, perceive that it is truth. [This is Spinoza's third kind of knowledge.] There are others who do not per- ceive truth, but conclude it from confirmations by ap- pearances. [To conclude or infer a truth, means to reason out a truth, and this is Spinoza's second kind of knowledge.] There are others who believe a thing to be true, because it was asserted by a man of authority." [And this last answers to Spinoza's first kind of knowl- edge, which he afterwards shows to be the source of error and falsehood, because things are seen in their ap- parent order in nature, in which their true causes do not
284 8WEDENB0RG, [Ch. XII.
appear ; these being only seen by tlie third kind of knowledge, in the intellect. And in this too, the two thinkers agree, Swedenborg attributing error to seeing or judging of things from appearances as effects, and not seeing them in their causes — as we shall see presently.] True Christian lidigion, page 37.
Of Kinds of Knowledge, according to Spi- noza.
" We perceive many things and form universal no- tions from single things represented to us through the senses, mutilated, confused, and without relation to the intellect : and also from signs ; for example, reading or hearing certain words, we call things to mind, and form certain ideas of them like those, by which we imagine things. These I will in future call knowledge of the first kind. [Swedenborg's lowest degree.] Secondly, we form them from our having universal notions and adequate ideas of the properties of things, and this I call reason and knowledge of the second kind. [This is Swedenborg's second degree.] Besides these two kinds of knowledges, there is a third, as I will show in the se- quel, which we will call intuitive knowledge. And this kind of knowing proceeds (or descends) from the ade- quate idea of the formal essence of certain attributes of God to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things." [This is Swedenborg's highest degree.]
Both writers make very great use of the dis- tinctions above set forth, of which, one or two examples may suffice. The above extract is from the Ethics, part 2, scholium 2, prop. 40.
Ch. xit.] a hermetic philosopher. 285
lY. Of the difference of seeing things in
THEIR effects AND IN THEIR CAUSES, aCCOrding tO
Sweclenborg.
Explaining his reasons for treating certain matters as he has, Swedenhorg says, " To treat of them other- wise than from their original source, would be to treat from effects and not from causes ; and yet effects teach nothing but effects, and when they are considered alone, they do not explain a single cause ; hut causes explain effects ; and to know effects from causes is to be wise ; but to inquire into causes from effects is not to be wise : because then fallacies present themselves, which the examiner calls causes, and this is confounding wisdom." Angelic Wisdotn concerning Divine Love, par. 119.
On tliis point, Spinoza, in the 4:tli axiom to tlie first Part of the Ethics, states his doctrine, that, ''the knowledge of an effect depends npon (or is involved in) a knowledge of its cause."
Y. Of the Intuitive IInowledge, (or highest degree,) according to Swedenborg.
" There are two things proper to nature, space and time. From these in the natural world man forms the ideas of his thought, and thence his understanding. If he remains in these ideas, and does not elevate his mind above them, he never can perceive any thing spiritual or divine ; for he involves it in ideas which he derives from space and time, and in proportion as he does this, the light of his understanding is merely natural. Think- ing from this merely natural light, in reasoning of things
286 SWEDENBORG, [Ch. XIT.
spiritual and divine, is like thinking from the darkness of nif^lit of those things 'vvhich only appear in the light of day; hence conies naturalism. ]^ut he that knows how to elevate his mind above the ideas of thought which partake of space and time, passes from dark- ness to light, and becomes wise in spiritual and divine things. Ihid. par. G9.
Of Intuitive Knowledge, according to the Ethics.
Spinoza, in the Ethics, after stating the three kinds of cognition (knowing), i. e., 1st, from the senses : 2d, from reasoning : 3d, from intuition, states the proposition, that the third kind of knowing (corresponding to Swedenborg's spirit- ual knowledge) cannot possibly arise from the first kind of knowledge ; and in various places throughout the Ethics sets forth the same doc- trine; while in his Tract on Theology, treating of the Divine Law, chap. 4, he has the following passage, referring to the impossibility of the natural man's knowing the things of the spirit.
" These things cannot but be unintelligible to a car- nal man, and must seem vain and unsubstantial to him in consequence of his meagre (jejune) conceptions of God; and because in this highest good, consisting solely in contemplation and pure mind, he can find nothing to touch or eat, or which in any way affects the bodily senses, wherein he takes his chief delight. But they must be the most substantial of all things to
Ch. XII.] A HERMETIC PHILOSOPHER. 287
those who know that there is nothing more excellent than reason and a sound mind." [By reason, is not meant here the faculty of reasoning (argument), but that element or principle in man, by which he is man, and without which he would not he at all — in short the divine in man ; which, as both Swedenborg and Spinoza agree, is from Grod.]
Tlie admirers of Coleridge will readily see, above, the grounds of the doctrine so zealously set forth by liim, i. e. the distinction between the understanding and tlie reason; all knowledge depending upon the first being uncertain and unstable, while through the reason, according to this doctrine, knowledge is absolute, and admits of no appeal.
We have now seen how nearly similar these two thinkers are in their doctrines of God^ of tilings, of tlie different hinds of hiowledge, and of the iinpossihiUty of the natural man^s hioiu- ing the things of the sjpirit. We will next pass to a vital point, to which particular attention is invited, namely, their doctrine of Salvation.
It is important to observe, that the language of Swedenborg, soon to follow, has a very dis- tinct signification, where he distinguishes the wish of one to make another happy " from" him- self; the idea being, to make another happy with a total disregard of one's own happiness ;
288 8WKDENB0KG, [Ch. XII.
til is being tlie test of a true love, independent of consequences.