SOME MODERN IDEAS if the

NATDRE of the UNIVERSE

Compared with

Swedenborg's

Phtlosophical Conceptions

Address given by

HAROLD GARDINER, M.S., F.R.C.S., President of the Swedenborg Society,

At the ANNUAL MEETING, 1935

SWEDENBORG SOCIETY (INcoRPoRATED)

SWEDENBORG HOUSE

HART STREET, LONDON, W.C. 1

1936

Some Modern 1deas of the Nature

of the Universe compared with

Swedenborg's Phtlosophical

Conceptions

·WEDENBüRG'S works cover such a vast field

Sthat it would be difficult to find a subject they would not cover. Theology, Art, and Science,

in all their branches, did not provide too large an arena in which to exercise his intellectual powers. 1 was tempted to choose the poetry of his writings as a subject for my address. The wonderful imagery of his language and descriptions has a truly poetic mind behind it, and the doctrine of correspondences is a covering of the very soul of poetry. But my second thoughts led me to the harder and drier volumes of the Principia, and 1 propose to compare sorne modern ideas of the nature of the universe with Swedenborg's philosophical conceptions.

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The Prineipia is one of a number of scientific and philosophical works written by Swedenborg before his spiritual illumination, and it is to be read and understood exactly as any other scientific or philosophical work. The inspiration in these works is not spiritual, but is ·that of a human mind of exceptional powers of intuition and philosophical insight, and it is a severe test to expose these works to the searching light of modern scientific thought-a light which has been penetrating into the secrets of nature for two hundred years since Swedenborg's time, aided by methods and instruments of precision unknown and inconceivable to his generation.

The methods and instruments of Science are essentially those of analysis, and their results depend entire1y on the accuracy of the instruments and apparatus available for experiment. In Swedenborg's days they were crude, and even the ordinary chemical e1ements had only in part been identified. As experiment succeeded experiment, and instrumental accuracy increased, the analyses proceeded more rapidly, until, at the end of the nineteenth century,

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matter had been resolved into its constituent elements and the atomic theory of its constitution was regarded as the last word of science.

This theory explained the structure of matter on the basis of the atom which was indivisible and different for each element. The philosophical result of this theory was represented by the mechanistic view of the nature of the universe and aU that is in it, inc1uding man. As everything had been analysed and reduced to its simplest components, and it was known how these could be combined to form any material substance except the most complicated living forms, it was an easy assumption that it would be only a question of time before the citadel of life itself would be stormed, and scientists flattered them­selves that the time was not far distant when their analyses and syntheses would cover the whole of creation. Those were the days when Huxley and Haeckel thundered forth their mechanistic and materialistic theories, and refused to listen to any opposing evidence that could not be measured and weighed in the laboratory. 1t appeared to be the triumph of the scales and the measuring-rod. It is

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_ easy to criticise these men and to condemn scientists for refusing to admit any evidence that cannot be tested by their own apparatus, but it must be remembered that natural science is essentially the study of those things that can be measured and tested in the laboratory, and it is only natural that men engaged in such work should push these methods to their limit. Therein lies their strength and their weakness. Strength in their determined pursuit of scientific facts, and weakness in their inability to admit the validity or even existence of realities outside the boundaries of the laboratory.

But there have always been men of science-­and Swedenborg was one of them-who recognise that there is a wider field of investigation than that bounded by mechanical apparatus.

The man whose brain takes no cognizance of things other than those that can be demonstrated and analysed by mechanical means, becomes as lifeless as the instruments he uses. Swedenborg's brain was not one of those. -Throughout his scientific writings the spirit of life can be seen inspirlng aH his-thoughts and" theories. He never shirkeëf a fact:""

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but his originality lay in his interpretation of them and in his wonderful power of induction, so that he was for ever seeking the cause, and always a living cause, of the facts he observed and knew. This is shown in a very marked way in his Principia.

This work was written in 1734. It was an ambitious work-aiming at a philosophical inter­pretation of the origin and structure of the material universe. The method employed was that of pure induction and reasoning, and the result cannot be described as "light reading," but is remarkable enough to repay close study by any who are interested in the mysteries of the natural world into which we are born and in which we have to live. What, then, do we find in the Principia? We find, first of aIl, that Swedenborg's mind was working in a geometrical groove. He starts with the premise that geometry is the fundamental science. His next assumption is that change cannot occur without movement. As movement is therefore the under­lying cause of aIl change, in tracing back the world's history to its origins we must determine w.haL.i§ ~he pure~t and simplest f_orm _of mov~ment or ~o~ion.

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Swedenborg arrives at the conc1usion that this purest motion is that of a spiral. This has no beginning and no end, and inc1udes aIl other movements in itse1f. So far, so good-but the next step is to determine the nature of the primary and most elemental thing that is moved or moves in this way. The difficulty we are up against is that what we are considering is the first e1emental form in which matter is produced. It therefore cannot have any dimensions such as we associate with a material partic1e, for otherwise, however smaIl, it would be divisible into something smaller. Swedenborg gets over the difficulty by assuming that it is a point. Now a point is that which has position but no magnitude. 1t therefore occupies no space. It cal?­only occupy space by moving. We are therefore a~ke~·Cto imagine something- which has no size but moves and so occupies or circumscribes space. At first such a conception seems an impossible one, but we are on the horns of a dilemma, because any other conception is apparently equally impossible and fulfils even less adequate1y the requirements of logical thought.

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Let us accept this conception and follow it logically. In the first place, movement of any kind implies force. So we are led to conceive of a force causing motion in something which has position but no magnitude. It looks, therefore, as though we have to conceive of force or motion as being the sole primary entity, and to dissociate it in our minds from any material particle in the ordinary sense of the word. Swedenborg describes this primary elemental force as a " conatus," or as we might say, an urge to motion and, as has been seen, to motion in _a pure spiral form.

Swedenborg's next step is to trace the effects of such pure motion, and he argues that if the centre of gravity of his moving spiral is not absolutely central the whole spiral will tend to describe a further spiral, and in this way will impinge upon other

(' similar spirals. He thetefore conceives of sorne of these spirals being forced together in sorne places

)'-- and being perfectly free to move in others. He

thus gets two conditions of spirals, one where they are compressed and closely packed, and others, where they are free to move. The former he caUs finites,

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and the latter actives. He then works through four or five successive similar changes, calling the products of the changes second, third, fourth and fifth finites -each of which has its corresponding active which moulds and fashions it. It is impossible to go into any detail in a short address, but the ultimate result is that matter as we know it in aU its forms is traced by these various stages of finites and actives back to the original pure spiral motion.

Other philosophers such as Leibnitz and Descartes had conceived similar ideas before Swedenborg, but the records 1 have been able to trace show that aU philosophers other than Swedenborg conceived of sorne primaI physical particle which was moved by

) sorne external force, and that Swedenborg was the first to conceive of the particle itself as containing within it pure motion, and in fact consisting of pure

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, motion or force. Swedenborg's theory, therefore, describes the origin of matter as force, and he describes- -~.__-./

how, if points of force move with sufficient rapidity they will produce aU the qualities of what we know as _solid -ma~ter. - Such a theory is as far removèd from the mechanistic theories of the late nineteenth

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century as could weIl be imagined, and stood no chance of gaining a sympathetic hearing from the scientists of those days. But in 19II a discovery was made which completely revolutionised scientific thought and opened up lines of research which have continued with increasing range ever since.. This was the discovery by Lord Rutherford that atoms were not the solid and indivisible entities· imagined, but consisted of electrically- charged-particles. -PiO­fessor Eddington describes it as the most far-reaching discovery since the days of Democritus. It was found that atoms consisted of two forms of such particles, one a positively charged particle called a proton, and the other a negatively charged particle called an electron. The differences in the properties of the atoms are due to the varying number of protons and electrons forming them. The electrons are found'\to revolve r<:.und· the protons very much as the planets revolve round the sun. These particles . are so small that if the atom were the size of the earth the electrons might be represented by half a dozen tennis balls travelling with an unimaginable velocity within its boundaries. This discovery has

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replaced the old idea of atomic soliditYby a conception of particles of electrical charges of the most minute size travelling at enormous speed with comparatively vast distances separating them. It is difficult, at first, to c0!.lceive_ how matter com~o~ed in this way can give the sense of soliditY commonly associated with it, but soliditYis after all only a sense of resistance, and if the points of force move with sufficient speed, as they are known to do, they will be felt as a uniform and continuous resistance and so give the feeling of soliditY. Very little of the nature of these electrons and protons has as yet been discovered, but nothing other than an electrical charge has been found in them. They seem, therefore, to_sonsist solely~f

poin!s <:?f Jo!ce-electrical force. No conception more at variance with the old

materialistic atomic theory could well be imagined. Matter has definitely been dethroned and force recognised as the ultimate reality. Just as Science, using its own methods, arrived at an analysis of matter into force, so did Swedenborg two hundred years ago, by using his methods of pure reasoning a;:d induction arrive at the conclusion, not, as other

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philosophers, that matter was composed of sorne primaI particle moved by an external force, but that this ens or beginning of things was force itself. Moreover, Swedenborg saw the necessity for two forms of this-he called them actives and finîtes.

\ Do not modern scientists calI them protons and ( electrons ?

Modern methods led scientists .to adopt the . conception that these revolve about each other as

the planets revolve round ·thê- sun:-aficr,-altIiough sorne doubt has been cast on the validityof this conception, no other has supplanted it. One of Swedenborg's boldest generalisations is that Nature is similarin large things as in small, and, therefore, that the motions of the smallest particles are.~similar to those of the planetary systems.

But it will be remembered that Swedenborg's theory as expounded in the Principia, involves a whole series of these finites and actives, ""=""each bec<2ming p~!~r and, as it were,_ more refined until the first finite is reached.

Where exactly in his series the proton and electron stage lies is, as yet, impossible to determine;-but

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it must be very late-possibly the fourth~ fif.th finite and active._.'

Now these, according to his theory, are composed of and derived from the pre-existing and even more minute actives and finites of the preceding orders. What has science to say that has any bearing on this ? Very little, but in a work by Frank A~en it is stated that "mass, i.e., of the eleciron, is made up of

1\ exceedingly small particles, all of the same kind and very sIp.~ll_ compared with even _ an electron, and that1 _ __

these particles move with the velocity of light, and \\ that when these particles are so moving they might

be thrown into loops, i.e., into closed cü~ves without beginning or end." Whether or not these closed curves without beginning or end are spiral is not stated, but it is difficuit to imagine what other form such a curve can take.

To go now a step further, let us consider the space, which 1 have already described as being enormous cornpared with the size of the electrons, that lies between these. Swed~nborg describes t~e

whole of space as being ~lled with finites and actives of sorne deg:ee _or other. Thài-between the firth

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finites and actives is occupied by those of the fourth degree and between these those of the third and so. on until we arrive back at ~he all pervading first point of f~rce-.~Scienc-e has been trying to -explore

, thls region and, as it -;as r~cognised that sorne . ~-.---.

( medium was necessary in order to carry the electncal \ -~

, forces through space so that they cotild react on one another, an ether was postulated. The idea of such an ether that was completely elastic and very dense held the field until recent years, when a great contro­versy arose as to its real existence. Doubts as to the validity of the conception of such an ether arose when Einstein developed his Theory of Relativity and fourth dimensional ~space "was seriously studied. Researchers into this advanced mathematical realm proposed what they called the fourth dimensional

. continuum as a substitute for the ether, but th_e \ difference is largely~~~of t~~ms, and Swedenborg's ! explanation of this intervening space has yet to be i disproved. Modern science talks of electrical force

and does not know what it is. An atom or unit of - - - _._-­matter has been proved to consist of centres of electrical force and nothing more. Is it not possible

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that these units of electrical force may themselves be formed as the result of interactions of an even

" more refined force, and may be points of interaction ) or condensation, as it were, in a sphere composed 1 of potencies which are undetectable by present

laboratory instruments ? If, therefore, the fift~ and sixt~nites and actives

of S'Yed~I)!>~rg are the protons and electrons, may not his third and fourth be the ether? 1t is interesting to note that Swedenborg emphasizes perfect elasticity as being the property of these finites.

\ What else has science to say as to the nature of \ these electrons and protons? They are generally11 regarded as behaving sometimes like particles and J sometimes like waves, and are accompanied and

surrounded by an electro-magnetic field of force. This suggests that magnetic force is the first of aIl forces acting on material substance and that other forces are modifications of this. Swedenborg, in the second part of the Principia, concentrates on this magnetic prop~rty of matter and regards it as the primary result of the interaction of the _~ctives

and finites. He therefore argued that in a mag!J.éc 16

field lay the inception of aIl other forces known to science-a view that has smce been proved correct.

Professor J. J. Thomson states that the mass of an electron is entirely electric, and that the electric mass .is considered to be diffused throughout the sp~ surrounding the electron with a concentration which increases toward its centres, becoming very great close up to it. This electric force shows itself as an el~ctro-magnetic fie~d, and the description 1 have just quoted coincides very closely with Sweden­borg's theory of the relation of the magnetic fields to the finites from which they are derived.

A more exhaustive comparison between the con­( ceptions of modern science and those of Swedenborg J with regard to the structure of the atom cannot be

made, chiefly because there are insufficien~ata

provided by scie~ce.

With regard to the latter parts of the Principia, which deal with the birth of the solar systems, 1 have come across no _~ore modern theory t~an_ .the nebular hypothesis which Swedenborg was the first to propound. But if we study modern conceptions

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of the universe as a whole, i.e., proceed in the opposite direction from the study of the minute to the study of the gigantic, we come at once to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. 1 do not propose to try to explain this to you, but there are one or two points in this theory of very great interest to students of Swedenborg.

In the first place we have to realise that modern conceptions of the universe are entire1y mathematical. In the old days it seemed quite easy to imagine the solar system as a number of planets revolving round the sun and to expand this to a conception of our local universe revolving round a fixed point like the Polar star, and to continue this conception in a rather vague way until 1 suppose most of us imagined the whole created universe as a system of whee1s within whee1s, as it were, rotating round themse1ves and round each other. The difficulty is, however, that

~- - -. - - _._- -­this involves sorne fixed point relative to which suchmoti~ cap. be_d~~~rmi~ed and apparently th~~

no sQch fixed point, so that we are left literally and fi~rative1y verymuch in the air. It is the old story of the man travelling by express train to Edinburgh.

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rIt seems perfectly clear to him that Edinburgh stays where it is and he moves toward it, but when absolute motion is considered it is just as possible

" that he is stationary and Edinburgh is moving to ! him. In order, therefore, to get as absolute a con­ception of the universe as possible, it is necessary---.to take aU this into consideration. The elementary mathematics that are sufficient to explain our own little domestic planetary system fail when we go out into the world. The mathematics necessary to get our bearings in that adventure are very complicated but it is not difficult to understand that such a form of mathematics is necessary. Swedenborg came to the conclusion that the science of geometry was the basis on which aH others were built, and it is clear that geometry can only be understood and explained by mathematics-a rather wonderful example of Swedenborg's inductive powers. But where does this higher mathematics try to lead us ? The answer is, to fourth dimensional space. 1 am not going to attempt to explain this here but it involves the amalgamation of space as we know it with time.

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l t is clear that our conception of time must disappear when considering the universe as a whole. Time and motion are inextricably mingled, and we have s~en -that -motion -IS -entirely relative - we know nothing of absolute- motion and so we can have no means of estimating absolute time. Time, as we know it, is purely a local matter, or at least its measurement is.

Now it has been shown that if, as we have been trying to do, weget away from the local manifestation of time in our solar system and see how it behaves, as it were, when applied to the whole universe, we find that ~e and space ~?_~cg~~ in~x!ricab!y_~er­

~!ngl~~, and it is the addition of time as anotner dimension to our three dimensional world that takes us into fourth dimensional space.

l t is this world that Einstein and other mathe­maticians have been exploring, and one iilteresting result has been that whereas this abstract conception of time cannot be measured by docks and watches, it can be measured, or at any rate indicated, by studying the changes that take place in the behaviour of the electrical forces of which the universe is

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composed. In other words, this involves measurement not by days, weeks, or years, but by changes of state. Another result of the study of fourth dimensional space is that events and objects in our three dimensional world are regarded as the manifestation of changes of entities in the fourth dimensional world.

By this brief examination of modern physical and mathematical science l have tried to show what a remarkable change has been wrought during the last twenty odd years, and how these changes, founded

. on accurate scientific observation, confirmin many! ways the philosophy contained in Swedenborg's ( Principia. We are accustomed to regard Swedenborg's

inspired works as unique because they were written ( after his spiritual sight had been opened. His

scientitic _woxks w~re WJittep. È~fore this Jl~E~ned,

..., an,! Y'e!-we J!ng th!l!.._.they__show an)n~jght int~t~e

realm of natural philosophy that stamps his mind 1 with th~ origi~ality~true genius. Evffiin those ~ days he would not ~l1ow hisinductions to be influenced

by the theories of others. He h3:~ the ~trength of purpose to 'put in writi~g the__r:esults of his own reasoning powers, and how great these were I have

~

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---- -- - - -

tried to show. That any man in those days couid have evolved a conception of the universe and its origins ~y pure induction, so clo~ely _~esemblin~_~he

re~ults of mod~r!l .scientific invest~~~!i.?n, is a proof, if any were needed, of his outstanding genius.

Swedenborg has nothing to say in the Principia of the fourth dimension. But it is a truly remarkable result of modern thought that Science to-day, in

(trying to reach the absolute, ha~ arrived at the \ conclusion that time can only be r~~k~nedas a

change of state, and that the three - diniensionai world is only a man:ifestation of activityin another

, - -- --- - - - ­i world which they _c~lljourth dimensional. 1t appears 1 that scientists are now discarding the dead matter \ of which the world is composed as the ultimate

reality-showing that it is only a manifestation of force, and the further they advance the more potent and abstract does this force become.

Lord Rutherford gave scientists the key to this world-the world which was described by Swedenborg, and who knows but that the time will come when----- -_. ~l!ey will realise that Swedenborg two hundred years ag~ ga~ tÈem the other key, that ofthe-science of

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correspondences which will open the last door leading to an- under~tanding of--ihe- spirliuàî ~rigin-5>f the uni:ver~e-a knowledge which- will -êorrelate the results of his spiritual inspiration with those of their natural philosophy.

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