of spirit, because he does not see it, saying, It is nothing, because I am not sensible of it: what I see and touch, that I know exists. The scientific man, or he who forms his conclusions from the sciences, says, What is spirit but perhaps vapour or heat, or something else appertaining to science, which vanishes as soon as such vapour or heat is extinguished? Thus he denies that spirit exists. The worldly and corporeal man says in his heart, If I am not instructed concerning faith and the things relating to faith by sensual things that I may see them, or by scientific things that I may understand them, I will not believe. And he confirms himself by arguing that natural things cannot be contrary to spiritual things; wherefore he wishes to be instructed concerning things celestial and Divine by means of the senses, which nevertheless is as impossible as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The more he desires to grow wise from these, the more he blinds himself, even till he believes nothing, not even the existence of anything spiritual, or of eternal life. This flows from the principle he adopts; and this is to eat of the tree of science, from which the more he eats the more dead he becomes. But he who wishes to grow wise, not from the world but from the Lord, says in his heart, that he ought to believe the Lord, that is, the things which the Lord has spoken in the Word, because they are truths. From this principle he thinks, and then he confirms himself by things rational, scientific, sensual and natural, and puts aside whatever does not confirm. The true order is, that man be wise from the Lord, that is, from his Word; in which case all things follow in succession, and he is also then enlightened in things rational and scientific. For man is by no means forbidden to learn the sciences, since they are useful to life, and delightful; nor is he who is in faith forbidden to confirm spiritual and celestial truths by rational truths. But his starting point must be from the Lord, not from himself; the former is life, but the latter is death."*

"To explore the mysteries of faith by scientifics," continues Swedenborg, "is as impossible as for one of the ribs to guide the finest fibrils of the breast and heart; so gross, and much more gross, is the sensual and scientific principle in respect to the spiritual and celestial. He who wishes to investigate merely the secrets of nature, which are innumerable, discovers with difficulty a single one, and in his investigation he falls into errors, as is well known; what, then, will be the result, if he seek to investigate for himself the hidden things of spiritual and celestial life, where myriads of mysteries exist for one

• Arcana Calestia, 196, 128-9.

that is to be found in invisible nature? Hence it is evident, that they who consult the things of sense and science concerning what is to be believed, not only precipitate themselves into doubt, but also into denial, that is, into darkness; and in consequence of such darkness, into every sort of lust, for whilst they believe what is false, they also do what is false; and whilst they believe that no such thing exists as what is spiritual and celestial, they believe that nothing exists but what is of the body and the world; and thus from falsities spring lusts and evils."*

"Men's desiring," continues Swedenborg, "to search into the mysteries of faith by things sensual and scientific, was not only the cause of the fall of the Most Ancient Church, (that is to say, of their posterity,) but it is also the cause of the fall of every Church; for hence come not only falsities, but evils of life." "The evil not only of the Most Ancient Church, which was before the flood, but also of the Ancient Church after the flood, also of the Jewish Church, and of the Church of the present day, is this, that they did not believe the Lord or the Word, but themselves and their senses; for thereby faith became annihilated, and when there was no faith, there was no love of the neighbour, thus all was false and evil."t

Here, then, was the danger against which the men of the Most Ancient Church were warned, namely the danger of trusting to the appearances of the senses, and of arguing from such appearances in regard to the existence and nature of interior and Divine things: for by such a course they would be sure to be led astray. And this is what was meant by their being forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge or of science; that is, they were forbidden to trust to the appearances of sense, as opposed to the interior perceptions of truth derived from heaven and from the Lord.

The fallacious nature of ideas gathered through the senses, and the danger of making these the test of Divine truth, may be seen by a few simple illustrations. In the first place, the deceptive influence of the senses, even in regard to physical truth, may be shown by an illustration familiar to every one. The sun appears to rise in the east, cross over the heavens and set in the west. Tell an ignorant man that the sun does not move at all, that it is only an appearance, and that it is the earth that moves, and he will pronounce you a gross deceiver. "What!" he says, "will you contradict my very senses?" And yet it is even so, as science, at length, after many ages of error, has perfectly

demonstrated, namely, that the sun's moving is but an appearance. Now, if the evidence of the senses cannot be trusted even in regard to natural and scientific truths, how much less in regard to those that are spiritual and divine?

Take another illustration, which comes still nearer to our point, Look around you, above you, into the sky. Where is God? Can you see any God? Can you hear any great Divine Creator speaking? Do. the senses give evidence of the existence of any such Being? None. Then, if you trust to their evidence alone, you would infer that there is no God, and at once you would become an atheist. Yet, when you begin to reflect, and consider, and look within,—note the operations of your own mind, observe the interior impression made on every unperverted spirit that there is such a Being, a thousand voices, ten thousand reasons contradict the evidence of sense, and make you perfectly assured that one great and good Creator and Heavenly Father does indeed exist, and is every moment filling His universe with blessing, notwithstanding that He is invisible to the gross material eye. Yet here we see, from a still more striking instance, the danger that would result from eating of the tree of knowledge, the danger of trusting to the evidence of the senses, and of making that a test of Divine truth: such evidence, if alone depended upon, would with one blow sweep away all Divine truths from the mind, by destroying a belief in the very existence of God Himself.

And now, there is one more illustration which we shall give,—not so palpable as the former, more subtle, and at the first glance more doubtful than that, but yet equally true. And this illustration deserves to be carefully noted and well considered; for it was the very error of which I am about to speak which caused the fall;—it was the eating of the tree of knowledge in the manner about to be related which was the immediate Origin of Evil.

To all appearance, man's life, both mental and physical, is in himself. His bodily life seems to spring from a fountain in his own bosom: he does not see the stream flow in from any source without him, whether in earth or sky; if, therefore, he trusted to the evidence of his senses alone, man would look upon his physical system as an admirable machine, wound up, as it were, at the beginning, and set a-going by some unknown hand, but, once put in motion, going on now of itself. Under such a view, a man, if blessed with a healthy and vigorous frame, would contemplate himself with much complacency, would feel proud of the bodily advantages he possessed, would look

"

with some degree of contempt on those who happened to be inferior to himself in these respects, and perhaps might come at length to treat them with scorn and derision. Such unamiable feelings would naturally spring from complacent self-admiration, not checked by any thought that physical advantages were the gift of a higher Power, to whom he was indebted for them, and who could take them away as easily as He conferred them. In other words, such feelings of pride, contempt, and innumerable other evils thence derived, would be almost immediately consequent upon self-dependence and an absence of all sense of responsibility to an Almighty Creator. Now, as before said, to the senses there is no appearance of a higher Power: a man trusting to the evidence of sense alone would look upon his body as an admirable machine, come into existence he knew not how, but very acceptable such as it was, and something to be proud of. Hence it may be seen that eating of the tree of knowledge in this manner—that is, trusting to the evidence of sense in this particular-would at once lead to evil, and indeed to the root of all evils, self-love, for self-love is the one root of all the evils in the world.

But look, now, deeper still. There is a mental life as well as á physical, and the former is the higher and nobler of the two. Powers of mind are still grander than strength of body: they have a wider range of action, exercise a far greater influence over one's fellowmen. Suppose a man to possess great intellectual abilities as a speaker, as a writer, as a ruler over his fellows,-a mind like Napoleon's, for instance, made for command, quick in conception, prompt in execution, vast in its resources of every kind. Suppose à man possessed of such a mind to have, at the same time, no thought or feeling of acknowledgment of a Power above, whence his faculties. were derived and continually sustained. What could be the result of complacent self-contemplation, in such a case, but pride of the deepest kind? The man, continually wrapt in self-admiration and in the contemplation of his superiority over others, would soon become a god to himself. He would endure no rival near his throne: should any aspire to be such, he would seek to cut them down and tread them under foot; and if they still struggled to rise, he would crush them out of life, as he would a worm. Such results-pride, love of dominion, contempt of others, hatred against rivals and opponents, yes, carried even to the length of murder-would easily and naturally spring (as history shows, indeed, they often have sprung) from this one source, self-admiration, and consequent self-love and pride,

unchecked by any recognition of a Divine Creator and Governor of the universe.

Yet, as before remarked, the senses tell of no such Creator or Governor the senses give us no information that there is any Being from whom our faculties and affections are derived and continually sustained. To all appearance, man is alone, acted upon directly by no interior or superior influence, but master of himself, thinking as he chooses, willing as he chooses, doing as he chooses. He perceives not the light streaming from heaven into his mind, without which he could not think a rational thought, nor form any useful plan, nor speak an intelligible word. He feels not the flow of warmth and love into his heart from the same source, the Sun of Righteousness, without which he would be cold, without affection for his nearest friends, without desire for anything good or bad, and soon without life. Man, by his senses, has no perception of this, his absolute dependence upon God for every power of mind or body, for every breath he draws. To all appearance, all man's abilities and feelings are in himself,-selfderived, independent. If, then, man were to trust to the evidence of sense alone, he would have no religion, no feeling or thought of acknowledgment of any God above him, but would feel as a god to himself.

Now, this is just the sin into which man first fell: this is what is meant by the man's eating of the tree of science. Trusting to appearances of sense, and so mistaking the appearance for a reality, and confirming in himself the idea that his powers, his faculties, his life were all his own and self-derived, he became filled at length with the deepest pride, he became a god to himself: as the serpent said—“In the day ye eat thereof ye shall be as gods."* Thence originated evil, and from this source went forth those thousand streams of sin and wretchedness that overflow the world.

In confirmation of this view, we will here quote a brief and summary account of the origin of evil, in the words of Swedenborg himself. It is contained in one of his relations describing a conversation with angels. "The two angels then asked me, 'How could evil exist, when nothing but good had existed from creation? The existence of anything implies that it must have had an origin. God could not be the origin of evil, because evil is nothing of good, being a deprivation and destruction of good; nevertheless, since it exists and is sensibly felt, it is not nothing, but it is something; tell us, therefore, whence this

* Genesis iii. 3.