The economy of the animal kingdom, considered anatomically, physically, and philosophically

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U PAUcIA NATUS EST, QUI POPULUM AEΥATIS SUAE DOGITAT : MULTA ANNORUM MILLIA, MULTA POPULORUM SUPERVENIENT : AD ILLA RESPICE, ETIAMSI ΟΜΝIBUS TECUM VIVENTIBUS SILENTIUM . . . ALIQUA CAUSAJ INDIXERIT : VENIENT, QUI SINE OFFENSA, SINE GRATIA JUDICENT. V SENECA, EPIST. LXXIX.

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SKedent,org at Amsterdam in 1740-1. No seconii edition appeared, but some copies of the Work have neW litte-pages, and contain also a list of errata Whicli is not given in others. The Work has attracted no attention Dom the learned since theti me of iis publication, and scareely any notice of it can besound in the records of criticism or bibliography. It Was,hOWever, revieWed in the Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensia'' sorI742, pp. 642-663; and a brief but inaccurate synopsis of SOme of iis contenis may be sueti in Halle s Bibliothoca Anatomica,'' VOl. II., pp. 328, 329. But notther of these accounts is of any interest, or forms an event in the history of the Work; Whicli indoed is exhausted in the statement, that

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VIII PREFACE.

April, 1846.

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Whicli stand in the way of a proper understandiug of their doctrines and position ; and in Shori to predispose the mind of thorender, in a generat manner, sor What, he may be a8Sured, is unoW study, for the peculiarities of Whicli, his previ ous knowledgecati hardly have prepared hi m. The works of Swedent, org divide them solves into tWO classes,Vig., a Seientisse Class, and a theological; and the sciontificWortis With which we are noW engaged,) are again divisibio into practioni and theoretical. Whate ver inny be the meriis Osthe practical portion, it is uot to come bes re us at present. TO examine the relations und valvo whicli it maintainod in iis oWn age, Would be interesting in iiself, and particularly desii able as silling up some dotalis in the portraitiare of SWedonborg's genius. But the fasti requires a Study sui generis, Upou Whicli no en quirer has onterest. The sold of rosearch is comparatively humbio, although the labor Would bo great. Nodo ubi it Uill sooner or later bo explored, and When it is, and

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are more familiar, and of higher impori; and by Whicli ho talios rank, not among the scientisic Worthies of the last ago, butWith tho great spirits of ali time. For it is tho the retical division of his scientific Works Whicli introduces him to tho Englisti

reader under the neW guise of an interpreter of nature. Andhere We may premise, that although We term these Works scientisic, deriving the name froin the basis they rest upon, and the limits Whicli they observe,) yet they are properly philosophicalalso, since they rise through the particular sciences, to that universat science Whicli alone is philosophy. For as the physical

os philosophy With science, so these Works may be designatest om either term : let it Only be borne in miud, that they arenot philosophical in any sense in Whicli philosophy is consideredindependent of physical science; nor scientisie, SO sar as Selenceis not permitted to obtain light and life Dom a real philosophy. The compound relation to the two fields os science and philosophy, is a rema rhable Dature in these Wotas; and the moreso, as S Wedenborg is the only Writer in Whose haud f the matteros the sciences, and the Way of induction, legitimately engender philosophical ideas. Other Writers have proposed the fame result, but he alone has attained it. Notwithstanding Whicli ho avolds the error os deriving the higher knowledgo Dom tholoWer, or mining the senses goveru the miud : for hu uses thesciences but for steps to lead to the upper roonis of the intellect, and alloWs every faculty iis distinet exercise, at the fame time admitting ali experience, to Whatever faculty it may appeat.

Whilo he gives a scienti sic Dundation to faith, it is by thoenergy of an enlightened, and sor the most pari, a neW saith disposing the Seleuces. He moves and works according to thematter supplied by generat and universat eXperienee, and revelation is as much this matter in one Sphere, as the phenomena of the mi Dd in another, and nature in a third. The foundestideas of mothod are illustrated in his Writings; and accordingto that shrowd saying of the reputed sather Os induction, that