The translation of the passages here brought together has been
carefully revised.
JULIAN K. SMYTH.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Emanuel Swedenborg was born at Stockholm, January 29, 1688.
A devout home (the father was a Lutheran clergyman, and afterwards
Bishop of Skara) stimulated in the boy the nature which was to become
so active in his culminating life-work. A university education at
Upsala, however, and studies for five years in England, France,
Holland and Germany, brought other interests into play first. The
earliest of these were mathematics and astronomy, in the pursuit of
which he met Flamsteed and Halley. His gift for the detection and
practical employment of general laws soon carried him much farther
afield in the sciences. Metallurgy, geology, a varied field of
invention, chemistry, as well as his duties as an Assessor on the
Board of Mines and of a legislator in the Diet, all engaged him, with
an immediate outcome in his work, and often with results in
contributions to human knowledge which are gaining recognition only
now. The _Principia_ and two companion volumes, dedicated to his
patron, the Duke of Brunswick, crowned his versatile productions in
the physical sciences.
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