Emmanuel Swedenborg's philosophy of the human organism

instruction are carried to their places by paths which correspond to the channels of the body leading to the bloodstream. Those who do not, and who cannot be accepted, are separated from the social organism as excrement is from the human body.

Man is the cause of his own evil; evil in Man is hell within him. Since it is he who is the cause of his own evil, it is he who casts himself into hell. Every evil brings its own punishment; they are inseparably connected as cause and effect. Those in hell punish one another. Everyone in hell desires to rule over others, to be exalted above them and to make them the objects of his vengeance and cruelty, Those who refuse to submit rebel and are tormented; and so on continuously. Man enters hell of his own accord and the indulgence of his self-secking desires and love of destruction appears to him as freedom. As the whole of heaven is in human form, so the whole of hell can be represented in the form of a devil or monster. But those in hell appear so only when seen in the light of heaven; for to one another those in hell appear like men. In other words, evil looks like good to those who have chosen it. For this reason hell is said to be in thick darkness.

According to Swedenborg, the relation of heaven to hell is that of two opposites acting against each other. Qualities appear valuable or the reverse according to the standpoint from which they are viewed. Thus quality and degree are only known in relation to their opposite. The food which Man takes in is first destroyed by digestion before it is rebuilt. In the same way the values of Man’s natural mind are judged as false when seen in the context of the social organism. Man is his own judge and the monsters and demons of hell are his assessment of his natural self.

In recognising Swedenborg’s achievements as philosopher, one must also pay tribute to his endurance. He spent the last 30 years of his life in this psychological study of his own inner experiences. He was deeply concerned with the question of evil in relation to Man’s freewill. Paradoxically it is Man’s self-seeking desires which are the very basis of his freewill. They correspond in the human sphere to the instincts by which an animal builds up or reproduces its own form. The instinctive powers of self-determination operate through the senses, and select from outside only what is suitable for that organism and reject everything else. The organism creates its own image by instinct. Man, if he chooses to do so, has the

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