The “Animal Kingdom,” written after the same plan as the “Economy,” treats of the organs of the abdomen, of those of the chest, and of the skin. Swedenborg, in setting forth his plan of operation, in which he announces his intention to examine, physically and philosophically, the whole anatomy of the body, and lastly of the soul, and of its state in the body, says: “From this summary or plan, the reader may see that the end I propose to myself in the work, is a knowledge of the soul, since this knowledge will constitute the crown of my studies. This, then, my labors intend, and thither they aim. To accomplish this grand end, I enter the circus, designing to consider and examine thoroughly the whole world of microcosm which the soul inhabits; for I think it vain to seek her anywhere but in her own kingdom. I am, therefore, resolved to allow myself no respite, until I have run through the whole field to the very goal, or until I have traversed the universal animal kingdom to the soul. Thus I hope that by bending my course inward continually, I shall open all the doors that lead to her, and at length contemplate the soul herself, by the Divine permission.” One of his manuscripts repeats this design in these words: “I have gone through anatomy with the single end of investigating the soul. It will be a satisfaction to me if my labors be of any use to the anatomical and medical world, but a still greater satisfaction if I afford any light towards the investigation of the soul.” In striving to compass such high spiritual knowledge, by merely natural means, he necessarily failed. In one of his books, written several years after, when a brighter light had dawned upon his mind, he says: “Many in the learned world have laboured in investigating the soul, but as they knew nothing of the spiritual world, and of the state of man after death, they could not do otherwise than construct hypotheses, not respecting the soul’s nature, or its operation on the body. Of the soul’s nature, they could have no other idea than as of something most pure in ether, and of its continent as of ether. Now having such a conception of the soul, and yet knowing that the soul acts on the body, and produces everything in it that has relation to sense and motion, therefore they labored, as we before observed, to investigate the soul’s operation on the body, which some said was effected by influx, and some by harmony. But these means discovered nothing in which the mind desirous of seeing the ground of things, can acquiesce.” We have in these sentences the cause of the fruitlessness of his own labors at this period, in their highest aims. They formed, however, a part of that providential discipline which was fitting him for his future office.