Fruitless though these works necessarily were, in their highest aim, yet in lower ends they are treasure-houses of thought and suggestion. Taking for his basis the dry facts of the anatomists, he proceeds to clothe them with life and comeliness. He shows how part is bound to part in the human system, and fills the cold details of science with a warm and human interest. Emerson well says: “The ‘Animal Kingdom’ is a book of wonderful merits. It was written with the highest end, to put science and soul, so long estranged from each other, at one again. It was the anatomist’s account of the human body in the highest style of poetry; and nothing can exceed the bold and brilliant treatment of a subject usually so dry and repulsive.” It was hardly possible for books to be ushered into the world to die more quietly than did these physiological treatises. Slightly noticed in a few catalogues and reviews of that day, they were laid on the shelf, and reposed in dust and forgetfulness for a full century. Called to other thoughts and higher labors, their author was arrested midway in his plans; and ceasing to exist behind his books, and by his life, conversation, and activity, to keep up the public interest, the world soon forgot their existence. But their worth has been their preservative; and now we behold their resurrection, and slow, but certain, growth into acceptance and fame. Translated by Wilkinson, and enriched by him with prefaces which Emerson describes as “throwing all the contemporary philosophy of England into the shade,” they are now placed before the world, and, in their excellence serve to manifest the profound understanding and genius of their author. In 1745, Swedenborg terminated his long series of scientific works, by the publication, in London, of “The Worship and Love of God.” This book is an embodiment, in a story, of its author’s scientific doctrines. In a connected narrative, it treats of the origin of the earth, the birth, infancy, and love, of Adam; and of the soul in its state of integrity, in the image of God. It is a book of which little need be said, as it was probably written as much for an exercise of fancy, as with any serious intent. Cast into shade, as it is, by the brighter light of his after knowledge, it remains to mark the point of intellectual development at which Swedenborg had at this time arrived; and in this respect it will always have a strong interest to those who delight in tracing the growth and education of his mind. CHAPTER VII. _His Life, as a Man of Science, ends._ The biographer of Swedenborg can feel no difficulty in distributing under proper heads the principal events of his life. It divides itself so distinctly into two parts, at this juncture, that, between his past and his future there is what he himself would call a “discrete degree.”