Swedenborg started his travels in the first years of early manhood, and wherever they took him there was nothing which escaped his observant eye. To whatever part of Europe he went it would seem that he could not be satisfied without learning all that was to be learnt, without seeing all that was to be seen. When he establishes himself in London he does not merely take lodgings because the price is reasonable or because the cooking is good, or because he thinks he will be comfortable. He writes from London in 1711: “I turn my lodgings to some use, and change them often. At first I was at a watchmaker’s, and now I am at a mathematical instrument maker’s. From them I steal their trades, which some day will be of use to me.” At Leyden he learnt to grind glass for lenses, so that he might furnish himself with appliances which he could not afford to buy. His brother wishes for globes for the university at Upsala. These proved too expensive, and he was asked to purchase printed maps which might be mounted in Sweden. The makers would not supply these, so Swedenborg applied himself to learning engraving, and prepared them himself. When chafing at enforced inactivity at home he turns his attention to music, and writes to his brother-in-law that he has been able several times to take the place of the organist. In travelling on the Continent he studies the fortifications of the towns, the methods of constructing fences. He visits and investigates all the manufactories. He passes critical remarks with regard to the blast furnaces, the vitriol, arsenic, and sulphur works, the copper and tin manufactories, the paper mills, and studies also the methods of mining. Not content with this, he investigates the social conditions of the people, criticises the situation of affairs in France, the wealth of the Church and the poverty of the people. “Everywhere,” he says, “the convents, churches, and monks are the wealthiest and possess most land. The monks are fat, puffed up, and prosperous. A whole proud army might be formed of them without their being missed.” Again: “The houses are miserable, the convents magnificent, the people poor and wretched.” He investigates the problem of the revenue of the French Government, obtained by the system of taxation called tithing. “It amounts,” he says, “to some thirty-two million livres, and Paris, on account of its rents, contributes nearly two-thirds of the sum.” “I am told,” he says, “that the ecclesiastical order possesses one-fifth of all the property in the State, and that the country will be ruined if this goes on much longer.”[10] He gives the number of convents in France, actually at that date between fourteen and fifteen thousand; the number of the members of the religious orders; the number of the abbesses, prioresses, chapters, etc. He goes to hear the celebrated preachers, among them the King’s chaplain, who “gesticulates like an actor.” He discusses the adoration of saints with an abbé.