He visits the hospitals and attends the opening of Parliament. Not content with this, he frequents the opera and the theatres, and passes opinions upon the most popular pieces and the most distinguished actors and actresses. In the midst of all this we find him speculating on the form of the particles of the atmosphere, and writing an introductory essay to a book which he is planning to prove that “the soul of wisdom is the knowledge and acknowledgment of the Supreme Being.” As if this were not enough, he occupies his spare moments in the study of anatomy, astronomy, magnetism, and hydrostatics. Surely, since the world began, there was never a more versatile brain! He has even observations to make on military matters. He goes to see the Brandenburg soldiers, Frederick the Great’s famous regiment. “The men,” he says, “are tall and slender and they march erectly. They go through their drills with the greatest promptness and regularity, but their manner is a little theatrical. The whole squadron is like a machine placed there, moving instantaneously at the pleasure of the machinist.” “If,” he says, “they displayed the same uniformity in battle as in drill, they would conquer Alexander’s army, and subject a great part of Europe to Prussia, but——” He leaves it to the reader to fill in the reason of his doubt. Others besides Swedenborg have possessed that encyclopædic type of brain which amasses vast stores of miscellaneous knowledge, but few, if any, have possessed at the same time Swedenborg’s extraordinary capacity for utilising the knowledge gained and turning it to practical account. The idea of learning as an object in itself was indeed entirely alien to Swedenborg’s type of mentality. All information acquired was merely regarded as a means towards some practical end. We thus find him founding universal principles upon the knowledge he has accumulated in explanation of the laws which govern phenomena. We see him, for example, deducing his conclusions in the field of geology from a number of observed facts. He reports on the geological conformation of Sweden, and concludes from it that the country was at one time swept over by a sea in a state of great commotion. He notices the fact that the stones on the mountain sides are worn off and rounded, in support of this. He also describes the remnants of a wrecked ship excavated far inland, and the skeleton of a whale which was discovered in West Gothland. “Swedenborg’s contributions in the field of geology,” says Professor A. G. Nathorst, “are of such significance and value that they alone would have been sufficient to have secured him an honoured scientific name.” As a mining expert he was unequalled. “We should never be able to finish,” says Professor Schleiden, “if we attempted to enumerate all the improvements which Swedenborg introduced in the working of the mines in his own country.” “The metallurgical works of this remarkable man,” says Dr