"Here," said I, "is your lot; in this space, if space it may be
called." Soon we saw the stable and the church, and I took him to the
altar and opened the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, into which I
descended, driving the Angel before me. Soon we saw seven houses of
brick. One we entered. In it were a number of monkeys, baboons, and
all of that species, chained by the middle, grinning and snatching at
one another, but withheld by the shortness of their chains. However, I
saw that they sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were caught
by the strong, and with a grinning aspect, first coupled with and then
devoured by plucking off first one limb and then another till the body
was left a helpless trunk; this, after grinning and kissing it with
seeming fondness, they devoured too. And here and there I saw one
savourily picking the flesh off his own tail. As the stench terribly
annoyed us both, we went into the mill; and I in my hand brought the
skeleton of a body, which in the mill was Aristotle's Analytics.
So the Angel said: "Thy phantasy has imposed upon me, and thou oughtest
to be ashamed."
I answered: "We impose on one another, and it is but lost time to
converse with you whose works are only Analytics."
* * * * *
"I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves
as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting
from systematic reasoning.
"Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new; though it is only
the contents or index of already published books.
"A man carried a monkey about for a show, and because he was a little
wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conceived himself as much
wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg; he shows the folly
of churches, and exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are
religious, and himself the single one on earth that ever broke a net.
"Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now
hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods.
"And now hear the reason: he conversed with Angels who are all
religious, and conversed not with Devils who all hate religion, for he
was incapable through his conceited notions.
"Thus Swedenborg's writings are a recapitulation of all superficial
opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime, but no further.
"Have now another plain fact: any man of mechanical talents may from
the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen produce ten thousand
volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's, and from those of Dante or
Shakespeare an infinite number.
"But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than
his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine."
A MEMORABLE FANCY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account