45. Such are a few of the ways in which the statements of Christ and his Apostles regarding immortality have been interpreted by those who call themselves Christians. But amid this great diversity there is yet one principle common to all. It is imagined that something peculiar in the history of the world took place at the coming of Christ, which has not since been repeated. Communications were then made to mankind which are regarded as unique, and the truth of which it is held will only be verified in the case of each individual when he has passed into that country from which we receive no travellers’ tales. Notwithstanding this general belief, not a few have arisen pretending to have received a new and supplementary revelation. In most of these cases the scientific historian may at once come to a conclusion without any violation of his impartiality,—they are so manifestly the products of delusion if not of imposture. There is however one system which merits fuller treatment, inasmuch as it has led to a mode of viewing the spiritual world which has many followers even at the present day. 46. Emanuel Swedenborg, the apostle of this system, was in many respects a remarkable man. Living more than a century ago, and during the time when Science was pausing for the spring she has since made, he seems to have foreshadowed, if he did not anticipate, many of the doctrines now current. We are not however now concerned with his purely physical speculations. Swedenborg has written at great length regarding the nature and destiny of man, and the constitution of the unseen world into which he asserts he had the power of entering. He assumes the existence of a human or semi-human race before Adam, of which he remarks that they lived as beasts. ‘Man,’ he tells us, ‘considered in himself, is nothing but a beast.... Man’s peculiarity over animals—a peculiarity they neither have nor can have—consists in the presence of the Lord in his will and understanding. It is in consequence of this conjunction with the Lord that man lives after death; and although he should exist like a beast, caring for nothing but himself and his relations, yet the Lord’s mercy is so great, being Divine and Infinite, that He never leaves him, but continually breathes into him His own life, whereby he is enabled to recognise what is good and evil and true and false.’ Regarding man’s mortal nature we are told by Swedenborg that ‘man at birth puts on the grosser substances of nature, his body consisting of such. These grosser substances by death he puts off, but retains the purer substances of nature, which are next to those that are spiritual. These purer substances serve thereafter as his body, the continent and expression of his mind.’[26] ‘A man at death,’ he tells us again, ‘escapes from his material body as from a rent or worn-out vesture, carrying with him every member, faculty, and function complete, with not one wanting, yet the corpse is as heavy as when he dwelt therein.’