We see, so far, that Blake reckoned that Swedenborg had failed him, and that anything of value he found in him, he could find in the old masters. But there was something he could find in them--a spirit of beauty and a beauty of form--that was wholly lacking in Swedenborg, and an energy and exuberance that appeared only in Swedenborg's hell. That this should be the net result of Blake's expectations and Swedenborg's pretensions was too much for Blake's patience; hence the violence of his reaction. Blake must have felt vaguely all along the lack of the æsthetic faculty in Swedenborg. It was Swedenborg who helped him finally to understand the exact value of his visions and thus to place him. We have seen that Swedenborg, by abstraction from space and time, arrived at a doctrine of state which takes their place in heaven and hell. From this it follows that man's vision is wholly dependent on his state, and also that a man's visions cannot be trusted unless he has a perfect organ of vision resting on a sound state. It is always fatuous for a religious teacher to appeal to his visions to enforce his doctrines, since they depend on the man himself, and we must form our judgment of him apart from his visions. To appeal to a vision for the truth of a doctrine, and to the doctrine for the truth of a vision, is merely to whirl oneself round in a vicious circle; and therefore Swedenborg's whole make-up--will and understanding--must be laid bare and measured by some standard with which we may try the spirits and the prophets before we can begin to approach his visions and gauge their value.