Part 1

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’S INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE AND THE BASIS FOR HIS STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN

Reprinted from the festival publication of the University of Uppsala on the occasion of the bicentenary of the Royal Society of Sciences of Uppsala and of the unveiling of the sarcophagus of Emanuel Swedenborg in the cathedral of Uppsala.

November 19th, 1910.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’S INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE AND THE BASIS FOR HIS STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN

BY MARTIN RAMSTRÖM

UNIVERSITY OF UPPSALA 1910

UPPSALA ALMQVIST & WIKSELL, PRINTING CO., LTD. 1910

CONTENTS

Pag.

FRONTISPIECE, reproduced from a copper engraving in Swedenborg’s ›Opera Philosophica et Mineralia›, Vol. I., printed in Dresden and Leipzig, in 1734.

TITLE PAGE 5 _The vignette_ on the title page is reproduced from the medal struck in honour of Emanuel Swedenborg, in 1852, by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Introduction 9

Swedenborg’s investigations in natural science.

Swedenborg’s mathematical, mechanical and astronomical investigations 11

Swedenborg’s geological, mineralogical, chemical, physical, and cosmological investigations 14

Swedenborg’s anatomical and physiological investigations 16

The basis for Swedenborg’s statements concerning the functions of the brain.

On the centres of the vegetative functions 27

On the centres of the psychical functions, especially the sensory centres 28

On the centres of the motor functions 32

The doctrine of localizations 35

The ›cerebellular theory› 43

Concluding summary 47

Notes 50

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’S INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE AND THE BASIS FOR HIS STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN

In recent times Emanuel Swedenborg has, on many sides, been the object of a continually increasing interest, and year after year has attention been called to the manysided works of his life. In former times he was known almost exclusively through his religious writings. But it has gradually come to light that he was also an investigating genius of the first rank, who opened new paths in several branches of the natural sciences and made wonderful discoveries.

Thus, by way of illustration, Professor ANDERS RETZIUS has drawn forth from oblivion his _anatomical_ and _physiological_ works and shown that there is to be found in them (especially in ›Regnum Animale›) ›ideas belonging to the most recent times, and a scope, induction and tendency which can only be compared to that of Aristotle.›[1] And since then several authors have expressed themselves in a similar manner, as Professor CHRISTIAN LOVÉN,[2] Professor MAX NEUBURGER (Vienna),[3] Professor C. G. SANTESSON,[4] and above all Professor GUSTAF RETZIUS[5] on repeated occasions.

The case is also similar with respect to SWEDENBORG’s _geological_ researches. Here J. J. BERZELIUS[6] has sought to direct the attention of the learned to his penetrating observations and ingenious conclusions; and the opinions of such men as Professor A. E. NORDENSKIÖLD,[7] Professor A. G. NATHORST,[8] and others, have also tended in the same direction in regard to SWEDENBORG.

Within the realms of _astronomy_ and _cosmology_ Professor M. NYRÉN[9] and later Professor S. ARRHENIUS[10] have pointed out the grand hypotheses of the creation of the worlds, etc. etc., which SWEDENBORG had erected in advance of all other authors in cosmology.

A number of societies and associations have also been formed whose purpose it is to spread a knowledge of SWEDENBORG’s works concerning natural science. The oldest of these is the Swedenborg Society of London, which absorbed the purely scientific Swedenborg Association half a century ago, and which this year celebrated the centenary of its foundation. In 1898 there was founded in the United States of America the Swedenborg Scientific Association. In Sweden the Royal Academy of Sciences appointed in 1902 a committee to investigate the contents of SWEDENBORG’s manuscripts and to publish selected works.

A number of individuals besides those already mentioned have devoted much labour and care to the translating and editing of SWEDENBORG’s scientific works, among whom we may mention the Englishmen J. J. GARTH WILKINSON, M. D., and the Rev. A. CLISSOLD, the German Prof. Dr. IMMANUEL TAFEL, the German-American Dr. RUDOLF TAFEL, and the American Mr. ALFRED H. STROH, M. A.[11]

The strongest expression of this interest in SWEDENBORG’s scientific work in the most recent times, was that manifested during the International Swedenborg Congress, held this summer in London. On that occasion were gathered there representatives for numerous branches of the natural sciences, medicine, philosophy and theology, each one of whom contributed his account of the discoveries, inventions, and far-sighted utterances which SWEDENBORG had made within these several departments of knowledge. And imposing indeed was the homage which was as a consequence paid to the ingenious investigator as well as to the Country and the University which had produced him.

SWEDENBORG’S INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE.

Before a life-work such as that of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG one cannot but be filled with admiration. Perhaps not so much on account of the _manysidedness_ of it; for that was not so very unusual at the time in which SWEDENBORG lived—in the 18th century;[12] but because his researches were at the same time so _comprehensive_ and _penetrating_, because he made such great and important conquests within the most different departments of knowledge; indeed, in many places discovered by his sharpsighted genius the _lines of development_ along which science was to proceed for the gaining of its end.

SWEDENBORG’S MATHEMATICAL, MECHANICAL AND ASTRONOMICAL INVESTIGATIONS.

_Mathematics_, especially geometry, algebra and mechanics, and _astronomy_ in particular, were the predominating interests with SWEDENBORG, when, after having completed his university studies, he entered upon his first foreign journey (1710). He had at that time the good fortune to come into personal contact with (ISAAC NEWTON?),[13] JOHN FLAMSTEED[14] and EDMUND HALLEY[15] in England, and with the renowned mathematicians PHILIPPE DE LA HIRE and PIERRE VARRIGNON[16] in France, and to enter into an interchange of scientific ideas with them. And the impulses derived from teachers of such great insight and skill did not take long in manifesting themselves. In 1714 SWEDENBORG was able to send home accounts of a great many _mechanical inventions_ which he had made and the ›correctness of which he proved by mathematical and algebraical calculations.›[17] As examples of these discoveries may be mentioned his flying machine,[18] submarine boat, steam engine, mitrailleuse, sluice constructions, etc.[17] After his return to Sweden he found opportunities of putting into practice some of these projects, when (in 1716) he was appointed assessor extraordinary in the College of Mines and ordered to assist CHR. POLHEM ›with the construction of his buildings and inventions›. But he was rich in ideas and quick-witted enough to be able, together with these official duties, to plan and set on foot the publication of a periodical devoted to natural science, ›_Daedalus Hyperboreus_›, the first scientific periodical in Sweden, and to furnish it abundantly (during the years 1716-1718) with valuable articles concerning new inventions, _projects and problems for scientific investigations and experiments_.[19] In the year 1718 he has completed a new method of reckoning with the number 8 as the base; and the following year he publishes a still better ›Proposal to divide our money and measures, so that the calculation would be easy and all fractions be abolished›, and this system is nothing less than the _Decimal system_![20] He also published during these years an ingenious method of determining the longitude by means of the moon, a problem upon which the learned had at that time been engaged for several years.[21]

SWEDENBORG thus succeeded in penetrating very deeply into the mathematical and mechanical sciences, and therefore at first it must arouse astonishment that he did not accept the professor’s chair in mathematics at Uppsala University when this was offered him. He wished for freedom to study in other departments also. And, as we shall see, he soon turned his interest in another direction, namely to geology.

However, it was also a characteristic in SWEDENBORG, worthy of admiration, that in spite of his deep penetration into the sciences and the bold ideas of his creative genius, he nevertheless strove, at the same time, to retain contact with practical life and there cause the results of his investigations to bear fruit. It was also this purpose which to a great extent influenced him not to accept the offered professorship in mathematics, which he feared would force him into a direction too theoretical. In this respect there were, as some of his biographers have shown, several points of similarity between SWEDENBORG and his patron, King Charles XII., namely, ›the unusual combination of the boldest imagination and a pronounced practical tendency›.[22] And as both were animated by the same ›burning inclination for all that is great in thought and deed›, and by the same love of the fatherland, therefore, when these two men found one another, there was an interesting cooperation. Professor HOLMQUIST has given a very good description of this in his essay alluded to above, from which I shall here reproduce some extracts:

— — — ›But SWEDENBORG had also in the course of his conversation with Charles XII. advanced several new proposals which won, in part, the King’s approval. SWEDENBORG suggested the establishment of a company to promote the exportation of Swedish iron and tar (a suggestion later put into practice by the Iron Office), set forth his plan for an observatory in Uppsala and brought up for discussion the establishment of salt works in Sweden in order to help his country against the terrible dearth of salt during the war: all these ideas he also committed to writing in pamphlets: ’_Om sättet för handelns och manufacturernas uphjelpande_’, ’_Memorial om Salt Siuderiers inrettning i Swerje_’ and ’_Om nyttan och nödvändigheten af ett Observatorii inrättande i Sverige_’ (preserved in manuscript in the Diocesan Library of Linköping).[23] Of the ideas just mentioned, it was in the first place the one on salt boileries which claimed the King’s attention and which he commissioned SWEDENBORG to put into practice. It still remains, however, to mention the most remarkable of SWEDENBORG’s projects. Through ERIC BENZELIUS he had come into possession of an old letter of Bishop HANS BRASK, in which the idea of a water way from the western coast straight across Sweden is expressed. SWEDENBORG, inspired by this, laid before the King the _suggestion for a canal from Göteborg through Lakes Vänern and Vättern to the Baltic_, which aroused the King’s enthusiasm. SWEDENBORG was commissioned to investigate the possibilities for the realization of this gigantic undertaking. — — — Shortly after this we find him in Uddevalla investigating the possibility of establishing salt-works, in connection with which SWEDENBORG at once set out to construct salt-pans and other apparatus better than those in use in the defective old salt-works at Strömstad. — — — We afterwards find him again at Trollhättan, Vänern, Gullspång and Hjälmaren examining the situation for the canal and locks and finding ’all to be possible and not of such great expense as had been supposed’. SWEDENBORG had passed over to the modern idea of an inland canal through Hjälmaren and Mälaren directly to Stockholm.› With justice it may be said that here he gives the impression of a very sharpsighted and energetic engineer, who possessed the power of turning his thorough theoretical education to practical use.

It may thus be clearly perceived, from everything I have referred to above, how comprehensive and penetrating were the researches of SWEDENBORG in the mathematical (and especially the mechanical) branches of science, and what fruitful discoveries had been made by his searching eye.

SWEDENBORG’S GEOLOGICAL, MINERALOGICAL, CHEMICAL, PHYSICAL AND COSMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS.

SWEDENBORG’s comprehensive interest now turned itself to new fields of work: to _geology_, _mineralogy_, _chemistry_, _physics_ and finally to _cosmology_, without giving up his first subject, _mathematics_.

And he also now exhibited the same thoroughness as before, beginning with examinations, experiments and observations, partly original, but also collected from predecessors. For he says: ›It seems to me that an infinite mass of completed experiments is a good ground to build upon, to make the trouble and expense of others serve one’s end; that is to work with the head over that which others have worked over with the hands.› (See HOLMQUIST, Op. cit. and the letter from SWEDENBORG to ERIC BENZELIUS of May 2nd, 1720, in the edition of the Acad. of Sciences, I., p. 304).

The result of this period of labour SWEDENBORG embodied in a number of works, among which may especially be mentioned: ›_On the Height of Water and the Strong Tides in the Primeval World. Proofs from Sweden._›[24] SWEDENBORG here furnishes proofs that our North, in olden times, lay for the most part under deep water. And he based his deductions on a great many researches and sharpsighted observations, and wherever it was possible he tested the correctness of his conclusions by means of experiments. This is the work which J. J. BERZELIUS, A. E. NORDENSKIÖLD and A. G. NATHORST have praised so highly, and in some places it has been considered to be ›one of the most ingenious contributions to the history of geology›. SWEDENBORG also worked out during this period the great work: ›_Miscellanea observata circa res naturales et praesertim circa mineralia, ignem et montium strata_›, (printed in Leipzig 1722 and lately reprinted in the edition of SWEDENBORG’s scientific writings of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., 1907, pp. 59-191), and finally the gigantic work: ›_Opera philosophica et mineralia_›, (published in Dresden and Leipzig, 1734, in three large folio volumes). The last work contains among other things SWEDENBORG’s cosmology, and it is here that he developes his famous _nebular theory_, which so closely reminds one of the theory worked out in later years by Kant and Laplace, that one strongly suspects that SWEDENBORG’s utterances, in one way or another, lie at the bottom of it. Concerning this work much has been written during recent years, and therefore it may be sufficient here only to refer to the statements made in regard to it by Professor S. ARRHENIUS in his introduction to the above-mentioned edition of Swedenborg’s writings, Vol. II., where he says: ›If we briefly summarize the ideas, which were first given expression to by SWEDENBORG, and afterwards, although usually in a much modified form,—consciously or unconsciously—taken up by other authors in cosmology, we find them to be the following:

The planets of our solar system originate from the solar matter—taken up by BUFFON, KANT, LAPLACE, and others.

The earth—and the other planets—have gradually removed themselves from the sun and received a gradually lengthened time of revolution—a view again expressed by G. H. DARWIN.

The earth’s time of rotation, that is to say, the day’s length, has been gradually increased—a view again expressed by G. H. DARWIN.

The suns are arranged around the milky way—taken up by WRIGHT, KANT and LAMBERT.

There are still greater systems, in which the milky ways are arranged—taken up by LAMBERT.›

During this period of his investigations SWEDENBORG enters into very deep speculations. He desires to grasp the innermost constitution of things, their causes and origin, and seeks to attain this end through a long process of analyses and by applying a geometrical explanation to the phenomena in the world of the senses. This method he employs in explaining the inner constitution of chemical bodies, and likewise the varieties of physical phenomena, etc. He thus comes at last to the—geometrical points: through the combination of these, in different ways, have all things of the universe originated in a mathematically definable manner; and the motion of these points is the all connecting, life-giving power.[25]

SWEDENBORG’S ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS.

After SWEDENBORG had so thoroughly searched through and speculated upon inorganic nature, he turns himself to the _organic_. He breaks away from all other work, travels abroad, and throws himself with intense zeal into _anatomical_ and _physiological_ studies. These researches were, for the most part, carried on in the Netherlands, France, and especially in Italy, where he remained for nearly a year.

After five years he was ready with his first work in this field, the large, famous ›_Œconomia Regni Animalis_,› which was printed in Amsterdam, 1740-1741. It was then published in two large volumes; but that it was designed to be still larger, is evident, among other things, from SWEDENBORG’s own statement;[26] and furthermore, the Englishman J. J. G. WILKINSON published, in 1847, as a third volume, some annotations which he regarded as belonging to SWEDENBORG’s manuscript of the same work.[27]

The ›Œconomia Regni Animalis› is chiefly directed to a detailed analysis of the _blood_, the _brain_, and finally the _soul_. In this investigation SWEDENBORG directed his attention not only to the morphological and physiological aspects of the subject, but also to the _embryology_ of the organs; and he penetrated so deeply into the very essence of development, that, as Professor J. A. HAMMAR (Uppsala) has pointed out, he succeeded in arriving at a conception on this point, which was considerably better than that of his times. As is well known, during the first part of the eighteenth century the idea was generally prevalent that, when the organism developed from the egg or sperm, it grew forth out of it, much like a flower developes out of the bud, or, in other words, that the different organs existed pre-formed in the egg or sperm and that development consisted only in an extension of its size. SWEDENBORG expressed himself very decidedly against this ›pre-formation theory›: The development consisted by no means merely in a growth or expansion of the germ, (›seminis extensio›), or of a prototype of the future creature existent in the germ, (›non ... aliqua realis effigies maximi in minimo, seu in aliquo primo typus futuri corporis, qui simpliciter expanditur.› See Œc. R. A. I., No. 249); but there was in the germ a certain formative substance or power, by means of which the various parts of the embryo were developed one after the other, organ after organ. ( ... singula membra successive, seu unum post alterum producuntur ... Œc. R. A. I., No. 247).

It will be seen that SWEDENBORG has here put forth essentially the same theory as was later presented by CASPAR FRIEDRICH WOLFF in his well known ›Doctorsdissertation› of the year 1759, _i. e._, the so called _theory of ›epigenesis›_.

I shall here also discuss some of the results and conclusions, which SWEDENBORG arrived at in the ›Œconomia Regni Animalis›, concerning the _brain_ and _its function_.

As is well known the general principles of the macroscopical anatomy of the brain were known long before SWEDENBORG’s days; and even its microscopical structure had, half a century before his time, begun to be studied by such men as LEEUWENHOEK (1632-1723), MALPHIGI (1628-1694), and others. For example, it was not only known that the substance of the brain, upon incision, exhibits an outer, greyish layer, the cortex, and an inner, more pure white mass, the medullary substance; but the above-mentioned investigators had also shown that _the cortex of the brain_ consists of a numberless mass of small globular bodies, which are closely surrounded by blood-vessels and are continued in small thread-like extensions, which run into the medullary substance.[28] Now SWEDENBORG succeeded, as regards _these globular bodies_, in arriving at the conception that they are _the most important components of the cortex_ and that it is in these bodies that the nerves originate.[29] He called them ›_Sphaerulae_› or ›_Cerebellula_›.

Again, as regards the _medullary substance_, it was already known through the works of WILLIS (1622-1675), VIEUSSENS (1641-1716), BOERHAAVE (1668-1738), that it consists, for the most part, of a great mass of finer and coarser nerve-fibres, and that these, through the medulla oblongata,[30] continue down into the spinal cord, and that through the nerves they are in communication with the various parts of the body. The nerves were supposed to contain a lumen, thus being tubular. On the basis of certain _clinical experiences_ concerning the changes which occur in the functions of the soul, when the cortex of the brain is injured, SWEDENBORG succeeded in drawing the conclusion that the _same_ medullary fibres which are derived from the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex of the brain, continue into the spinal cord and are in connection with the nerves, and that thus an easily transmitted and continuous communication is established between the substance of the cerebral cortex and all the parts of the body, where the nerves are distributed.[31]

Concerning the _function_ of the brain, the old view of HIPPOCRATES that the brain was a gland was still entertained in SWEDENBORG’s time. The cortical substance served for secreting the ›spiritus animalis›, that is, what the ancients called the ›spirits of life›, and these were collected in the cortex of the brain that they might, when necessary, stream out through the nerves. The medullary substance was, according to the latest conceptions of that day, the origin and source of the soul’s activity, and the ›spiritus animalis› served as the connecting link between the soul and the sense-organs and muscles of the body.

SWEDENBORG also supposed that such a very easily flowing nervous fluid, ›fluidum spirituosum›, communicated the impressions of the senses and the impulses of motion: but this fluid determined the connection between sense-organs and muscles on the one hand, and the _cortex_ of the brain on the other. It was thus _the cerebral cortex! to which the impressions of the senses were carried, and from this the voluntary impulses were sent out_ to the muscles. The cortex was thus the seat of both the sensory and motor activities of the soul in the body. Œc. R. A. III., No. 133: ›Substantia enim corticalis est ipsum cerebrum, seu sensorium et motorium commune.›[32]

But SWEDENBORG was not contented with this general idea of the cortex as the seat of the sensations and the will. He also drew conclusions from his previous experience and results regarding the continuous connection between the elements of the cortex and the ends of the nerves distributed in the various parts of the body.