Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic/Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Engineer and Mining Expert
BUT there was no opening for Emanuel Swedberg in his native country. He had not graduated from a technical school—Sweden had none—nor at that time were there great corporations competing to secure the services of a bright young engineer and inventor. Emanuel had collected his scientific knowledge bit by bit, tracking it down in different countries and collating it laboriously himself, but it was knowledge that had as little official standing as theology in our own day. Yet he could see only too well that his country needed his gifts. After fifteen years of war, bad harvests, famine, pestilence, and never-ceasing conscription of men and materials, Sweden was near a final agony, due to "Iron Head," 1 as the Turks had named Charles XII, and his iron pride which did not permit him 1o retreat.
Emanuel was passionately ambitious to be useful, to do something practical. Where was he to go?
Immediately after his return from abroad he had nowhere to go but home to his father at Brunsbo. There, while the Bishop was willing enough to try to advance his son, the latter met with a wall of incomprehension. The Bishop listened to Emanuel's account of finding the longitude at sea by means of the moon with such indifference that, in a letter to a favorite of the King's, he said his son wanted to build an observatory "in order to find the latitude on the ocean." But Bishop Swedberg knew that in an absolute monarchy one got as close to the King as possible, and this was a letter written to promote Emanuel. He also mentioned that his son was qualified "in the Oriental and European languages," and "especially in poetry and mathematics." 2 Not a letter calculated to interest Charles XII, if he ever saw it.
Worse still, as Emanuel confided in a letter from home to Benzelius, his d:father had mislaid the drawings and the intricate calculations for the machines he had invented. "He thinks they've been sent to d:brother, from my heart I wish it were so, since it cost me work enough to set them down."
They were not found. Emanuel began again to work on a hoisting machine, but he dutifully begged Benzelius to keep him in mind if there should be an opening at the university. Barnacled though it was with long-lived professors, this seemed his only chance to function.
Far more to his taste was the effort to haul Sweden forward into line with other nations in regard to science. Why shouldn't Sweden have a Scientific Society? Why shouldn't Sweden have a scientific journal, and one not in Latin as usual but in the tongue of the people so that research might be encouraged among them? Did not Sweden have Christopher Polhem, the great inventor, and should not his inventions be published along with those of others, such as Emanuel's?
Benzelius agreed, but evidently the Bishop thought it a waste of time and money, for soon Emanuel was writing bitterly to his brother-in-law: "A single word to my father from you on my behalf will be worth more than twenty thousand remonstrances from me. Without making any recommendation you can advertise him of my project, of my solicitude for studies so that he will not imagine in the future that I would waste time and at the same time his money. One word from another will be worth more than a thousand from myself."
But this highly uncommercial venture turned out to be more practical than the Bishop suspected. Christopher Polhem became interested in Emanuel again. He had met the youth and noticed his genius for mechanics five years previously, and now he was more than touched that this young man wanted to publish an account of the Polhem inventions, and at his own expense.
The first number of Daedalus Hyperboreus, Emanuel's magazine, was published in January, 1716, the chief feature being the description of an ear-trumpet invented by Polhem.3
At this time there was no textbook of arithmetic in all of Sweden, so Emanuel persuaded Polhem to write one, and he promised to pay for that too, not knowing where the money was to come from. Luckily he inherited a little money from his mother's iron works and was able to pay for both the magazine and the arithmetic, which had the alluring title of Glorious in Youth, Useful in Manhood, Pleasant in Old Age.4
Still, publishing Daedalus was not an occupation. The question came up again of whether he couldn't secure a professorship at Upsala. Writing to Benzelius, Emanuel urged that a Scientific Society would "heal the country . . . both in the establishment of manufactures and in connection with mines, navigation, etc.," and that therefore a seventh of the university income could well be given for this purpose. He said he thought it would be wonderful if the existing professors would donate one seventh of their salary to it; then he could become the first professor of mechanics.
Benzelius was highly alarmed lest the professors get wind of this fine scheme, and Emanuel said he had been joking. Yet, what was he to do? There had been one gleam of hope. Polhem had promised to take him along as his assistant engineer in building a dam and a dry-dock for the Admiralty, but then the irrepressible King went to war again, hammering at the Norwegians this time. In the middle of June, 1716, Emanuel wrote to his brother-in-law that Polhem was not coming after all, that "he thinks all good plans and inventions come to nothing," and "it seems to me," Emanuel groaned, "that Sweden is now laid low . . . when she will probably kick for the last time." With a cautious flicker of his real feeling toward Charles XII, he added, "we have hardly anything better to expect if the Lord permit Him to remain."
Meanwhile he brought out three more numbers of Daedalus and was applying desperately for the secretaryship of Upsala University when things suddenly changed. The King came back to his temporary court at Lund and ordered Polhem to attend him there to see about the new Carlscrona dry-dock, and Emanuel accompanied Polhem.
It was in November, 1716, that "Iron Head" and Emanuel Swedberg first met. The King, always avid for science, was charmed by the four published copies of Daedalus, nicely bound with a special dedication for him, while Emanuel was charmed by the King's interest in mechanics and his penetrating understanding of mathematics.
Polhem lost no time, he struck while "Iron Head" was hot. In a memorial to the King, he recommended Emanuel Swedberg for the only position in the kingdom where his abilities might have full scope, as a member of the Board of Mines. First flattering the King on his own knowledge of the mechanical sciences, he next spoke of the little honor mechanics was held in, being considered as only "the art of a common workman" when yet "it demands much labor and brainwork." He wanted honor for the engineers. "At this time I know of no one who seems to have a greater bent for mechanics than Herr Emanuel Swedberg." Wouldn't it be better to grant him "some prerogative of honor" rather than let "so useful a subject apply himself to some other pursuit"? Wouldn't it be wiser, rather than let young Swedberg go academic, to have him in a field where he could be of greater service, namely, as a member, or assessor, of the Royal Board of Mines? Especially since one who understands mechanics is needed no less than one "who understands the mining ordinances."
The Royal Board of Mines (known as the College of Mines) was like a department of commerce, having complete supervision over the vital mining industry of Sweden. It consisted of a president, two councilors, and four assessors (members entitled to a seat and a vote). "Extraordinary" assessors, while entitled to a seat and a vote, got no salary until through a vacancy they were advanced to "ordinary" assessorship.5
There were no vacancies when Polhem recommended Emanuel Swedberg, but Charles XII appointed him an extraordinary assessor,6 the only one, an honor which had not been granted since 1684—with the proviso that he was at least temporarily to remain Polhem's assistant. The King made inquiries about young Swedberg (he was then twenty—eight) but no doubt he chose him first and foremost because he saw and felt the energetic ability and unusual knowledge of the man. Charles recognized and appreciated able men.
But in the bureaucracy where not only seniority but status as a nobleman was necessary for advancement, the King's appointment of a complete outsider met with resentment. It began at once. Baron Cronhjelm, the high official who was told to make out the warrant, wrote it in such ambiguous terms that Emanuel protested to the King. Then Charles ordered his "opposer," so Emanuel wrote to Benzelius, to give him a new and more explicit warrant, and the King made Cronhjelm sit down at the royal desk and write it in duplicate. "So that they who sought the worst for me were glad they had come out of the matter with honor and reputation, so nearly had they burned their fingers."
Emanuel was to learn that those are expensive satisfactions, no matter how just, especially since Cronhjelm, already powerful, was after Charles's death to become the equivalent of prime minister. But for the present Charles was alive, an absolute monarch, and, although tight about money, delighted to talk science with Emanuel. Nor was there any immediate question of taking up his work at the Board of Mines; there was plenty of other work. Polhem and Emanuel occupied themselves, with royal favor and little salary, in trying to start new industries in the impoverished country.
The King had read an article in Daedalus about how to get salt from the sea. Sweden had been importing it. Emanuel was told to establish salt-works. He was also busy with calculations for the great Carlscrona dry-dock. Emanuel had been put up by Benzelius to suggest to Charles that an inland waterway from Stockholm to the Kattegat would be a good idea, so the King had ordered Polhem and Swedberg to look into this, the forerunner of the modern Göta Canal.
The two engineers traveled strenuously about the country, looking at suitable sites, considering financial ways and means, running into endless difficulties, but the Carlscrona dam did get built, and the canal was started. Something might come of the salt-works too, Emanuel thought, "if selfishness does not rule too powerfully."
He was beginning to discover other than material obstacles to his practical work, but on the whole he was so happy in functioning that when Benzelius told him he had a chance to be named the professor of astronomy at Upsala he was "a thousandfold grateful," but declined to apply. "My genius," he wrote to this intimate friend, "is mechanics and shall likewise be chemistry." Furthermore, he could be "of greater practical use to the fatherland" where he was.
As he had told Benzelius once, he thought that for every ten mathematicians there ought to be one practical man to bring them to market. He felt himself to be that man.
But on November 30, 1718, Charles XII was killed by a rather mysteriously fired bullet in the Norwegian campaign. Emanuel's last piece of work for him had been the carrying out of Polhem's plan for transporting some Swedish warships over land, a distance of sixteen and a half miles, so as to prevent their capture by the enemy. It was a great engineering feat, and, like the whole of Charles's life, of but temporary value.7
With the King's death, work on the canal was stopped and with it the employment of "Em. Swedberg" as a practical engineer.
He was, however, far from being a narrow specialist. He had already begun to study mining and metallurgy in the district around Starbo, where his stepmother owned property the income of which she had allotted to him, her favorite stepson. As early as April 6, 1717, he had been formally "seated" at the Board of Mines and had continued to attend meetings until his duties with Polhem called him away.
But that was while Charles XII was alive. After his death, although Emanuel had been vigorously qualifying himself for the job, the Board refused to grant him a salary. It may have been some encouragement to him that in May, 1719, he was ennobled, along with the rest of Bishop Swedberg's children, taking the name of Swedenborg. (This was quite commonly done for the children of bishops, though not for the bishops themselves. Bishop Swedberg had been campaigning for it a long while.)
Ennobled or not, Swedenborg began to be further conscious of the obstacles to progress in his country. During that summer he put on paper a description of Swedish blast furnaces, and various inventions in regard to more airtight stoves, but, he wailed to Benzelius: "All such speculations and arts are unprofitable in Sweden and are esteemed by a lot of political blockheads as scholastic matters which must stand far in the background while their supposed finesse and intrigues push to the front."
He attended the Board several times in November, 1719, without being recognized as an assessor entitled either to salary or recognition, so he ceased attendance, but continued to study mining. Other matters claimed his interest. He wrote a booklet on the coinage question, recommending the decimal system, and this, he informed Benzelius, was really to be his last word, he was tired of the contempt shown toward "daily and domestic matters." "I've already worked myself poor with them, and have sung long enough to see whether any one opens up and puts some bread in my hand for it."
His chief income had been his share of the profits from the furnaces and forges left by his own mother, and he had used it generously for the printing of Daedalus and other little technical works, including Polhem's arithmetic, leaving so little for himself, when he lived in Stockholm, that "a single stiver [ha'penny] was precious to me." Now, he thought, if he could only get some money he would go abroad to study mining and metallurgy there. "For he may be regarded as a fool who is a free and independent fellow and has his name in foreign lands, and yet remains here in darkness (and freezes to boot), where the Furies and the Envies and Pluto have their abode and are those who dispose of all rewards."
When twice in 1720 vacancies occurred in the Board of Mines, Swedenborg applied for a full assessorship with salary, listing the many genuine accomplishments which warranted his requests, but each time another was preferred.
Meanwhile his stepmother, Sara Bergia, the Bishop's second wife, died, leaving her considerable property to her stepchildren. She had wanted to leave it all to Emanuel, but this the Bishop had prevented, the poor woman being on her deathbed. Even so, the money which Emanuel acquired after the division of the estate was enough for his simple needs to enable him to go abroad in the spring of 1722. Before he left he carefully informed the Board of Mines that he was leaving in order to learn about foreign mines and metallurgy, and that, if they graciously wished to approve of his plans, he would look for their letter in Amsterdam.
He put "Assessor" after his name.
Except for duly filing the letter, the Board did nothing about it. They hadn't the courage to shed entirely this irregular, dynamic individual with whom the late King had saddled them, but they did not intend to encourage him.
In July, 1722, Swedenborg was back, armed with new expert mining knowledge as well as with prestige of the kind that only "abroad" seems to confer. In the Netherlands and in Leipzig he had published several little books. They had received flattering reviews in important German scientific journals. One book was on his favorite subject of finding the longitude at sea, the others were on chemistry and physics with especial attention to mining matters and a sprinkle of philosophy. He had studied geology and mining, the latter in the Hartz Mountains, where he had made friends with a reigning prince and his brother. When he studied in England he sought out only scholars; now he probably realized the need of more worldly support if he were to impress the people at home.
Swedenborg's tussle with officialdom continued, and after new appeals to the Board he was seated as an assessor extraordinary without pay, in April, 1723. About a year later he turned down Benzelius's suggestion that he should allow his name to be put forward as successor to Celsius, the professor of astronomy at Upsala. Even though such a position carried with it a large salary, he did not now, he said, find any inclination in himself toward an academic career, and, furthermore, "to give up something in which I think I am functioning usefully would be indefensible."
At last, after more petty maneuvers by the jealous, all of which he met with great patience, persistence, and dignity, Emanuel Swedenborg was appointed a full assessor of the Board of Mines, though even then he had to begin with a smaller salary than was customary. That was July 15, 1724. (It was 1730 before he received the full salary.)
This was an event of signal importance in his career. He had not only acquired the status which was all-important in a country which he considered so status-ridden as Sweden, but he had got as close as he could to fulfilling his heart's desire—a chance to work in applied science for the building up of his country, worn tragically thin after almost a century of wars.
Assessor Swedenborg, thirty-six, had already accomplished a good deal. He was living now independently at Stockholm instead of at rural Starbo which he had not long before envisaged as his only refuge. He had helped found the first Scientific Society in Sweden, of which the six numbers of his Daedalus had been the first journal; he had carried out large-scale engineering works; he had made himself thoroughly conversant with nearly all that there was to be acquainted with in astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, and mining. He had published various scientific brochures or had the manuscripts discussed at the meetings of the Society.
As early as 1719 he had published a little book in which he proved from his own observations of stones, strata, and fossil remains that large parts of Sweden had formerly been under water. (In our own time an eminent geologist has said that this work alone would suffice to gain Swedenborg an honored name in science.8)
Meanwhile he had been sending extremely commonsense memorials to the Swedish Parliament. In 1723 he was especially active, giving good and mainly unheeded advice. To improve the country's almost nonexistent finances, he recommended an improved merchant marine, a survey of imports to find out what was essential and what might as well be made at home, and how to make better and cheaper goods. In other summaries the same year he dealt with the mining trade, showing how foolish it was to favor the production of copper rather than iron merely because copper was supposed to be a "nobler" metal. He pointed out, moreover, how impractical it was of Sweden to export its pig iron to be rolled in Liége or the Saar, when rolling mills could be established at home. He supported his contentions with excellent drawings and minute technical descriptions.
He could do little with the parliament, but he now had his own work with the Board of Mines, work that brought him into close touch with many people as well as with the most vital physiology of Sweden. Sweden's food, so to speak, was iron and copper, its means of digestion was the charcoal made from its forests. The Board of Mines, directly responsible to the Crown, controlled all mining and allied interests, having every power short of actual ownership. It appointed mining officials and settled industrial disputes involving owners and workers. It regulated prices and imposed or withdrew taxes. It licensed new mines, forges, almost every shack, and it mapped out the distribution of charcoal. Other bureaus were associated with it, such as a bureau of metal testing, charts and measurements, a chemical laboratory and a mineralogical cabinet, so that Swedenborg's many-sided knowledge found full scope. He was often called on to assay the quality of iron produced, and he turned in technical reports, such as those on forest conservation, hoisting machines, blast furnaces, and the market value of sulphur.9
The position was no sinecure. The Board met every weekday from September till the middle of July. There was a roll call, and the reasons for absence were noted. During the summer months some of the assessors went on tours of inspection in the mining districts, and Swedenborg did his share. Reports remain of seven such commissions, often covering several hundred pages. He turned in detailed and meticulous expense accounts. Anyone who has driven through the Swedish forests in a motorcar and even then has felt a certain panic that they would never stop can imagine what it was like for Swedenborg on horseback or in carriage laboring along the roads of his day.
An investigator of the records has written of his "stopping at the inns and farms for food, examining charcoal burners in their lonely huts, or holding meetings with the local agents and owners in a country school house, settling small difficulties, making recommendations as to new appointments, explaining mining statutes to the people, even taking an interest in the establishment of orphanages for the children of miners; often risking his life in steep descents into the gloomy underground caverns, where imperfect shafts and rude ladders made it very dangerous for one not daily accustomed to them." 10
He had far more than a desk job, but besides this he carried out commissions for the family in Stockholm, even to shopping for his sisters—gloves were much in demand—and, to make it a complete human picture, he had a lawsuit with one of the family, his formidable Aunt Brita Behm. She had it with him, rather; it was about a mining property which had been left to them jointly. Emanuel had been called in to help make other members of the clan see reason in such matters, indeed he often gave the decision against his own interests. But Aunt Brita (probably put up to it by someone else) insisted on the physical division of the property, which would have hurt both their interests. This he pointed out in calm cogent words, no matter how much she pettifogged and blustered. A reconciliation was finally arrived at, but for a long while the affair had dragged on. Whenever all else was tranquil, up turned Aunt Brita with a new twist to the lawsuit.11
In Assessor Swedenborg's spare moments, between 1722 and 1731, he had been collecting material for a great work on mineralogy, putting down his theoretical and practical knowledge of metals and mining. Not only this, but the new work was also to contain his reflections on the origin of matter. That part of it was to be a philosophizing scientist's view of the world.
By 1731 Swedenborg had practically finished this work, and by 1733 he was given leave of absence from the Board of Mines in order to finish his researches for the mining matters in the book and also to have it published abroad.12
He kept a diary '3 for most of this journey through Dresden to Prague, recording what he saw with such meticulousness that it must have been intended as a report to the Board. It was mostly about mining processes and metallurgy, but it also had his observations on the making of arsenic, cobalt blue, mirrors, peat-fuel, saltboiling, in fact on any method of manufacturing, anything into which he could steal a look. He proved himself an acute factual observer. Having seen a thing once he seemed able to report every technical detail.
To scenery he gave vague appreciative tributes now and then, but gardens interested him passionately, especially those with orange and lemon trees, whose very measurements he took. He noted buildings and the general condition of people, but he was even more on the lookout for books. He found one on the kinds of worms that destroy ships and wooden piles as well as remedies against them. Into his diary went a résumé, with his own observations attached. In every library of consequence be searched for scientific books, recording his disappointment when he found mainly "old codexes." The makers of books he sought as well. "It would be too prolix to mention all the learned men I visited and with whom I became acquainted on these journeys, since I never missed an opportunity of doing so. . . ."
In July, 1734, Swedenborg was home again, with the prestige of a solid and successful book behind him. While he was in Leipzig, he had seen through the press, at the expense and with the admiration of his intelligent friend and patron, Duke Rudolph of Brunswick, the three big volumes of his Opera Philosophica et Mineralia ("Philosophic and Mineralogical Works").
The first volume, Principia Rerum Naturalium ("The First Principles of Natural Things"), was his map of the world. But as for years he had been investigating the ever-lengthening chain of causes behind the visible world, the book really was his account of the origin and structure of matter and of the evolution of our solar system. 
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG AT FORTY-FIVE
From a copper engraving in Vol. I of his Opera Philosophica et Mineralia, by the engraver Bernigroth, published in 1734. Swedenborg's friend J. C. Cuno said of this, "Although finished forty years ago, it is still perfectly like him, especially in respect to the eyes which have retained their beauty even in his old age."