To the question Is the soul then material? Swedenborg had another question: "Pray, what is matter?" 32
He had already written a book about this, his Principia. In it, quite in line with modern physics, he had "reduced" or advanced matter to force. As has been mentioned, he called the first, simplest and most "superior" aspect of force the "universal" aura (or elementary constituent). This, he said, was "immaterial," if materiality be defined as "extension endued with inertia," for inertia is "the source of gravity," and "neither gravity nor levity can be predicated of" this force.
"The first aura of the world is not matter in this sense, but on the contrary active force, the origin of gravity and levity in terrestrial bodies, which do not of themselves regard any common centre, unless there be an acting, causing, directing force." 33
It was Swedenborg's conclusion that "in regard to substance" the soul-stuff, or spirituous fluid, was part of this universal aura; therefore, unless you defined "matter," it was hard to say whether soul was material or not. Were sense perceptions material? They must be, coming from material things, and being "modifications" [waves and/or frequencies of air or ether]. Then what about ideas based on perceptions?
"I do not understand," he said, "in what way an immaterial modification is distinguished from a material modification, unless by degrees, in that the immaterial is higher, more universal, more perfect and more imperceptible. Is not every created thing in the world and nature a subject of extension, and may not everything as extended be called material?" 34
But, he added, since the soul substance was capable of receiving life, and life came directly from the uncreated Infinite, or God, the soul might also be called immaterial, and so "the materialist and the immaterialist may each abide in his own opinion." 35
Among the cacti of scholastic terms so often used by Swedenborg, the layman is likely to be discouraged. It is a help to know that scientists are discussing the same problems today in very much the same terms, some of them coming to the same conclusion—that where there is life there is immateriality.
For instance, an eminent Swedish-American astronomer, Dr.
