III ]
Parent Extraordinary
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himself. Swedenborg's lifelong passion for the genuine, both in religion and in science, has roots so deep that its origin must be traced to his most impressionable years. During them he had always before him a spectacular example of that "love of self" whose many subtle disguises he was to become expert in penetrating, even in himself.
But in 1703 the adolescent youth gave his entire love to a new world, one in which selflessness is quite often found—that of science.