EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Here we have a ready basis for Swedenborg's later understanding that God is in the Sun of heaven, and that through this Sun He sends life and force into the sun of this world, for the support of material existence. As to the fires of the damned, he suggests that the pain of burning is the effect of destruction of tissue, which cannot be what is meant in the Bible; but rather he thinks the remorses of conscience might be a sufficiently strong fire. In this, too, he is approaching the doctrine he afterward taught, that the fires of hell are the fires of selfish passion. But he piously concludes, "I hope that my philosophizing may not be misinterpreted; for, after all, the foundation is God's Word"
On the 1st of December he writes again—
"Most honored and dearest brother,—I send you herewith the little work which I mentioned in my last respecting a decimal system in our coinage and measures. This is the last that I will publish myself, because every-day and home affairs grow of small account, and because I have already worked myself poor by them. I have been singing long enough; let us see whether any one
70
