Swedenborg's Cosmology. Lillian G. Beekman
opposition, of re- action with or against the current. The simplest motion which describes a boundary is a circular motion. Therefore a finiting motion is a circling motion, or that which describes a circle or closed field of some diameter.11 The ideal of the circular
10Principia, part I. chap. II. I. 8; chap. III. 7; The In- finite, chap. I. sec. IV. 2, sec. XV. conclusion; chap. II. sec. I. 6.
11Principia, part I. chap. II. 21; chap. IV. 18. part 2. line 48.
THE FINITING OF INFINITY.
motion, that which comprises in itself every type and degree of circling motion, is the circulo-spiral, or perpetually vortical motion.
THE ACCOMMODATION OF THE INFINITE TO THE FINITE. Under which of these five definitions can we see possible a first accommodation of the In- finite to the finite, a primal finiting of the Infinity of God, which will not infringe upon the Infinity of the Creator, and which will contain the seed adequate to the purposes of creation?
The accommodation of the Infinite to the finite, under the first, second, and third heads, viz., under expanse, origin, and duration, are at once negatived; on their faces they are absurd, impossible, and in- competent to the purpose.
The accommodation of Infinity to finiteness under the fourth head, namely, character of substance, is also negatived. For since the Infinite, as Sub- stance Itself, is a unity or a one, purely continu- ous, the distinction and marking off of the portions thereof, by any means involving severance, cutting off. separation, while it would indeed finite the por- tions so given and cut off, would also finite the re- mainder; and so in destroying the continuity of the Infinite, it would essentially infringe upon the one- ness of the Creating Substance. Moreover that
SWEDENBORG'S COSMOLOGY.
which is severed from its first is by that act anni- hilated.
Under the fifth head, activity or motion, Sweden- borg places the primal accommodation of the In- finite to the finite, or the first finiting of Infinity. Under this head alone accommodation is at once possible without essential infringement of the non- finiteness and unity of the Infinite, and adequate to the purpose; at once setting aside, distinguishing and defining portions of the Infinite Substance to be the substantia prima and see l of creation; and by the very mode of defining, imparting to the por- tions thus defined and appropriated, certain active powers of motion, capable of being a further means to their self-composition or concretion into a series of derivative finites, substantial, or substantiates; and abiding as a spring of reflexing motor force in all things of creation forever. Moreover in finiting by means of motion, there is no actual severance from the substance of the Infinite.
THE PRODUCTION OF VORTEX RINGS. The first finiting of Infinity, is, according to Swedenborg, the production of minimal and simplest points of circmo- spiral motion, that is, the production of vortex rings, small as points, in the Substance of the Infinite. The interior conatus to circulation of these vortex points is circulo-spiral; so that the whole point is
THE FINITING OF INFINITY.
not only in a vortex flow, but also gyres continually around its own axis. 12
So long as the vortex flow of these minimal rings is continued and sustained by the will of God, they continue to exist as entities in the Substance of the Infinite; they continue in one aspect distinct and bounded, enclosed and limited; that is, the circling motion of their flow is a first delineation of finiting.
These simple minimal vortices were existent in the Infinite before any finite or concrete entity had existence.13 They are to be called the medium be- tween the Infinite and the finite.14 They are not only the primitives of the first substantial or com- posites of creation, but they are its force and life.15 They are immediately Divine and superlatively per- fect.16 In them are supremely involved the ends of the universe, its human result, and the providence of the future.17
The Natural Point. The natural points, there-
12 Principia, part I. Chap. II. 12. 21. 22; Chap. III. 19.
13 Principia, part I. Chap. II. 8. 12.
14 Principia, part I. Chap. II. 10.
15 Principia, part I. Chap. III. 6. 7. II. 10; The Infinite, Chap. I. sec. IV. 3.
10 Infinite, Chap. I. last page; Chap. I. sec. V.
17 The Infinite, Chap. I. sec. XI, 2. 3; Principia, part I. Chap. II. 5.
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fore, are the first substance and source of that which, in its derivative composition, we call the created universe. They are the inmost, the first and primi- tive both of the spiritual world and of nature.18 They are produced by the Infinite, and are the im- mediate act of the Infinite finiting itself by reactive motion. They are in space without space; for the Infinite, prior to this first finiting, was everywhere existent without space; for space was not until the lower finite came into existence, being simultaneous and coincident with that act. They exist in all space without space in relation to the Divine; but in rela- tion to derivative creation there is in them the first beginnings and motions of space. Hence space and time have their origin in God, who is in all space and time without space and time. 19
The natural points or first simples are thus the medium between the Infinite and the finite; they are the first entia, and in their multitude and activity they so fill all the spaces of the universe that a vacuum is precluded. Their composite is the first substantial.
First substantials are the first boundary of mat- ter; that is, they are the first of the series of concrete
18 Ath. Cr. page 41.
19 T. C. R. 31.
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substances, the beginning and end of the Daedalian thread from which the compound universe is woven. In them the natural points or primitives become as it were a part of nature, since nature begins with them. For the natural points have in them an end and purpose toward the creation of man, for the sake of whom nature is. with all its suns and stars and solar systems.
For the leasts and greatests of every series mutually regard each other, and have coincident ex- istence in the Creative Will. Thus the least vorticles of motion regard the greatest; the motion of singu- lars regards the motion of mass; the motion of natural points regards solar centres and systems; and both together, operating as one in God, regard the production of man, as a sensitive microcosm, loving God and reacting to Him.
THE PRODUCTIVE ACTION OF THESE NATURAL POINTS is as follows: —
The perpetually vortex conatus in the natural points, or first simples of finition, is such that it sets these points into a local motion or gyre, of a pat- tern emulous of its interior circulation. This is of immense importance since it involves the law and the pattern of all the derivative production of the
20 Principia, part I. Chap. II. 22.
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series of finites or substantials. 20 And from this it is that all things which involve an end, constitute a circle. 21
All the motion of these simples is thus perpetu- ally reflexive or circular, all their action, all the lines in which they flow. For what they are within, that they do, that they act. That which is the pattern of their interior conatus or endeavor, that they re- produce in all their derivative motions. 22
Moreover, the perpetually reflexive flow of these vortex points, these primitives and simples of frui- tion, involves something deeper, more living still. In them is present in very figure and embodiment the image which manifests the inmost action of love, of love as a substance. For all love tends to return as a circle to the source from which it came.23