Edmund Swift

“ Granting, for the sake of argument, that the first material human body was conceived in the womb of a female ape, from whence did the human essence or soul—the seat of spiritual and mental consciousness and intelligence—first come? Surely it is too gross a thought to suppose that the first human soul, with all its possibilities and capabilities of unending progress and development, its rationality and liberty, its conscience and aspirations after immortality, had an ape essence, an ape father (for the New Church teaches that the soul is from God mediately through the father) . ”

“ The monad, fish, bird, and other animals, the wondrous flower and majestic tree, the everlasting mountains and hills, the mighty ocean and mysterious firmament, may all exist spiritually in each human soul; and if each affection and thought, to which these things correspond, be kept in their proper place by a loving and active obedience to the Lord's commandments, all things, under the Lord's Divine Providence, will be adapted to each man's use in the process of his regeneration, until he stand forth a finished structure—a perfect man. ”

“ In God all things are uncreate and infinite; by creation they become limited and finite. Divine Life and Substance, in their first descent from God, become life and substance such as exist in the spiritual world; and in their further descent become life and substance such as exist in the natural or material world. Thus there is the Divine, the spiritual, and the natural or material,—God, spirit, and matter,—which are to each other as end, cause, and effect. The end or purpose of Creation exists in the mind of God; the spiritual world is the mediate creative cause through which God operates ”

“ It does not account for the varied modifications of external form and interior structure, nor for the perfect adaptation of every part of each organism to accomplish its own special work in the economy of Creation. And it in no way accounts for the existence of those spiritual and mental faculties and aspirations which distinguish man from all other created things. Neither conscience, freedom, with its moral responsibility, the immortality of the human soul, trust in the Divine Providence, nor belief in God as our Heavenly Father find any place in its cold and heartless philosophy. ”

“ Thus, though there undoubtedly was in Creation a progressive development from the earliest and simplest to the latest and highest forms, yet this progression was from within outwards, and not from without inwards; that is, from internal to external, and not from external to internal. All things are created and continually controlled by the Love and Wisdom of God, according to a Divinely perfect plan and fixed laws, and for a Divine end, this end being the creation of man, and the formation of the human race into an angelic heaven. ”

“ The place called hell is also in the spiritual world; it is the abode provided for all those who, by a life of continued and wilful sin, have voluntarily become confirmed in the love of evil, and thus have entirely destroyed Conscience within themselves. [2]
"God is Love," and because it is of the very essence of pure love to desire that what is its own may become another's, therefore God creates man, and endows him with rationality, freedom, and immortality to the end that He may forever have beings to love, who can freely and intelligently reciprocate His love. ”

“ From its heat, man, as to his soul or spiritual being, mediately derives from God his love or affection, and from its light he mediately derives from God his wisdom or intelligence. The united love and wisdom thus received constitute the spiritual life of his soul, even as the united heat and light proceeding from the natural sun constitute the mediate source of life from God to man's natural body. The spiritual world does not form any part of the material universe ”

“ Even supposing that God, without the agency of a male ape, used the womb of a female ape (or of any other animal) merely as a matrix for the first human germ, the "evolution" of man through such a medium involved as great or even a greater miracle than his "creation," without any such ape medium, in God's own "image." ”

“ Law implies Intelligence, and therefore the manifestation of law in all the works of Creation incontestably proves that God's Power acts intelligently and according to the wisest method that His infinite Love and Wisdom can devise. Without Intelligence there can be no Law, without Law there can be no Order, and without Order no good or useful work can ever be accomplished.
This subject would be incomplete without some notice of development in its higher aspect, as effected in each human being during the process of regeneration. ”

“ The New Church teaches that each created form in the world of nature has its distinctive spiritual essence, which is its animating formative soul; and that both the essence and form are intimately connected by a spiritual law—the law of Analogy or Correspondence, that is, the mutual relation of form to essence, of essence to form. ”

“ In the work of regeneration, that is, the new birth of the human soul into a true and perfect man, there is a process of mental and spiritual development, each succeeding and higher affection in the perfecting soul being a progressive development, not from, but still dependent upon, each preceding affection; even as each succeeding and higher material form in the work of creation was a progressive development, not from, but still dependent upon, previously existing forms. ”

“ The theory of Evolution as taught by Darwin and his disciples is, that some thing or some power created, from material substances, a living germ, and from it, by some law or force inherent in those substances, all other material forms were evolved or developed without any definite plan or without any necessary sentient all-controlling power. ”

“ Man is not a merely automatic recipient of life from God; but, different from all other created forms, he is endowed by his Creator with rationality, liberty, and immortality; therefore he is a responsible being, having within him all the faculties necessary to his endless progression in spiritual as well as in natural things, and having duties to perform towards God and his neighbor as well as to himself. ”

“ Another argument against the Darwinian theory of Evolution is, that it is not founded upon proven scientific facts; that is, science has not yet discovered (and the writer believes mere natural science never can discover) the exact process or law whereby inorganic elements become organized into vegetable and animal forms. Neither does this theory of Evolution explain why vegetable and animal forms always remain such, the vegetable never developing into the animal, or the animal into the vegetable. ”

“ The cause of all structural organization is the sentient spiritual "life" within; this it is which not only organizes the tiny vegetable and animal bioplasts, but it unceasingly animates and guides their marvellous operations, constructing and sustaining, through their unconscious agency, all the complex living machinery in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, including the material body of man. ”

“ The happiness of heaven is inherent in the love of doing good from the unselfish desire to serve others; and the misery of hell is inherent in the confirmed love of doing evil from the unrestrained love of self. ”

“ The information contained in the Writings of Swedenborg of the Divine method and plan of Creation is of a far loftier and more interior character than anything contained in the theories and speculations of our modern scientists, even admitting the undoubtedly great value of their essentially scientific investigations, that is, their observations of and reasonings from proven facts, in which true science consists. ”

“ The theory of Natural Selection, that is, the variations of structural form resulting from change in surrounding conditions, and the consequent increased use or disuse of certain organs, which, to some extent, forms part of the Darwinian theory of evolution, may be, and no doubt is, in a limited degree, true. ”

“ It is also difficult in the lowest forms of life to discern between vegetable and animal organisms; and even the animal consciousness which is called instinct is, in some cases, scarcely distinguishable from the unconscious vitality of the vegetable. But, admitting this difficulty, it only shows our want of further knowledge; and there is no reliable scientific evidence whatever that vegetable forms ever were or can be developed into animal forms, or vice versâ, merely by a varied arrangement or combination of their component inorganic elements. ”

“ The Darwinian theory involves the assertion, that man is but a sentient automaton—the mechanical combination, crystallization, or interaction and affinity of certain inorganuc elements, such as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, etc. Thus it supposes that the power of progressive development resides entirely in the inert material substances, and, therefore, that mind is but a development—a form and combination of matter and force. (A believer in the Darwinian theory once said to the writer that a grape which he was then eating might become the germ of a future thought.) ”

“ Therefore the Darwinian theory of Evolution, with all deductions drawn therefrom, being based upon these external appearances, rather than upon a knowledge of the interior laws whereby the creative life operates, must necessarily be untrustworthy and fallacious.
The real truth is, that life is spiritual; all organized material forms being visible manifestations and ultimate embodiments of that spiritual life. ”

“ All things exist after this order of Degrees. The material world exists from the spiritual world, as an effect from its cause, and both the spiritual and material worlds, with all their varied forms of life, exist from God their Creator. ”

“ The theory, in a condensed form, has been expressed in the following terms: "That the earliest organisms were the natural product of the interactions of ordinary inorganic matter and force. That all the forms of animal and vegetable life were successively developed from the earliest and simplest organisms. That man is only a higher animal and the lineal descendant of apes." ”

“ All reason, experience, and revelation prove, to the unbiassed rational mind, that man is not evolved from any lower animal; he differs from them all fundamentally,—physically, mentally, spiritually,—and therefore the origin and end of his existence differ from theirs also. ”

“ It is written, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." ↑ Heaven is not a place of eternal reward for good actions done during this life, nor is hell a place of eternal punishment for sins committed during this life; but, primarily and fundamentally, they are states and conditions of the human mind and character, voluntarily acquired and confirmed—in the former case by the orderly use, and in the latter case by the continued wilful perversion and abuse, of the faculties with which man is endowed by God. ”

“ Man alone, of all created forms, possesses the capability or possibility of containing within his nature all those spiritual affections and thoughts of which the varied forms of life are the representative types and patterns ”

“ It is a something in the life and in its varied method or law of operation which constitutes the actual difference between the inorganic and organic, between the vegetable and animal, and, most of all, between the merely animal and man. Creative Life is always intelligently operating according to a definite plan and fixed laws ”

“ Hence it is that man, through the abuse of that freedom with which he is endowed by God, to the end that he may be truly happy, has the power so to pervert his nature that, if he choose, it may become the very opposite of God's nature ”

“ The operation of this living force and of these laws is so undeviating that it is in appearance automatic, similar effects always resulting from similar conditions; hence it has been erroneously concluded that the life is inherent in the inorganic elements themselves, and that the varied forms of use and beauty are merely the result of a varied combination, interaction, and affinity of those elements. ”

“ The same is true, also, in a limited degree, spiritually as well as naturally, the various affections and aspirations in each individual being capable of adaptation to the ever-varying conditions by which he is surrounded. ”

“ This, together with the entire absence of scientific evidence that any vegetable or animal species ever developed into a distinctly higher species, are powerful arguments in favor of the doctrine that each distinct species, from lowest to highest, had a distinct spiritual origin. It is true that chemical and microscopical analyses demonstrate that similar inorganic elements enter into each of the three kingdoms of nature ”