WCP5204

[1]¹ [p. 63]

1. A recent presentation of Swedenborg's philosophical teachings by the late Rev. Thomas Child, under the title of "Root Principles in Rational and Spiritual Things" (H. R. Allenson, 1905) drew from Prof. Alfred Russell Wallace the warmest encomiums. In a letter to a correspondent, who had called his attention to the book, he wrote:

"I have read so many books that attempt a solution of the deepest problems of the universe and fail that I always approach a new one without any expectation of enlightenment.

[2] [p. 64] "But I very soon found that I had at last in Mr. Child met with a man who had thought deeply, who could reason logically, and, perhaps most important of all, could express his ideas in clear and forcible language, and arrange his whole essay in the form of a compact and continuous argument and illustration.

"In the form of a criticism of Haeckel, it expounds a new and very remarkable view of all the great ideas and principles which underlie the universe of man.

"So far as I know, it is the most complete and satisfactory theory of the nature of matter and of mind, of force and life, of spirit, immortality, and free-will, that has yet been given to the world."