Excerpt from Catalogue of the Library of the New Church Society, Henry Street, Bath: With a Biography of Swedenborg

In the year 1744, Swedenborg published at Amsterdam a work on the Animal Kingdom, in which were contained some remark able discoveries of his own in anatomy. The merit of these discoveries, also, was claimed by other scientific men, in works published many years afterward. But the truth was, that Swedenborg loved science and philosophy for their own sakes, not for the sake of fame and he therefore took no pains to claim to himself the merit of his discoveries. He regarded science only as the means of attaining true wisdom. Speaking, in one of his philosophical works, of those who pursue science for this true and noble end, he says Such persons reckon the sciences and the knowledge of mechanical works only as among the ministers of wisdom, and they learn them as helps to the attainment of it, and not that they may be reputed wise on account of possessing such knowledge. They modestly restrain the external mind in its tendency to be elated and puffed up, because they perceive the sciences to form an ocean, of which they can catch only a few dr0ps. They look at no one with a scornful brow or the spirit of superiority; nor do they arrogate any of their attainments to themselves; but they refer all to the Deity, and regard them as gifts from Him, from whom all true wisdom springs as from its fountain. Such was the spirit of modesty, humility, and devotion, with which the philosopher Swedenborg pursued his scientific investigations. He resembled, in this respect, the illustrious Newton, who, after having given to the world so many grand discoveries in science, said of him self, I feel only like a child, who has picked up a few pretty pebbles on the sea-shore, while the great ocean of truth lies all unexplored before me.

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