not the case the same with the philosophers? Kant believed himself to be in a position to explain these delusions, the one by the other, and so to get rid of both.
"So entirely did Kant look down upon Swedenborg and his contemporaries the metaphysicians that he merely played with them, handling them now with serious irony, now with sly humour, sometimes pouring upon them his gallish scorn and dealing them the sharpest blows of his cynical wit. Such a tone is only assumed by one who sees his subject far beneath him. So did Kant hold himself in regard to the metaphysicians, to general philosophical knowledge, yea even to knowledge itself as a whole." (pp. 161, 163).
This judgment may be compared with Kuno Fischer: Geschichte der neu. Phil., Bd. III., p. 232: 2nd Ed., 1869, for remarkable agreements.[1]
That the "Dreams of a Spirit-Seer" was a humorous critique aimed chiefly at the philosophers of his day, using Swedenborg as a convenient because non-combative and comparatively unknown mark for his blows, is now generally conceded. But the century and a half that have elapsed since that time have brought Swedenborg out of his obscurity into light, and his real relation to Kant and the latter's great indebtedness to him is now
- ↑ "Swedenborg and Metaphysics were, to use a familiar phrase, for Kant 'two flies to be killed at one slap.' He went laughingly at it. The comparison was itself a witty one, and the philosophers took it up good-naturedly, and with all indulgence followed it out to its respective conclusions." Kuno Fischer, Gesck. d. neu. Phil. III, 232.
