Swedenborg was shrewd in worldly affairs and discussed politics and finance in the Swedish Riksdag for nearly a score of years after his visions and theological writings had begun to occupy most of his time.
If the theological works of Emanuel Swedenborg at first were apt to discredit the results of his manifold scientific research in the eyes of those who did not share his theosophical views, the renown of the great religious thinker in later times has outshone the fame of which, as the versatile scholar and philosopher, he was so eminently worthy. With his younger contemporary, Charles Linnæus (or Carl von Linné), the case was different. There was in his career no radical change to divert or throw an umbrage over the fame he had won as a scientist of the very first rank.
Charles Linnæus, the most celebrated of Swedish scientists, was born at Rashult, in Smaland, in 1707. His father was a minister of a very subordinate charge of the state church. The neighborhood in which the young Linnæus grew up was not fertile, but rich in flowers, which were the toys and comrades of his childhood. He made but little progress at his work in the college of Vexio, being more fond of collecting and examining plants than of studying Greek and Latin. It was the wish of his parents that he should become a minister and the assistant of his father; but the youth had so little inclination to pursue the life or studies of a clergyman that he at last found it necessary to tell his parents so. He had found a friend and protector in Doctor Rothman, a district physician, who encouraged him to follow his ambition of becoming a naturalist and physician. Doctor Rothman supervised his studies in botany and succeeded in teaching him Latin by giving him the natural history of Pliny to study. In this manner Linnæus, who at college showed utter dislike for the classical languages, learned to write and speak Latin with ease. His teachers, who at first had advised his parents to let him quit the book, in order to take up some trade, were made aware of his gifted nature, but as he was found deficient in the regular courses, their recommendation, necessary for his admittance to the University of Lund, was very carefully worded. “The youths in our colleges may be likened unto little trees in a plant school, where it happens, although but rarely, that young trees upon which the greatest care have been lavished do not turn out well, but resemble wild stems, yet, when removed and transplanted, change their wild nature and develop into beautiful trees of agreeable fruit. Likewise, and for no other purpose, this youth is sent to the university, where he may venture into a climate favorable to his growth.” There was an accurate but unconscious prophecy concealed in this beautiful “recommendation,” which, curiously enough, has chosen the similes which were considered indispensable in the artificial language of the period from the world of plants, when speaking of the future flower king of the North.