The first two statements have in our time been embraced with the liveliest interest and essentially corroborated. And as concerns the third, the same applies in part; but how great the validity of this statement is, it is for the future to decide.
Consequently SWEDENBORG arrived at almost the same result as that to which our own day has attained, although in a partly different manner. Our times have had the assistance of exact methods of investigation and of a most highly developed technique. In SWEDENBORG’s time the research method of microscopical anatomy and experimental physiology were yet in their cradle; and the two branches of science, medicine and pathology, which afterwards with the greatest interest have taken part in the investigation of the function of the cortex, had then hardly as yet turned their attention thither. As to how SWEDENBORG nevertheless succeeded in winning such rich and beautiful results in this field, and how well he employed the widely spread literature in question, I have attempted to show in this my presentation by tracing his path through the folios of the old authors and indicating the places where he gathered the material for his doctrinal structure and the premises for his conclusions. Finally, however, it should be emphasized that, when SWEDENBORG collected his facts from the many separated fields of literature, he found them not at all presented in the large works as important ›chief subjects›, or even as lying plainly at hand. No, he was often, so to say, obliged to dig out his material from a chaos of erroneous observations, false interpretations and curious conceptions; and afterwards he had to still further sift and elaborate it, before he could draw his conclusions out of it.
In view of all this one must say that it was in truth a _work of genius_ to search out of such a chaos the guiding threads which were concealed within it, and that, in spite of their imperfection in many points, nevertheless to be able to find so much of the truth!
[1] See the treatise of ANDERS RETZIUS on: ›The Origin and Development of Anatomy in the Scandinavian North›, which he delivered as an address on the occasion of his leaving the presidency of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on April 9th, 1845. See also GUSTAF RETZIUS: Preface to ›EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’s Scientific Works›, edit. by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., 1907, p. V., _et seqq._, and ALFRED H. STROH, M. A.: ›Some testimonies concerning SWEDENBORG, the Scientist›, Stockholm 1909, p. 10.