SWEDENBORG ΟΝ THE MAXIMUS HOMO

BY THE REV. HENRY GORDON DRUMMOND, Manchester

International Swedenborg Congress, London, July 4 to 8, 1910

BEARING in mind the fact that the term body is applied to denote a single person, as in "somebody," "everybody," "nobody";  and, with equal propriety, a collection of persons, as in the case of public "bodies," the "body politic" and the general "body of mankind"; and remembering, moreover, that the term implies organization, structural form, such an arrangement and relation of parts as admits of their co-operative action—in a word, the efficient unit, we get a provisional idea of what is meant by the phrase, "Maximus Homo." It is the ideal Body; the greatest complete Organism; the Grand Unit of the life to come.

A unit is the least whole number of anything, and, in mathematics, a standard of measure. In relation to human bodies the least whole number is, of course, a single man. The single man is also the standard by which we measure corporate groups. We recognize the scheme of the unit in all our fellowships and associations. Intuitively we perceive that a society is an enlarged person. Its members take upon themselves functions that correspond to the members of the body of a man. In the unit of the kingdom or nation—the conception upon the maintenance of which the very existence of a people depends—the disposition is clearly seen. Every nation has its governing head; its attentive eyes and ears; its administrative hands and feet; its distributive organs. It acts as one body, and constitutes the Grand Man of the kingdom.

The late Frederick W. Η. Myers, in his posthumous work, Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death, makes a reference to Swedenborg which might serve as an introduction to the subject in its bearing upon the spiritual world. He describes him as "the first leading man of science who distinctly conceived of the spiritual world as a world of law." Whether Myers, in writing this, recognized that a "world of law" must necessarily be a world organized after the pattern of a body—an ideal world after the ideal pattern, which is that of a man—may well be doubted; but he goes on to assure his readers that it was " Swedenborg who originated the notion of science in the spiritual world as earnestly as Socrates originated the idea of science in this world of which we seem to know. It was to Swedenborg first that the unseen world appeared before all things as a realm of law; a region not of mere emotional vagueness or stagnancy of adoration, but of definite progress according to definite relations of cause and effect, resulting from structural Laws of spiritual existence and intercourse " (vol. i. 105). This testimony to the scientific character of Swedenborg's contribution to thought may be noted with more than a passing interest, coming as it does from one who sought an assured knowledge of that unseen realm, by means deprecated by Swedenborg. Myers set out, as a seeker after “signs," to find, or make, a path for himself and others through the mazes of psychic investigation; he ventured himself into the treacherous waters of spiritistic phenomena; invited whatever aid might, perchance, be afforded by the trance-medium, the clairvoyant, the crystal-gazer or the hypnotist; received the doubtful witness of materialized spirit-forms. Swedenborg on the other hand claims, through no seeking of his own other than the philosophic seeking after spiritual truth, to have been intromitted, by the Divine mercy of the Lord, through the opening of the sight of his spirit, into the spiritual world; and from the standpoint of this rare, and in some respects quite unique, experience, he discourses in the dispassionate and purely scientific manner, born of his previous labours as an investigator into material phenomena, of the things he has heard with his own ears and seen with his own eyes. The very dispassionateness of his account—apart from its sweet reasonableness and absolute consistency—carries conviction. His report is that all things are from law and according to it. The universe knows no fortuitous happenings and no independent existences. It is the manifestation of one supreme, all-comprehensive principle of government—that law of which Hooker wrote, "Her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world." It is inclusive of both natural and spiritual worlds, and all things therein are related; they are connected by "correspondence." "Anything unconnected and thus independent cannot even for one moment subsist; for that a thing subsists is from its connection with and dependence upon that from which is everything of existence " (A. C. 5377). It proves the same in its least parts as in its greatest. The whole may be interpreted from the part. Tennyson has said, of the flower,

 ". . . if I could understand
what you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is."

And such is the consistency and sublime solidarity of Swedenborg's universe.

That life is essentially the same in small things as in great is a truth that has long been held, tentatively at least, by the world. It is reflected in worldly-wise proverbs and maxims. Α straw is said to show which way the wind blows; a word is sufficient to the wise. Our faith in it as a working principle is proved by our habit of reasoning from particular things to general and even to universal. We read character at a glance; the mere turn of a head, or the tone of a voice is sufficient to reveal it to the observant and reflective mind. We find volumes in a look, life in a circumstance. The experienced anatomist will confidently build a skeleton from the evidence of a single bone. All this is admitted, but the fact should not be overlooked that particulars are eloquent of universals only to the man who already knows something of the universals to which they belong. To construct a skeleton from a bone you must first be familiar with the principles of skeleton formation. In other words, you must have a universal of thought. To tell what the flower is, "root and all, and all in all," you must have the understanding both of God and man.

In his doctrine of the "Maximus Homo," or the Grand Man of heaven, Swedenborg provides the universal of thought from which the particulars of experience may be systematically and intelligently regarded. Heaven, he tells us, is in the form of a man; it is a Universal Man.

He disposes of the popular misconception of angels as a specially created race. All angels, he tells us, were once men—are still amen, in fact—human beings born on this or some other planet in the material universe. No higher order of creation is possible; and no development can rise above it. For the human is the image of the Divine. Angels are men not because of their earthly beginnings, or of their once having been clothed with material bodies, but because the human itself is from heaven. God is a Man; He is, in fact, the "Very and the Only Man"; and the angels are only to be regarded as human, relatively to Him; they are men in the degree in which they reflect His form and character. So all the forms of the material world approximate to the human, for the same reason, namely, that they also are from heaven. They reflect, each in its own degree, the common origin. This is the universal of thought with regard to them—a universal entering into every least particular. In the light of this we may look "from nature up to nature's God" and so learn more of each. But not otherwise.

The perfect catholicity of Swedenborg's heaven need not surprise us when this principle of reasoning from the universal to the particular is remembered. It is no "little garden walled around." Rather is it “the true man's birthright grand"—the "fatherland" of all.

"Doth not the yearning spirit scorn
In such scant borders to be spanned?
Oh yes! his fatherland must be
As the blue heaven wide and free!”

He is the most broadly catholic of eschatologists. Heaven "cannot be composed of the men of one religion, but of many religions" (D. P. 326). None are excluded from it by any evil of heredity or other circumstance for which they are not responsible; through ignorance, or mere errors of education. They are excluded only by their own fault. The essential thing is that they should have a religion of some kind, and live according to it ; and to acknowledge God, and refrain from doing evil because it is sin against Him, are the two things that make a religion.

Those outside of the Christian world, if they have shunned evils as sins; and even those wholly ignorant of God—the heathen—if they have lived a moral life according to their lights, find a place in this great heaven—the place for which they are prepared and in which they realize to the utmost their own measure of heavenly joy, the highest of which their hearts are capable. Whether it be much or little they can bear no higher. And not even the good of all the religions of this earth can be sufficient to meet its demands, or fulfill its purposes. It looks also to other earths for its supplies. Contingents from different earths constitute different provinces, for it is foreseen and provided from eternity that all may be parts of this most perfectly constructed whole. The one worthy and sufficient home of happiness for men must be derived from the "entire human race" and be constituted of all who, since the creation, have striven

“After a life more true and fair."

Swedenborg happily estimates the number of those who have thus striven as very great. His science leads to optimism. The heaven formed from the inhabitants of this earth alone is immense. And yet it can be but a small part of the total, for all the planets visible to the eye in our solar system are earths, and beside these there are innumerable other earths in the universe, all full of inhabitants; and the universe was created for no other purpose or end than the existence of the human race, and of a heaven from it. Wherever there is an earth there are men. No rational man can think that a starry universe so immense could have been made for the inhabitants of one earth only. "What would this be for a Divine Being who is infinite?" And that he may more fully and firmly impress this point upon us, even from a, purely naturalistic point of view, he calculates that" if there were a million earths in the universe, and three hundred millions of men on every earth, and if two hundred generations succeeded each other in six thousand years, and a space of three cubic ells were allowed to every man, the total number would not fill the space of this earth, and indeed would occupy little more than the space occupied by a satellite of one of the planets; a space in the universe so small as to be almost invisible" (H. H. 417).

But let it not be supposed that a mere impression of vastness is all that this seer of the infinite is seeking to convey. The thought of the number and extent of the particulars that enter into the least of created things can only bewilder and dismay the mind that is not established in its universal form. There is nothing to be gained from any mere impression of indefinite extent. It is the definite idea that makes the achievements of thought possible. Here, then, is a conception offered to the mind so far-reaching in its scope as to be practically boundless, and yet so clearly defined in its character as to come within the compass, in some degree at least, of the simplest intelligence. Around this limitless thing, paradoxical as it may seem, has been drawn at the very outset a line, and by this line it becomes a subject of finite comprehension and inquiry. The intelligence of angels is from it. In the light of it other truths enter distinctly and clearly into their ideas (H. H. 59). It is no region of “mere emotional vagueness or stagnancy of adoration" to which it introduces, or through whose labyrinths it leads; it is a region of structural laws. Its form is to be seen reflected in the common things of earth. It finds its perfect miniature in men themselves. It is the "Maximus Homo."

In the popular imagination heaven is in one place—a kind of extended plane—where all who have been permitted to enter are assembled and are engaged in one monotonous and eternal occupation of playing harps and offering praise before the throne of God. Such, at least, has been the accepted picture in the past. But the revelation of a consistent "realm of law” and of “definite progress" changes the picture at every point. The "Maximus Homo," we are assured, is composed of societies, or groups of angels occupying places, some above and some beneath, some within and some without, precisely as the various organs of the human body are placed. These societies correspond to such organs, and consist of those who are in the exercise of such uses. They are quite distinct from one another, and yet so related as to be in communication. Their arrangement, in short, is such as to admit of their co-operation in act, as one man, a result which could not be obtained if the distinctions of the "body" were not observed. Communication, we are told, is effected not by any intermingling of group with group, but by an extension of the sphere which goes forth from the life of each. Those who occupy a central position have, as might be expected, the widest sphere and exercise the greatest influence ; their personality is diffused throughout the whole, and in this way all are said to be in each, and each in all, while remaining distinctly themselves. As this is the established and invariable order of the parts in every society, as well as of the societies themselves as parts of the greater whole, the propriety of their being named after the particular parts or functions of the body to which they correspond, is apparent. “The angels know in what member this or that society is. This society, they say, is in a certain part or province of the head; that, of the breast, and so on." The correspondence may be traced not only in a general way, but in detail; there are those that correspond to each constituent of the heart, lungs, organs of sense, bones, nerves, glands, arteries, flesh, skin and hair; all have separate places and functions to fulfill in relation to the whole, and each derives its life from the Lord, through the heavens, and subsists thence by the continual communication of spheres.

It is solely by virtue of this form and communication that heaven, notwithstanding its immensity and the widely varied elements that compose it, is ruled by the Lord as a single man is ruled, that is, as a whole. For a man consists of an innumerable variety of things, of members within members and parts within parts, and still acts as one. This is from the perfection of the order in which he is. He lifts his hand not merely from the power of the hand, or its individual willingness to be lifted, but from the concurrence of the whole body acting under the direction of the mind. In the effort of walking it is not the feet only that are concerned; but they, in the exercise of their distinctive function, lend themselves to a movement of the whole. The entire man is thus implicated in every action. "And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee; nor the head to the feet, I have no need of you . . . And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." Nor can  anything be included in this form, whether with respect to the universal heaven or its image in a single man, which is not of use to the whole; nor can the whole be maintained as a whole except it be of use to the parts. There is an unbreakable covenant of mutual services throughout. "Any one who wants to live or act his own life cannot be in the Grand Man . . . but expels himself” (S. D. 3419). And again, "Those not initiated to act in a society are not in the Grand Man” (S. D. 3041). It is by our associations we are prepared to enter it; no man can be saved or be in heaven by himself. And just as, according to Lowell,

“No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him,"

so, according to Swedenborg, no man is born into heaven whose work is not born with him there. For to be in a society is to be in a function, that is, in the efficient performance of a particular use upon which the welfare of the whole depends. The conception is at once the simplest and the most profound that can engage the attention of the mind. Expressed in suitable words, it might appeal to the lively and uncorrupted imagination of a child, and yet in the complexity of things involved, it is beyond the comprehension even of the most instructed among the angels. It is such in fact that it can never be completely known, except to the Infinite Mind itself. Difficulties in the way of its understanding by the finite natural mind may be expected. They arise chiefly from the disposition of that mind to confuse the idea of essential form with instrumental shape. When the human form is spoken of it is quite natural that an idea of the shape in which it is expressed in matter should immediately present itself and take possession of the mind. For the two are so intimately connected as to appear one. The shape of the instrumental material body corresponds to the form from which it exists. But there are no spiritual "shapes," properly speaking. The idea of shape is that of a limitation in space—the limitation demanded by the exigencies of a material world. It is clear, however, that as a man is a man not from the form of his body but from his mind, the form of the mind may be regarded as the more truly and characteristically human of the two—that, in fact, it is human in a prior sense. It is the cause of which the other is merely the effect. "The material form which is added and super-induced in the world is not the human form of itself." It is a derivation from that form. A man is a man because he can understand what is true, and will what is good, and the earthly body is only an addendum or instrumentality by which he may perform uses on the material plane. In these uses his understanding of what is true and his will of what is good find their expression; and it may hence be said of them that they also are in the human form, for whatever a man does has relation to his life as a man, and is according to the form of that life. His religion takes that form because it has relation to his life. His good takes that form for the same reason. It is a personal thing. Even the abstract idea of a virtue is the idea of what is proper to a person; it follows in the mind the lines of human conduct; it appears, that is to say, as a man —as one who is virtuous. The ideas of justice, mercy, humility, faith are not the ideas of abstract things, nor of things indefinite. They are not to be met with floating about in the atmosphere as vapours; nor do they present themselves as the characteristic properties of any earthly substance. They are personal things. They may find, it is true, a dim reflection of themselves—visible to the eye of the poet—in vegetable, and more in animal life. They show faintly in these, as in a mirror, when the face that looks into their reflective surfaces is human. But their own native and abiding dwelling-place is always and only to be found in man. Not only are they capable of having such a form impressed upon them, or of being compressed within its limits, but they are themselves the very lines of that form. In departing from these the man is spiritually deformed. So also the idea of love, of which our poets for ages have sung, to which temples have been erected and worship offered by every kindred and tongue and people and nation; which is held to be "an attribute to God Himself," nay, more than attribute, the very essence of His being, and which has been presented to this Congress as the "Ultimate Reality," is the idea of that which looks at us through human eyes and thrills us with the touch of a human hand, and has no purer form, no completer shape, in which it may be recognized. In its highest manifestation it is the personal thing—never the impersonal. It is the man himself. Its form is human. It humanizes all it touches. It makes many into the form of one, being itself in that form. It is the "Maximus Homo."

Difficulties arise from the natural disposition to think of spiritual things from an idea of what is material. This, of course, is the fatal disposition of the materialistic mind. To begin thus, is to begin in a cul-de-sac. The mind can travel no farther in that direction. And this not merely because of the confusion of planes involved, but because of the peculiar function of matter. Material things are given to serve spiritual needs by providing a termination for thoughts place on which thinking may rest, acquire something of fixity, and thence return to its own plane. Thought, being in itself spiritual, begins on the plane of the spirit and only descends to the earth as a bird from the air, to satisfy a temporary need. The order of its proceeding is from spiritual, by natural, to spiritual. We begin to think of nature or of any natural phenomenon not from itself, but from an idea of that of which it is the appearing. The real starting-point of one's thought of a tree, for instance, is the idea of what the tree stands for, or of what may appear in it—a purely mental thing. It may be quite a childish idea, to begin with; and, if so, the proceeding thought is childlike; there is very little development in it. But the idea, as we find, grows with the growth of the mind; it takes a maturer form, and the thought of the tree ceases to be that of a child ; it becomes the thought of a man, and finds everywhere a reflection of itself—an analogy, as we call it—in all the things of nature. Even the tree is now a man; this is what it has been standing for; the thing to which it corresponds. To think from this is to think as the angel does—comparatively, indeed, as God may be supposed to think. It is to follow the true and only progressive line of thought from the universal to the particular and from the centre to the circumference. As a ball will rebound from a wall against which it has been thrown, so a thought may rebound from its contact with material things; but just as no wall is capable of first throwing the ball, so no material thing is capable of giving the first impulse to the thought.

The recognition of this principle of order with respect to thought is essential to the comprehension of our subject. To think progressively of the human form is to remember that the true constituents of a man only terminate in what is material, as the spiritual world terminates in nature, and that it would be as reasonable to expect to determine the quality of the friendship expressed in a letter from an idea of the shape of the characters or the composition of the ink employed in writing it, as to discover the form of the universal heaven in the mere shape of the frame that serves the purposes of life in this world. Nevertheless, there is a relation, and a plenary correspondence between the two. The purposes of life, wherever it may be lived, are the same, and they are the purposes of heaven. They are responsible for every bone and sinew, every nerve and tissue in the instrumental structure; yea, every single corpuscle, and constituent of a corpuscle, in the blood. There is nothing included which does not owe its existence to that universal of purpose of which it is a particular expression; and nothing which does not perform a use to the whole. And as the purpose is the realization of the common good, the common good can be neither more nor less than the fulfillment of its form. It is the embodiment of the principle of “All for each, and each for all." This is the order of heaven; and whether we say the order of heaven or the form of heaven it amounts to the same, because "the form of everything is derived from and in harmony with its order."

The Grand Man of heaven, which finds a place for the good not only of every religion and nation on the earth, but of all the earths in the starry universe, may therefore be thought of clearly, definitely, and progressively, as the fulfillment of the order of the ideal human life, which in its essence is the Divine Life, proceeding from the Divine Human of the Lord. He is the All in all; and hence it follows that “in the supreme sense the 'Maximus Homo' is the Lord alone" (Α. C. 3637). This is the requisite universal of angelic thought, which enters into every particular and forms it all into its own likeness. By this the angelic mind is led continually on in its search into the inexhaustible things of life. It is a conception that can never become full, any more than the heaven of heavens can become full, but, like it, must continually reach out and be perfected to eternity. Its perfection is in its capacity for endless increase.

As we seek to follow it to its ultimate issues in our own affairs, it spreads out from us in successive circles of thought like the concentric rings produced by the dropping of the stone in the still bosom of the lake, suggestively described by Pope in words which may fittingly bring this paper to a close :—

"The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour first it will embrace,
His country next, and next all human race;
Wide and more wide the o'erflowings of the mind
Take every creature in of every kind.
Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blest
And heaven beholds its image in his breast."

[References in this article, are from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, an eighteenth century scientist (read the full biography). Swedenborg penned thirty-five volumes from things he heard and saw in the spiritual world for a period of more than twenty-five years.  This material is available online or in literature form. If I can be of assistance, feel free to contact me.]