of disease and gifted with an abnormally high visualising power. Hence
his resemblance to the mystics, which is a resemblance of psychical
temperament and not of spiritual attitude.

In the eighteenth century the names of William Law and William Blake
shine out like stars against a dark firmament of "rationalism" and
unbelief. Their writings form a remarkable contrast to the prevailing
spirit of the time. Law expresses in clear and pointed prose the main
teachings of the German seer Jacob Boehme;[6] whereas Blake sees visions
and has knowledge which he strives to condense into forms of picture and
verse which may be understood of men. The influence of Boehme in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is very far-reaching. In addition to
completely subjugating the strong intellect of Law, he profoundly
influenced Blake. He also affected Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, and
through him, Carlyle, J. W. Farquhar, F. D. Maurice, and others. Hegel,
Schelling, and Schlegel are alike indebted to him, and through them,
through his French disciple St Martin, and through Coleridge--who was
much attracted to him--some of his root-ideas returned again to England
in the nineteenth century, thus preparing the way for a better
understanding of mystical thought. The Swedish seer Emmanuel Swedenborg
(1688-1772) was another strong influence in the later eighteenth and the
nineteenth centuries. Swedenborg in some ways is curiously material, at
any rate in expression, and in one point at least he differs from other
mystics. That is, he does not seem to believe that man has within him a
spark of the divine essence, but rather that he is an organ that
reflects the divine life. He is a recipient of life, but not a part of
life itself. God is thought of as a light or sun outside, from which
spiritual heat and light (= love and wisdom) flow into men. But, apart
from this important difference Swedenborg's thought and teaching are
entirely mystical. He believes in the substantial reality of spiritual