longer the sensuous world to act in. He was too
dogmatic for scientific observation, and would
not see that, as the spring follows the autumn,
and the day the night, so birth must follow
death. He went very near the threshold of the
Gates of Gold, and passed beyond mere intellectualism,
only to pause at a point but one
step farther. The glimpse of the life beyond
which he had obtained appeared to him to
contain the universe; and on his fragment of
experience he built up a theory to include all
life, and refused progress beyond that state
or any possibility outside it. This is only
another form of the weary treadmill. But
Swedenborg stands foremost in the crowd of
witnesses to the fact that the Golden Gates
exist and can be seen from the heights of
thought, and he has cast us a faint surge of
sensation from their threshold.




III


When once one has considered the meaning
of those Gates, it is evident that there is
no other way out of this form of life except
through them. They only can admit man to