meaning of colours in the Books of the Prophets and the Apocalypse. The Koran also presents the same theory in the visions and costumes of Mahomet.

The Moors of Spain, materializing these symbols, formed a language which had its principles and its dictionary. A modern author has given a catalogue of more than sixty of these emblematic colours, and the meaning of their combinations.* France adopted them, and preserves traces of them in the popular language. Blue is still the emblem of fidelity; yellow of jealousy; red of cruelty; white of innocence; black of sadness and mourning; and green of hope. Thus finishes the symbolical meaning of colours; and although its last expression is materialized, it still bears testimony to its noble origin. Modern painting preserves the tradition of it in the pictures of the church. St. John wears a green robe; Jesus Christ and the virgin have garments of red and of blue, and God of white. The ancient science of symbols became an art, and, in our days, it is reduced to a mere handicraft.”

ON THE MEANING OF THE TERMS NATURAL BODY AND MATERIAL BODY.

To the Editors of the Intellectual Repository.

GENTLEMEN,

IN your number for August, I find OBSERVER making some assertions of a most astounding character, which appear to call for an early contradiction.

I pass by the writer's objections to a statement by O. P., not only because it appears from your answers to correspondents that O. P. has undertaken his own vindication, but because OBSERVER's objections will fall to the ground, unless the assertions I allude to can be sustained.

OBSERVER informs your readers (p. 306), that man is possessed of THREE bodies (!) the first, a spiritual body; the second, a natural body; and the third, a material body; that the natural body corresponds with the spiritual, while the material body does not; and that the natural, and not the material, is the basis of the spiritual body. And this affirmation of three bodies is strangely accompanied with a reference to the 15th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, which affirms only two bodies (" there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body"); and in which it is also said, as I understand the statement,—that the natural body (otherwise called the material body)

*Gassier. Histoire de la Chevalerie Francaise, p. 351, et seq.

is the "first" habitation of man consciously, or while he is in the world, and, "afterwards," the spiritual body. (See also 2 Cor. 5.)

I confess that when I consider that these statements of your correspondent are put forth with the utmost confidence, as if they contained the unquestionable doctrine of Swedenborg, and are conveyed in a tone which seems to defy doubt, I am not a little astonished. It is a serious thing to put statements into the mouth of any man which he never expressed. What, then, must it be, to take such a liberty with a writer like Swedenborg, who is, at the same time, regarded as filling so important an office in the New Church? Admitting even, that the statements objected to originated in mere inadvertence, carelessness to such an extent is surely reprehensible.

Allow me, then, to declare, and with confidence equal to that of OBSERVER, that the above assertions are not warranted by any thing contained in the writings of Swedenborg; and, therefore, that OBSERVER is alone responsible for them. I am supported in this declaration by old readers of my acquaintance; and I do not come forward, be it observed, to depreciate OBSERVER by my and their testimony, but solely to vindicate our great author from the imputation of having made statements which, if left uncontradicted, cannot but redound to his discredit.

If man has three bodies, there must then be three worlds corresponding with them, for their habitation! The doctrine of Swedenborg is, however, that there are two worlds,-the spiritual world, the substances of which are spiritual; and the natural world, the substances of which are natural and material; and that man is an inhabitant of both worlds, by virtue of his possessing two bodies corresponding with them;-a spiritual body of spiritual substance, and a natural body (sometimes called also the material body), the finer or purer substance of which is called natural (also the purest substances of nature) and the grosser, material; but both the finer and the grosser substances belong to the natural world.

In respect to the meaning of the terms natural and material, OBSERVER says very justly, that they either "mean one and the same thing, or they do not." Undoubtedly they mean one thing, and the same thing, for they mean, when applied to the body, the visible body of man, emphatically called in a thousand places, THE body. These two terms possess, nevertheless, a definite meaning, and are used to describe the one body as seen in two points of view, or as consisting interiorly of finer, and exteriorly of grosser substances, both belonging, however, to one general degree.

Our author says; "By the mind are meant all things of the will and understanding, and these are in their principles in the brains, and in their principiates in the body, and therefore they are all things of man as to their forms." "The material form which is added and superinduced in the world, is not a human form from itself, but from the above spiritual form; being added to that form, that man may perform uses in the natural world, and also may carry along with him from the purer substances of the world, some fixed continent for spiritual things, and so continue and perpetuate his life." (D. L. W. 387, 388. See also 257.) Again, "Things natural and temporary are extremes and ultimates, into which man first enters when he is born;-extremes and ultimates exist in the natural world." "Man first puts on the grosser substances of nature, his body consisting of them; these, however, he puts off by death, and retains the purer substances of nature, which are next to what is spiritual, and then these are his continents (or things which contain, and by which his interiors are held together)... As the extremes and ultimates of nature cannot receive things spiritual and eternal, for which the human mind was formed, as they are in themselves, therefore man puts them off (at death) and retains only interior natural things, which accord with things spiritual, and serve them as continents. This is effected by the rejection of the temporary and natural ultimates, which is the death of the body." (D. P. 220.)

E. S. also speaks of the body as being composed of the most mysterious things in nature (A. C. 4523); he speaks of natural substances and also material substances (T. C. R. 38); and he speaks of the Lord assuming a “human or humanity like that of another man, and consequently material." (Doc. Ld. 35.)

In the passage last referred to, E. S. evidently included the natural substances under the term material; and for the same reason, in other passages, material substances are included when he speaks of the natural body. There appears to be no impropriety or confusion in this interchange of the terms natural and material, as applicable to one and the same thing-THE body; for if the body as to one part of it,-its interiors,―be composed of natural substances; and as to its other part, its exteriors,-be composed of material substances; it is obvious that, taking the leading idea of it from its interior quality or substance, it may justly be called the natural body; and with equal propriety taking the leading idea of it from its material and visible properties, it may be called the material body.-But with no propriety can it be said that man has two bodies besides his spiritual body, and so

essentially different from each other in their nature, that one corresponds with the spiritual, and the other not. The only reason why man dies, in fact, appears to be this, that his material body ceases to correspond with his spiritual, owing to some decay or disorder, and therefore, being no longer a fit instrument of use in the natural world, it is expelled or put off, and then the spiritual departs to "its own place." To say that the spiritual body can act by the material in the world, without a mutual correspondence between them, is to say, to my perceptions, a very strange thing indeed.

AN OLD READER.

THE DEAD LANGUAGES.

To the Editors of the Intellectual Repository.

GENTLEMEN,

AFTER reading your correspondent PANIOTA's remarks on the dead languages in opposition to those of O. P., I beg permission to say, that I was reminded of the anecdote told of "the British Solomon"; that having determined himself to hear a cause argued in the King's Bench, he was so satisfied with the conclusiveness of the arguments on both sides, that he decided that the advocates on both were in the right, and neither of them in the wrong.

It appears that both your correspondents were viewing the subject of the learned languages in a different respect; and therefore came to a conclusion different only in appearance.

I agree with O. P., that the study of the classics has been to an unreasonable extent insisted on as a branch of general education; the unreasonableness of which is clear from the testimony of E. S., that such knowledge (however useful it may be as mere mental exercise, contributive to mental vigour), contributes nothing to the formation of the rational principle, and therefore becomes tacit after death. The rational principle is formed from the knowledges of things, and not from mere words. In this point of view, I can rejoice with O. P. at the preference now given in general education to the knowledge of things (though not as yet including things spiritual and moral with any degree of precision!) over the knowledge of words.

I agree with PANIOTA, that as branches of professional education, the dead languages must continue to be cultivated, because they are rendered eternal from the causes he alludes to; the Greek and Hebrew being perpetuated by the Word, and the Latin by the writings

of Swedenborg. They may also be cultivated by those who are not professionally sacred linguists, provided they have time and taste for it. But a man whose time is limited, or a lad whose education must be completed in a limited period, would not do the best for himself by studying the words of an unspoken language, in preference to making himself acquainted with the knowledges of things, such as those by which the rational principle is cultivated. Every one may realize all the benefits of the Word and the Writings, as connected with salvation, and general moral and intellectual improvement, from the existing translations, or from such improved translations as more eminent professional sacred linguists may hereafter be able to effect.

W. M.

ON THE CORRESPONDENCE OF SALT.

THERE is great reason for believing that the correspondence of the objects in the material world, is to be seen both in the quality of their substance and their respective uses. Salt is a substance which enters very largely into the composition of this terrestrial globe. The sea affords such large quantities of common salt (about one thirtieth part of its own weight) that all mankind might be thence supplied with sufficient for their occasions. Mines of salt have long been known in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and other countries of Europe. In different parts of the world there are also huge mountains of salt. Of this kind there are two near Astracan in Russia; several in the kingdoms of Tunis and Algiers in Africa, several in Asia; and the whole island of Ormus in the Persian Gulf, consists almost entirely of fossil salt. Salt in a chemical sense, also, either as crystallizable acids, alkalies, and earths, or as combinations of acids with alkalies, earths, or metallic oxides, enters very largely into the composition of all things in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdom.

All things which exist in the material world, exist also in their correspondences in man's microcosm; and as salt enters so largely into all things of outward nature, its correspondence must form some very important ingredient in the human mind. In the writings of the illustrious Swedenborg, we are taught, that salt corresponds to desire, and that the term salt when it occurs in the holy Word (and it occurs there very frequently) has in every instance this signification. As before observed there are many different kinds of salt: not only are there the varieties of common salt, but also the numerous crystallizable acids and alkalies, sulphates, sulphites, nitrates, nitrites, muriates, and