The Secret of Swedenborg

It thus appears that Mr. Mansel and Mr. Mill cannot help differing egregiously from Swedenborg in the estimate they make of Christ's nativity, inasmuch as they both alike look upon nature as an absolutely fixed existence, as an essentially finite quantity, wholly incapable of any adjustment or approx- imation to the infinite ; while Swedenborg regards it as an essen- tially indeterminate quantity, or indefinite existence, being in itself neither infinite nor finite, but the exact neutrality or indif- ference of the two, and standing therefore in equal and unforced proximity to either interest. Both Mr. Mansel and Mr. Mill conceive nature herself — the cosmos — whatever they may make of her shifting specific forms, to be her own end, to exist upon her own absolute basis, as exhibiting no normal subser- viency to a distinctly superior style of life.