Emmanuel Swedenborg's philosophy of the human organism

should be noted that Anima refers to Man’s soul and a better translation is ‘The Kingdom of the Soul’.

In his physiological writings Swedenborg wrote mainly as a commentator or interpreter, rather than as an original worker. His descriptions are based on those of the authorities of his dayEustachius, Malpighi, Harvey, Morgagni and others, men whose names are as famous in anatomy as that of Halley is in astronomy. Swedenborg’s aim was different from that of his contemporaries. He was investigating the body in order to reformulate the Aristotelian doctrine of causes, with the soul as final or first cause.

In his own words: “The end I propose to myself is a knowledge of the soul. The body is her image; she is the model, the idea.’ He conceived that it is the function of the soul to represent the universe, not only passively but actively. Thus the soul sees itself both as the cause and also as embodied in the ultimate effects of everything it produces. It is his soul which enables Man to see both the whole universe in the microcosm of his own body, and also the macrocosm as an image of this same organism. The body is constructed in the image of the soul’s nature or according to the form of the soul’s activities. Thus Swedenborg saw his work on the body as a means of showing its relationship with the universe on the one hand, and the soul on the other.

The spiral of causation is represented in Man, as in the universe, by three spheres: End or Principle, Cause, and Effect (Fig. IV). The soul is the sphere of ends or principles; the sphere of effects is the body; and the middle sphere is that of causes and consists of the rational mind and will. As we have seen in the universe, all effects become in their turn causes or principles in a continuous series from their’ source. In the body, the sphere of ends or principles is represented by the head containing the brain; the chest containing the heart and lungs represents the sphere of causes, and the abdomen containing the viscera that of effects. The three higher faculties of Man’s mind are represented by three spheres in the brain. In the highest lives the soul as the ideal and principle of its universe. In the second sphere, or that of causes, are the rational mind and will; and in the third, the sphere of effects, are the imagination, desires and memory, which we call the Animus.