22 J. V. HuLTKEANTZ 



cumstance that hair was at that time found still remaining on the cra- 

 nium, argues for its genuineness, for had an exchange been made be- 

 fore, there seems to be little likelihood that a cranium of the above 

 description would have been employed. 



Just as little cause is there to doubt that it was this same skull 

 which, at the death of Geanholm in January, 1819, came into the hands 

 of J. P. Wählin, preacher of the -Swedish Legation, and was by him 

 exhibited to the Church Council half a year later. It would psychologi- 

 cally be just as difficult to explain why Geanholm, if he had formerly 

 succeeded in selling the cranium, should on his death-bed voluntarily 

 have delivered another cranium to his spiritual adviser, as it would be 

 to find any motive for the latter's bringing the matter up before the 

 Church Council and showing a false cranium, if he himself had, previ- 

 ously, disposed of the genuine one, or if his purpose was to possess 

 himself of the same for his own or some one else's benefit. 



But if we have now with relatively great probability been able 

 to follow the vicissitudes of the cranium up to the year 1819, its fate during 

 the following period rests in darkness. It is only as a guess that the 

 surmise may be expressed that Pastor Wahlin, waiting for the opening 

 of the vault, had deposited the skull, for the time being, in the phreno- 

 logical collections of C. A. Tulk, M. P. The only thing we know is 

 that Mr. Tulk, before 1823, showed to several persons a skull, which 

 he declared to have been Swedenborg's, and that in the presence of 

 Tulk and WÅhlin, there was deposited in SwEDENBORa's coffin, on the 

 2oth of March, of the aforementioned year, a cranium which was con- 

 sidered to be the one which had been stolen. Any strong proofs that 

 this really was Swedenborg's skull are, however, not to be found in 

 the documents, and of course, one can not, a priori, absolutely exclude 

 the possibility of an exchange having been made with another cranium, 

 before this time. The historical facts, however, do not give the slight- 

 est support to a supposition in the last-mentioned direction, and it ap- 

 pears for several reasons more probable that the right cranium had 

 been replaced in the coffin. 



To be sure, a collector's conscience is often rather capacious, 

 but Mr. Tulk's position and his well-known unimpeachable character, 

 do not justify our insinuating, without weighty cause, the suspicion that 

 he had deluded his friends and fellow-believers and exchanged the ge- 

 nuine cranium for a false one, which, after plaster casts had first been 

 taken of it, he had deposited in the coffin of his doctrinal father. An 



