"The human race is the basis on which heaven is founded, is because man was last created, and that which is last created is the basis of all that precedes"
About this Quote
The intent is to elevate humanity without resorting to simple flattery. “Basis” sounds humble, almost material, but it’s a power move: if heaven is founded on the human race, then spiritual reality is not floating above us; it is anchored in us. Swedenborg’s subtext is anti-escapist. The divine isn’t an exit from human mess, history, and psychology; it depends on them. That’s a radical pivot away from forms of religion that treat earthly life as mere prep work for a truer realm.
Context matters: Swedenborg was a respected scientist before his visionary phase, and this sentence reads like the bridge between those identities. He imports a late-17th/early-18th century confidence in ordered systems into metaphysics: teleology as architecture, not mystery. There’s also an implicit defense of his broader project (that the spiritual world corresponds to the natural one). If the last-created is the “basis,” then the visible, human level is not the least of reality but its foundation, the place where the whole cosmic blueprint finally cashes out.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Swedenborg, Emanuel. (2026, January 17). The human race is the basis on which heaven is founded, is because man was last created, and that which is last created is the basis of all that precedes. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-human-race-is-the-basis-on-which-heaven-is-68105/
Chicago Style
Swedenborg, Emanuel. "The human race is the basis on which heaven is founded, is because man was last created, and that which is last created is the basis of all that precedes." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-human-race-is-the-basis-on-which-heaven-is-68105/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The human race is the basis on which heaven is founded, is because man was last created, and that which is last created is the basis of all that precedes." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-human-race-is-the-basis-on-which-heaven-is-68105/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.







