134 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART 



orthodox, of supernaturalism, with attendant beliefs 

 in miracles and the grosser forms of spiritualism, 

 that Mr. Wallace appears in the character of opponent 

 to the inclusion of man's psychical nature as a product 

 of Evolution. 



The arresting influence of these views when backed 

 by honest, sincere, and eminent men of the type of 

 Mr. Wallace, and when also supported by a few 

 other prominent men of science, renders it necessary 

 to show that modern psychism is but savage animism 

 ' writ large,' and wholly explicable on the theory of 

 continuity. In his book on Miracles and Modern 

 Spiritualism^ of which a revised edition, with chapters 

 on Apparitions and Phantasms, was issued in 

 1895, Mr. Wallace contends that 'Spiritualism, 

 if true, furnishes such proofs of the existence of 

 ethereal beings and of their power to act upon 

 matter, as must revolutionise philosophy. It demon- 

 strates the actuality of forms of matter and modes 

 of being before inconceivable ; it demonstrates mind 

 without brain, and intelligence disconnected from 

 what we know as the material body ; and it thus 

 cuts away all presumption against our continued 

 existence after the physical body is disorganised and 

 dissolved. Yet more, it demonstrates, as completely 

 as the fact can be demonstrated, that the so-called 

 dead are still alive ; that our friends are still with 

 us, though unseen, and guide and strengthen us 

 when, owing to absence of proper conditions, they 

 cannot make their presence known. It thus furnishes 

 a proof 'of a future life which so many crave, and for 

 want of which so many live and die in anxious 

 doubt, so many in positive disbelief. It substitutes 



