iv MODERN EVOLUTION 143 



The spectra perceived before epileptic fits vary widely. 

 They may be stars or sparks, spherical luminous bodies, or 

 mere flashes of light, white or coloured, still or in move- 

 ment. Often they are more elaborate, distinct visions of 

 faces, persons, objects, places. They may be combined 

 with sensations from the other special senses, as with 

 hearing and smell. In one case a warning, constant for 

 years, began with thumping in the chest ascending to the 

 head, where it became a beating sound. Then two lights 

 appeared, advancing nearer with a pulsating motion. 

 Suddenly these disappeared and were replaced by the 

 figure of an old woman in a red cloak, always the same, 

 who offered the patient something that had the smell of 

 Tonquin beans, and then he lost consciousness. Such 

 warnings may be called psychovisual sensations. The 

 psychical element may be very strong, as in one woman 

 whose fits were preceded by a sudden distinct vision of 

 London in ruins, the river Thames emptied to receive the 

 rubbish, and she the only survivor of the inhabitants. 



Had a man of lesser renown and mental calibre 

 than Mr. Wallace thrown the weight of his testimony 

 into the scales in favour of spiritualism, there would 

 have been neither necessity nor excuse for this 

 digression. But both these pleas prevail when we 

 find the co-formulator of the Darwinian theory 

 among mediums and their dupes. The respectful 

 attention which his words command : the tremendous 

 claims which he makes on behalf of the phenomena 

 at seances as proving the existence of soul apart 

 from body after death, and as revealing the con- 

 ditions under which it lives; have made incumbent 

 the foregoing attempt to indicate what other 

 explanation is given of those phenomena, showing 

 how these fall in with all we know of man's tend- 

 encies to imperfect observation and self-deception, 



