Spiritualism 



several occasions they mesmerised some of the natives for 

 mere amusement. But the subject was put aside, and 

 Wallace paid no further attention to such phenomena until 

 after his return to England in 1862. 



It was not until the summer of 1865 that he witnessed 

 any phenomena of a spiritualistic nature ; of these a full 

 account is given in " Miracles and Modern Spiritualism " 

 (p. 132). " I came," he says, "to the inquiry utterly un- 

 biased by hopes or fears, because I knew that my belief 

 could not affect the reality, and with an ingrained pre- 

 judice even against such a word as ' spirit,' which I have 

 hardly yet overcome." 



From that time until 1895, when the second edition of 

 that book appeared, he did much, together with other 

 scientists, to establish these facts, as he believed them to 

 be, on a rational and scientific foundation. It will also 

 be noticed, both before and after this period, that in addi- 

 tion to the notable book which he published dealing ex- 

 clusively with these matters, the gradual trend of his 

 convictions, advancing steadily towards the end which he 

 ultimately reached, had become so thoroughly woven into 

 his " fabric of thought " that it appears under many 

 phases in his writings, and occupies a considerable part 

 of his correspondence, of which we have only room for 

 some specimens. 



The first definite statement of his belief in " this some- 

 thing " other than material in the evolution of Man 

 appeared in his essay on " The Development of Human 

 Races under the Law of Natural Selection" (1864). In 

 this he suggested that, Man having reached a state of 

 physical perfection through the progressive law of Natural 

 Selection, thenceforth Mind became the dominating factor, 

 endowing Man with an ever-increasing power of intelligence 

 which, whilst the physical had remained stationary, had 



183 



