Alfred Russel Wallace 



continued to develop according to his needs. This Jiin-_ 

 r breathing" of a divine Spirit, or the controlling force of 

 1 a supreme directive Mind and Purpose, which was one of 

 \the points of divergence between his theory and that held 

 jby Darwin, is too well known to need repetition. 

 L This disagreement has a twofold interest from the fact 

 that Darwin, in his youth, studied theology with the full 

 intention of taking holy orders, and for some years re- 

 tained his faith in the more or less orthodox beliefs arising 

 out of the Bible. But as time went by, an ever-extending 

 knowledge of the mystery of the natural laws governing 

 the development of man and mature led him to make the 

 characteristically frank avowal that he " found it more 

 and more difficult ... to invent evidence which would 

 suffice to convince " ; adding, '' This disbelief crept over me 

 at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate 

 was so slow that I felt no distress."^ With Wallace, how- 

 ever, his early disbelief ended in a deep conviction that 

 '^ as nothing in nature actually ' dies,' but renews its life 

 in another and higher form, so Man, the highest product 

 of natural laws here, must by the power of mind and 

 intellect continue to develop hereafter." 



The varied reasons leading up to this final conviction, 

 as related by himself in ** Miracles and Modern Spiritual- 

 ism " and " My Life," are, however, too numerous and 

 detailed to be retold in a brief summary in this place. 



The correspondence that follows deals entirely with in- 

 vestigations on this side of the Atlantic, but a good deal of 

 evidence which to him was conclusive was obtained during 

 his stay in America, where Spiritualism has been more 

 widely recognised, and for a much longer period than in 

 England. 



Some of the letters addressed to Miss Buckley (after- 



l " Uie and Letters," I. 58. 

 184 



