Alfred Russel Wallace 



treatment of the insane, will gain it one of the highest 

 places in the hierarchy of the sciences; and its persistent 

 neglect and obloquy during the last sixty years of the 

 nineteenth century will be referred to as an example of 

 the almost incredible narrowness and prejudice which pre- 

 vailed among men of science at the very time they were 

 making such splendid advances in other fields of thought 

 and discovery."^ 



Wallace was not even scared out of his wits by ghosts, 

 for, unlike Coleridge, he believed in them although he 

 thought he had seen many. Whether truth came from the 

 scaffold or the throne, the seance or the sky, it did not alter 

 the truth, and did not prejudice or overbear his judgment. 

 He shed his early materialism (which temporarily took 

 possession of him as it did of many others as a result of 

 the shock following the overwhelming discoveries of that 

 period) when he was brought face to face with the pheno- 

 mena of the spiritual kingdom which withstood the search- 

 ing test of his keen observation and reasoning powers. 

 Prejudices, preconceived notions, respect for his scientific 

 position or the opinions of his eminent friends or the 

 reputation of the learned societies to which he belonged — 

 all were quietly and firmly put aside when he saw what 

 he recognised to be the truth. If his fellow- workers did 

 "^not accept it, so much the worse for them. He stood four- 

 square against the onslaught of quasi-scientific rationalism, 

 which once threatened to obliterate all the ancient land- 

 marks of morality and religion alike. He made mistakes, 

 and he admitted and corrected them, because he verily loved 

 Truth for her own sake. And to the very end of his long life 

 he kept the windows of his soul wide open to what he believed 

 to be the light of this and other worlds. 



He was, then, a man of lofty ideals, and his idealism 



1 " The Wonderful Century," p. 437. 

 238 



