Characteristics 



was at tlie base of his opposition to the materialism which 

 boasted that Natural Selection explained all adaptation, 

 and that Physics could give the solution of Huxley's poser 

 to Spencer : '* Given the molecular forces in a mutton chop, 

 deduce Hamlet and Faust therefrom," and which regarded 

 mind as a quality of matter as brightness is a quality of 

 steel, and life as the result of the organisation of matter 

 and not its cause. 



" We have ourselves^" wrote Prof. H. F. Osborn in an 

 account of Wallace's scientific work which Wallace praised, 

 " experienced a loss of confidence with advancing years, an 

 increasing humility in the face of transformations which 

 become more and more mysterious the more we study them, 

 although we may not join with this master in his appeal to 

 an organising and directing principle." But profound con- ] 

 templation of nature and of the mind of man led Wallace^ 

 to belief in God, to accept the Divine origin of life and 

 consciousness, and to proclaim a hierarchy of spiritual ) 

 beings presiding over nature and the affairs of nations.-^ 

 '' Whatever," writes Dr. H. O. Forbes, " may be the last 

 words on the deep and mysterious problems to which Wallace 

 addressed himself in his later works, the unquestioned 

 consensus of the highest scientific opinion throughout the 

 world is that his work has been for more than half a cen- 

 tury, and will continue to be, a living stimulus to interpre- 

 tation and investigation, a fertilising and vivifying force in 

 every sphere of thought." 



It is perhaps unprofitable to go further than in 

 previous chapters into his so-called heresies — political, 

 scientific or religious. Yet we may imitate his boldness 

 and ask whether he was not, perhaps, in advance of his 

 age and whether his heresies were not shrewd antici- 

 pations of some truth at present but partially revealed. 

 Take the example of Spiritualism, which, I suppose, 



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