146 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



beings and of their power to act upon matter, as 

 must revolutionise philosophy. It demonstrates the 

 actuality of forms of matter and modes of being be- 

 fore inconceivable; it demonstrates mind without 

 brain, and intelligence disconnected from what we 

 know as the material body; and it thus cuts away all 

 presumption against our continued existence after 

 the physical body is disorganised and dissolved. Yet 

 more, it demonstrates, as completely as the fact can 

 be demonstrated, that the so-called dead are still 

 alive; that our friends are still with us, though un- 

 seen, and guide and strengthen us when, owing to 

 absence of proper conditions, they cannot make their 

 presence known. It thus furnishes a proof of a future 

 life which so many crave, and for want of which so 

 many live and die in anxious doubt, so many in posi- 

 tive disbelief. It substitutes a definite, real, and prac- 

 tical conviction for a vague, theoretical, and unsatis- 

 fying faith. It furnishes actual knowledge on a 

 matter of vital importance to all men, and as to which 

 the wisest men and most advanced thinkers have 

 held, and still hold, that no knowledge was attain- 

 able." 



This claim, this tremendous claim, on behalf of 

 the phenomena of spiritualism to supply an answer 

 to " the question of questions ; the ascertainment of 

 man's relation to the universe of things; whence our 

 race has come; to what goal we are tending," rests 

 on the assumption with which Mr. Wallace starts, 

 " Spiritualism, if true'' 



