400 
Relations between 
I July, 
V. MR. A. R. WALLACE, F.R.S., ON THE 
RELATIONS BETWEEN SPIRITUALISM AND 
SCIENCE. 
Bv R. M. N. 
y 
S T is no longer possible to ignore the phenomena known 
collectively under the name of Spiritualism. Unwel- 
come as these fadts may be to many of us, serious as 
are the conclusions to which they seem to lead, there is 
nothing to be gained — and possibly there may be much to 
be lost — by persisting in an attitude of blank sweeping 
denial. At all events let us know the worst. If the new 
revelations, as it seems to me, 
“ Cast on all things surest, brightest, best, 
Doubt, insecurity, astonishment,” 
we must still seek what basis, if any, is left for law and 
order. It is therefore that I took up with eagerness Mr. 
Wallace’s paper (“ Light ”) which I am about to examine. 
Surely, I thought, he, more than perhaps any living man, 
will be able to show a harmony between Science and 
Spiritualism. 
My hopes have been but very partially fulfilled. To me 
Mr. Wallace seems to pass over the points which underlie 
the repugnance with which men of Science regard 
Spiritualism and its advocates. Mr. Wallace writes : — 
“ It is a common, but I believe a mistaken, notion, that 
the conclusions of Science are antagonistic to the alleged 
phenomena of modern Spiritualism. The majority of our 
teachers and students of Science are, no doubt, antagonistic, 
but their opinions and prejudices are not Science. Every 
discoverer who has promulgated new and startling truths, 
even in the domain of Physics, has been denounced or 
ignored by those who represented the Science of the day, 
as witness the long line of great teachers from Galileo in 
the dark ages to Boucher de Perthes in our own times. But 
the opponents of Spiritualism have the additional advantage 
of being able to brand the new belief as a degrading super- 
stition, and to accuse those who accept its fabts and its 
teachings of being the victims of delusion or imposture, — 
