this. Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, the
co-discoverer with Darwin of the theory of natural selection, has a
name in the scientific world that places him among the leaders of
scientific thought. For many years he has been convinced that
spiritualism contains in itself truths that deserve careful
investigation, and he for one is persuaded that the neglect of
investigation of this subject, on the part of recent generations, is
one of the most serious mistakes, from a purely scientific standpoint,
that they have made. Sir William Crookes, whose brilliant theories
with regard to the fourth stage of matter, radiant matter, would seem
to have quite appropriately prepared him for the proper investigation
of existences even beyond the domain of the attenuated substances with
which he had been so much concerned, is another of the prominent
scientists of the day who confesses to a belief in the truth of
spiritualistic phenomena. He made his first publication on the subject
more than a quarter of a century ago. When a score of years after this
he was elected as the President of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, the most prominent scientific body in Great
Britain, and, it may be said, in the {383} English-speaking world, he
recurred in his Presidential address to the subject of spiritualism,
and said that in the meantime he not only had not changed his mind
with regard to the truth of certain spiritualistic phenomena, but had
even become more convinced than he was originally.

These are prominent English scientists, and Englishmen are supposed to
be more conservative, less likely to be influenced by personal
motives, and less prone to be led astray by imaginative influences,
than their colleagues on the Continent. Besides these two whom we have
mentioned, there is a third one, of quite as great prominence, Sir
Oliver Lodge, who is also a convert to belief in the reality of
certain spiritual manifestations, and other names might readily be
mentioned. Over in France, the most prominent of living physiologists,
Professor Charles Richet, who is well known for investigating work of
a high order and successful original research that has made his name
familiar throughout the medical world at least, is another modern
scientist who cannot but think that there is something in
spiritualistic manifestations. The latest convert to these notions is
an even more surprising addition to such a group of witnesses to the
possibili