xists beyond the veil.

In spiritual matters, as in natural science, though at times his head
may have appeared to be "in the clouds," his feet were planted firmly on
the earth. This is seen, to note another curious instance, in his
correspondence with Sir Wm. Barrett, where he maintains a delicate
balance between natural science and "spirit impression" when discussing
the much controverted reality of "dowsing" for water.

It was this breadth of vision, unhampered by mere intellectualism, but
always kept within reasonable bounds by scientific deduction and
analysis, which constituted Alfred Russel Wallace a seer of the first
rank.

Wallace lived to see the theory of evolution applied to the life-history
of the earth and the starry firmament, to the development of nations and
races, to the progress of mind, morals and religion, even to the origin
of consciousness and life--a conception which has completely
revolutionised man's attitude towards himself and the world and God.
Evolution became intelligible in the light of that idea which came to
him in his hut at Ternate and changed the face of the universe. Surely
it was enough for any one man to be one of the two chief originators of
such a far-reaching thought and to witness its impact upon the ancient
story of special creations which it finally laid in the dust. But
Wallace was privileged beyond all the men of his generation. He lived to
see many of the results of the theory of evolution tested by time and to
foresee that there were definite limits to its range, that, indeed,
there were two lines of development--one affecting the visible world of
form and colour and the other the invisible world of life and
spirit--two worlds springing from two opposite poles of being and
developing _pari passu_, or, rather, the spiritual dominating the
material, life originating and controlling organisation. It was, in
short, his peculiar task to reveal something of the Why as well as the
How of the evolutionary process, and in doing so verily to bring
immortality to light.

The immediate exciting cause of this discovery of the inadequacy of
evolution from the material side alone to account for the world of life
may seem to many to have been trivial and unworthy of the serious
attention of a great scientist. How, it might be asked, could the crude
and doubtful phenomena of Spiritualism afford reasonably adequate
grounds for challenging its supremacy and for setting a limit to its