ws on the parts you queried. For I have an immense faith in the
soundness of your judgment, and in the accuracy of your views _in the
long run_.

I should like also immensely to see you again and in your lovely
home....--Yours ever sincerely,

W.F. BARRETT.

* * * * *

TO PROF. BARRETT

_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Wimborne. February 20, 1911._

My dear Barrett,--I wrote you yesterday on quite another matter, but
having yours this morning in reply to my criticisms of your Address, I
send a few lines of explanation. Most of my queries to your statements
apply solely to your expressing them so positively, as if they were
absolute certainties which no psychical researcher doubted. My main
objection to the term "subliminal self" and its various synonyms is,
that it is so dreadfully vague, and is an excuse for the assumption that
a whole series of the most mysterious of psychical phenomena are held to
be actually explained by it. Thus it is applied to explain all cases of
apparent "possession," when the alleged "secondary self" has a totally
different character, and uses the dialect of another social grade, from
the normal self, sometimes even possesses knowledge that the real self
could not have acquired, speaks a language that the normal self never
learnt. All this is, to me, the most gross travesty of science, and I
therefore object totally to the use of the term which is so vaguely and
absurdly used, and of which no clear and rational explanation has ever
been given.

You are now one of my oldest friends, and one with whom I most
sympathise; and I only regret that we have seen so little of each
other.--Yours very faithfully,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

TO MR. E. SMEDLEY

_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. October 2, 1911._

Dear Mr. Smedley,--I am quite astonished at your wasting your money on
an advertising astrologer. In the horoscope sent you there is not a
single definite fact that would apply to you any more than to thousands
of other men. All is vague, what "might be," etc. etc. It is just
calculated to lead you on to send more money, and get in reply more
words and nothing else....--Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

[Illustration: A.R. WALLACE ADMIRING _EREMUS ROBUSTUS_ about 1905.]

PART VII

Characteristics

"There is a point of view so lofty or so peculiar that from it we
are able to discern in men and w