ormations which become more and more mysterious the more we study
them, although we may not join with this master in his appeal to an
organising and directing principle." But profound contemplation of
nature and of the mind of man led Wallace to belief in God, to accept
the Divine origin of life and consciousness, and to proclaim a hierarchy
of spiritual beings presiding over nature and the affairs of nations.
"Whatever," writes Dr. H.O. Forbes, "may be the last words on the deep
and mysterious problems to which Wallace addressed himself in his later
works, the unquestioned consensus of the highest scientific opinion
throughout the world is that his work has been for more than half a
century, and will continue to be, a living stimulus to interpretation
and investigation, a fertilising and vivifying force in every sphere of
thought."

It is perhaps unprofitable to go further than in previous chapters into
his so-called heresies--political, scientific or religious. Yet we may
imitate his boldness and ask whether he was not, perhaps, in advance of
his age and whether his heresies were not shrewd anticipations of some
truth at present but partially revealed. Take the example of
Spiritualism, which, I suppose, has more opponents than
anti-vaccination. No one can overlook the fact that Spiritualism has
many scientific exponents--Myers, Crookes, Lodge, Barrett and others.
Prejudices against Spiritualism are as unscientific as the credulity
which swallows the mutterings of every medium. Podmore's two ponderous
volumes on the History of Spritualism are marred by an obvious anxiety
to make the very least, if not the very worst, of every phenomenon
alleged to be spiritualistic. That kind of deliberate and obstinate
blindness which prided itself on being the clear cold light of science
Wallace scorned and denounced. He did not insist upon spiritualistic
manifestations shaping themselves according to his own predesigned
moulds in order to be investigated. He watched for facts whatever form
they assumed. He fully recognised that the phenomena he saw and heard
could be easily ridiculed, but behind them he as fully believed that he
came into contact with spiritual realities which remain, and which led
him to other explanations of the higher faculties of man and the origin
of life and consciousness than were acceptable to the materialistic
followers of Haeckel, Buechner and Huxley. And who dares dogmatically to
assert in the name of sci