< Mr. Wallace`s New Work (continued from page 3-224) >
modern philosophy speculated on. The facts beat me. They compelled me to accept them, as facts, long before I could accept the spiritual explanation of them: there was at that time “no place in my fabric of thought into which it could be fitted.” By slow degrees a place was made; but it was made, not by any preconceived or theoretical opinions, but by continuous action of fact after fact, which could not be got rid of in any other way. So much for Mr. Anton Dohrn’s theory of the causes that led me to accept Spiritualism. Let us now consider the statement as to its incompatibility with Natural Selection.
Having, as above indicated, been led, by a strict induction from facts, to a belief—1stly, In the existence of a number of preterhuman intelligences of various grades; and, 2ndly, That some of these intelligences, although usually invisible and intangible to us, can and do act on matter, and do influence our minds,— I am truly following a strictly logical and scientific course, in seeing how far this doctrine will allow us to account for some of those residual phenomena which Natural Selection alone will explain. In the 1oth chapter of my “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,” I have pointed out what I consider to be some of these residual phenomena; and I have suggested that they may be due to the action of some of the various intelligences above referred to. This view was, however, put forward with hesitation, and I myself suggested difficulties in the way of its acceptance; but I maintained, and still maintain, that it is one which is logically tenable, and is in no way inconsistent with a thorough acceptance of the grand doctrine of Evolution, through Natural Selection, although implying (as indeed many of the chief supporters of that doctrine admit) that it is not the all powerful, all-sufficient, and only cause of the development of organic forms.
The Phenomena of Sleep and Dream
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Editor's notes
- ↑ The Phenomena of Sleep and Dream by Cox, Edward W.. From the London Spiritualist