WCP1579

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset. July 9th. 1894.

My dear Myers¹

I return the book Mrs Myers kindly lent me with many thanks. Like all that Bernard Shaw writes it is clever and amusing, but there is a want of finish & parts are needlessly disagreeable.

.......

As to the physical phenomena, do you think it is worth while suggesting possible modes of action when the facts themselves are proved to so few of your members? I am myself inclined to think the passage of matter through matter does not occur, and it is the suggestion of that occurring that Mr. Barkworth² thinks absolutely impossible. But I apprehend he would accept the testimony of sounds, & movements of objects without discoverable cause, and it is this class of phenomena we want direct & cumulative evidence of, before attempting to explain what seems like matter passing through matter. Admitting the power of producing motion of solid bodies, and the phenomena can all be explained — the door can be unlocked & opened, the outside gas simultaneously turned on down, the bell carried in, & all restored to its formed condition, as O.Lodge³ suggests. And I think all alleged passing of matter through matter can be explained in this way, if we include the softening of glue & wax & refastening. We therefore only want positive testimony of varied motions and actions upon solid matter, & this does not require any molecular decomposition.. Still there are a few cases where this seems necessary at first sight as a stick pushed through a calico screen without making a hole, which I have seen myself! But even here the threads might be separated & closed up again, — surely a more conceivable operation than the molecular decomposition of matter. Your molecular theory explanation may be, therefore, a superfluity, and a hindrance rather than an aid to belief.

Believe me Yours very faithfully, Alfred R. Wallace.

P.S. In Nature (June 28th.) is a letter⁴ from Mr. Cockerell⁵ touching on Bateson's⁶ work, as does my letter⁷ preceeding [sic] it. A.R.W.