WCP3470

[1]¹

Bangor,

M[ain]e.,

Nov[ember]. 20 1906.

Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace,

My dear Sir,

You will doubtlessly conclude that it requires a large degree of presumption to so trespass on your time and good nature as to thrust this letter upon you. My only excuse for writing is that for a long time you, Darwin², Huxley³, Tindall⁴ [sic], Fiske⁵, and Spencer⁶ have been my Lares⁷ and Penates⁸. Reading along evolutionary lines has continued to occupy a large share of my leisure time. Some years ago when I first read of yours and Mr. Darwin’s independent discovery of Natural Selection, and the delicacy of honor [sic] which you each displayed toward the other in first publishing it to the world⁹, I thought it one of the most dramatic incidents in the whole history of science.

For some time I only took a passing interest in you, merely [2]¹⁰ reading a chapter now and then from "The Wonderful Century"¹¹. But when the storm of criticism arose over "Man’s Place in the Universe"¹², and the magazines were teeming with acrimonious reviews by superficial writers, I determined to read the book myself, and I was highly delighted with it. It seemed to me to be a masterly presentation of all that the race has learned biologically and astronomically with respect to its relation to the sum total of things. And it likewise has served as a wholesome check upon that tendency which has been rapidly growing of late among popular writers, namely, to regard anything astronomically conceivable as an actual scientific fact.

But aside from your monumental work in biology and astronomic physics my interest has become more marked on quite another line. Last winter I read your autobiography¹³, [3]¹⁴ and was especially pleased with those chapters disclosing your study into Spiritualism¹⁵. For the current year I am president of the Temple Heights Spiritualist campmeeting [sic], and, also, of the Maine State Association of Spiritualists. My mother and my wife are mediums through whom we receive spiritual manifestations.

It has always seemed to me that loud denunciation of Spiritualism by many men of science was not only discourteous to Mr. Crookes¹⁶, yourself, and other scientists with world reputations who have embraced this philosophy and religion, but was unscientific in the extreme. As a matter of logic, it seems to me, we are not compelled to prove that a control¹⁷ is actually a spirit, but that it is incumbent on our opponents ^{to prove} that it is not what it seems to be. In all the thousands upon thousands of cases on record where mediums [4]¹⁸ have been controlled there is not one instance, so far as I know, where the control ever claimed to be a "subliminal self", "telepathic impact," secondary mind", etc, etc, but invariably claimed to be the living, thinking, loving personality of some man or woman who has lived and died ion this earth. And then too, if the control claims to be a friend it establishes its identity just as one does over the telephone or telegraph, by references to facts and incidents which both the alleged transmitter and the recipient might be expected to know. In fact in every way the control speaks and acts just as though it were the spirit it purports to be. It seems to me that the principle of logic which Mr. Romanes¹⁹ illustrated so beautifully in his little book on the "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution"²⁰, has an equal validity in this case. You remember in discussing Sir William Hamilton’s²¹ law of parsimony²² he points out that planets behave [5] just as though they were moved by gravitation, and therefore we are forced to adopt this theory, rather than that of Kepler's guardian angel, as the simpler, more natural and less strained.

In my mind the question of Spiritualism is a parallel case. Here is the great mass of phenomena fall pointing in one direction. The controls claim to be spirits, and seem to be spirits. Physical phenomena denote a controlling intelligence which likewise claims to be a spirit. There is not a scrid of evidence supporting arrival hypothesis or what is still more to the point, not a scrid which militates against the spirit theory. Then does not the law of farsimony compel us to adopt the spirit theory, as an academic proposition, even if we have not personally studied the phenomena in question?

I have discussed this question in my last annual address at Temple Heights, which is expected [6]²³ to appear in the "Banner of Light"²⁴ when it is issued in its new form. There is some delay incident to its changin[g] from a weekly to a monthly, but when it appears I will send you a copy if you would care for it.

Do not feel that you must answer this. I should be delighted to receive a word from you, but unless you feel inclined to write, do not do so merely on grounds of etiquette.

Begging your pardon for thus thrusting myself upon you, I am, believe me, your warm admirer and devoted reader.

Mark A. Barwise, [signature]

Bangor, Maine.

U.S. A.

R. F. D. ^#1.