WCP6910

[1]

77, INVERNESS TERRACE,

W.

26 Feb[?] 1899

St. George Mivart

Dear Sir,

Please excuse a short reply for I have been ill since Jan^y 17^th & am slowly recovering, as far as a man of my age can expect to recover at all. So, with me, a future life (if not too pleasant a one, & then run[?] plenty unpleasant enough here) is a very practical question.

In the paper you quote from me I use the words "certain evidence" strictly; meaning thereby evidence a thing so evident that no man in his senses could doubt about it. I have great respect for Sir W. R. Crookes but his statements do not suffice for me, to make the matter "evident" in [2] any sense of that word. Wallace is a friend of mine but he has adopted so many "fads" — antivaccination anti [illeg.] popularism[?] <so on?> that his judgement is thereby[?] much discounted. Prof Sedgwick has been investigating the matter since 1875 at least, but when I met him at Oxford in 1894, he told me he was as unable to make up his mind as ever! In 1870 I saw things which much impressed me, but that impression was was effaced by[?] the amount of deception & fraud I came across in subsequent years.

There is another question which prevents these phenomena serving to render a future life evident. Granting the existence of invisible spiritual intelligences without such bodies as we have, it cannot be made certainly evident that such beings which [3] talk or show themselves, are the spirits of deceased persons, It is possible they may be spirits which never had a mind or body & which delight in deceiving*, I put this to Wallace once & he said he thought it just possible there might be spirits of this kind. So, however sure the probability that phenomena of the kind are what they are represented to be, I ^must go and allow , I shd[?] think we can [illeg.] "certain evidence" on the subject. Thanking you for your letter, I remain

Dear Sir | Very faithfully yours | St Geo Mivart [signature]

* You tell me Florence Marryatt [Marryat] mentions cases of what[?] you [illeg.], this spirits [sic] can put on a deceptive appearance to produce recognition.

P.S. Of course there may be all sorts of possibilities as to future survival & as I to[?] the formation, [illeg.] [4] hear[?] body from ether or one knows not what. I did not mean[?] to deny probabilities on the matters I nothing about — I only denies [sic] the existence (for me at least, alas!) of "certain evidence".

When I spoke of the mystery of a soul hearing things without a brain & sense organs I was careful also to say that it is no less a mystery how we can know things while alive & possessing those organs. I also favoured Wiendt's view that in all cases, in men & animals, it is the soul which makes the body work[?] [rather] than the opposite.

P.P.S. Please excuse me if I do not address my envelope[?] correctly You may be a clergyman for all I know but in that case you should have told me — all good wishes!