Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological andBiomedical Sciences

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Capturing the will: Imposture, delusion, and exposure in Alfred RusselWallace’s defence of spirit photography

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.02.0011369-8486/� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

E-mail address: bmitch@yorku.ca1 Carpenter (1876, pp. 1281–1282).2 Pels (1995, p. 74). See also: Wallace (1866).

Benjamin David Mitchell218 Bethune College, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 3 October 2013Received in revised form 1 February 2014

Keywords:Spirit photographySpiritualismEvidenceMechanical objectivitySubliminal selfExpectant attention

a b s t r a c t

The co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, found himself deeply embroiled in a rangeof controversies surrounding the relationship between science and spiritualism. At the heart of these con-troversies lay a crisis of evidence in cases of delusion or imposture. He had the chance to observe themany epistemic impasses brought about by this crisis while participating in the trial of the Americanmedium Henry Slade, and through his exchanges with the physiologist William Benjamin Carpenterand the psychical researcher Frederic Myers. These contexts help to explain the increasing value thatWallace placed on the evidence of spirit photography. He hoped that it could simultaneously break theseimpasses, while answering once and for all the interconnected questions of the unity of the psyche andthe reliability of human observation.

� 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

1. Introduction

Spiritualism in the late nineteenth century was neither a purelysecular nor traditionally religious movement. As such, it threa-tened both the old guard of the Anglican establishment and thenewly emerging body of scientific professionals. Both groups ac-cused spiritualists of being either victims of delusion or partici-pants in some underhanded imposture. The charge of delusionimplied that spiritualists were either mentally unsound or ill-equipped to assess the evidence presented to them. If spiritualismwas dismissed as imposture, this was also treated as the fault ofthe spiritualists. They were charged with gullibility for their will-ingness to be taken in by the skill of some cunning operator whocould deceive through a combination of mechanism, sleight ofhand, and suggestion. Believing that scientific professionals oughtto know better than to be taken in by such ‘idols,’ the British phys-iologist Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter (1813–1885) chided hiscolleagues who defending spiritualist claims. He observed that:

Men like Mr. Crookes, Mr. Varley, and Professor Barrett seem tome to resemble Baron Reichenbach [. . .] and other Physicists,twenty-five years back, in their ignorance of the nature of theirinstruments of research; putting as much faith in tricky girls orwomen, as they do in their thermometers or electroscopes.1

These ‘instruments of research,’ however, were exactly what werein question. The reliability of the mind and the evidence providedthrough the use of instruments were major points of contentionwhen both spiritualists and their opponents attempted to demon-strate just who was deluded and who was being duped.

Amongst the spiritualists to take up this challenge, few were ashigh-profile and controversial as the naturalist Alfred RusselWallace (1823–1913). From 1866 until his death, Wallace publiclydefended the validity of spiritualist research against many of hisformer allies, including Carpenter, the physicist John Tyndall(1820–1893), Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895), and Huxley’sstudent, the zoologist Edwin Ray Lankester (1847–1929).2 In this de-fence, Wallace sought to overcome a series of seemingly paralyzing

16 B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24

epistemic challenges put forward by his opponents. In 1876, his viewson spiritualism formed the background of the trial of the Americanmedium Henry Slade (1835–1905). The trial also made a public spec-tacle of the impasses facing spiritualism. It became increasingly clearboth inside and outside the courtroom that when it came to questionsof imposture, opponents of spiritualism could argue that in theabsence of positive proof, the ability to mechanically replicate thephenomena according to the generally accepted laws of nature wasenough to demonstrate the intent of the medium to deceive. Accusa-tions of delusion were more difficult to address because they did notquestion the honesty of spiritualists so much as they questioned themore fundamental belief that the human psyche was capable of bear-ing reliable witness to its own experiences. Wallace was troubled bythe idea of a subliminal or second self, which the psychical researcherFrederic Myers (1843–1901) had proposed as an alternative explana-tion for spiritual possession. He was also concerned about Carpenter’scritiques, which were based on dominant ideas and unconsciouscerebration. Together, Wallace’s concerns about mind and mechanismhelp to shed a new light on a little-studied aspect of his thought: hisstaunch support for the evidence of spirit photography, which he heldto be ‘the most perfect scientific test of the reality of [spiritualist]phenomena you can possibly have.’3

At first glance, Wallace’s emphasis on spirit photography seemsto fall within what Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison have de-scribed as mechanical objectivity. This was the view that trueobjectivity was achievable only when one could repeatedly repre-sent nature with as little human intervention as possible, with allof its peculiarities and asymmetries intact.4 Spirit photography pro-vided Wallace with a way to address charges of imposture byappealing to the same set of values that saw the rise of mechanicalobjectivity. However, rather than discounting the reliability of theindividual, Wallace came to see spirit photography as a tool for vin-dicating, not negating, the actions of coherent, individual wills. Inthis way he countered charges of delusion by showing the coherenceand independence of the will of both disembodied intelligences andof the mediums through whom they were revealed. The importancehe placed on spirit photography thus drew from many of the samevalues as mechanical objectivity, but it did so in order to demon-strate the efficacy and coherence of the human will, psyche, or spirit.Spirit photography was thus a spiritual technology.5

While several other studies have explored Wallace’s spiritualism,his involvement in the Slade trial, and his debates with Carpenter,this study will explore how his attempts to address charges of bothdelusion and imposture converged in his defence of spirit photogra-phy.6 Beginning with a brief introduction to spiritualism in thenineteenth century, this paper will move on to an account of the SladeTrial, which vividly portrayed the challenges facing Wallace’s defenceof spiritualism in the face of accusations of imposture. It will thenexamine the ways in which Wallace believed that emerging views of

3 Wallace (1887, p. 3531).4 Daston & Galison (2007, p. 20). See also: Daston & Galison (1992).5 Balfour Stewart’s and Peter Guthrie Tait’s attempts to use thermodynamics to demonstr

quantify the efficacy of prayer, and of psychic healing, could also be described as employi6 For more on Wallace’s spiritualism see Keezer (1965), Durant (1979), Kottler (1974), an

and Fichman (2004). For a discussion of Wallace’s involvement in the Slade trial, see: Miattraction to spiritualism, see Turner (1974, pp. 79–122).

7 McMullin (2004, pp. 22–23).8 Oppenheim (1988, pp. 11–12). For more background on the debates surrounding spirit

Frederic Myers’s interest in spiritualism, see Hamilton (2009), and for a recent study of tLamont’s psychologization of the historical debates surrounding spiritualism and related pTreitel (2004), and Wolffram (2009). For a parallel case study of the difficult epistemic quethe 1930s, see Mauskopf & McVaugh (1980).

9 Barrett would go on to co-found the London Society for Psychical Research (SPR).10 Slotten (2004, p. 335).11 Slotten (2004, pp. 332, 336).12 Anonymous (1876, pp. 161–164).13 Slotten (2004, p. 338).

the unconscious challenged not only the validity of spiritualist claims,but also the very foundations of knowledge upon which science itselfwas based, and how he sought to address these concerns. The final sec-tion of the paper will address how spirit photography resolved, toWallace’s satisfaction, the difficult epistemic challenges levelledagainst him by his adversaries.

2. Mechanical trial and error

The birth of nineteenth century spiritualism is said to have ta-ken place in New York State in 1848 when two sisters from Ontar-io, Kate Fox (1837–1892) and Margaret Fox (1833–1893), began toreceive communications from spirits in the form of coded rappingon a table.7 Within ten years, mediums had begun to appearthroughout Europe and North America. Throughout much of the cen-tury, British spiritualism was generally considered an American im-port; even mediums from the United Kingdom who had spent sometime in America, such as the celebrated Daniel Douglas Home (1833–1886), were seen as more American upon their return.8

Along with the attention given to spiritualism as a new spiritualpath came intense scrutiny from religious and secular authoritiesand, eventually, even some consideration by the British Associationfor the Advancement of Science (BAAS). On September 12th, 1876,the physicist Sir William Fletcher Barrett (1844–1925) presented apaper during the meeting of the Anthropological Division of theBAAS, entitled ‘On abnormal conditions of mind’.9 It dealt with is-sues surrounding mesmerism, somnambulism, telepathy, and spiri-tualism. Wallace, the speaker and then-president of the biologicalsection of the society, had sponsored it despite criticisms from someof his fellow members. During the discussion, Wallace’s opponentswere quick to raise the question of whether spiritual phenomenacould be repeated. They challenged the physicist William Crookes(1832–1919), who was sympathetic to some spiritualist claims, toprovide the kind of experimental proof that he had provided forhis earlier claims about electricity.10 Wallace and his supporters ar-gued that this had already been done, and singled out the work of Dr.Henry Slade (1835–1905), an American medium who had recentlycome to England.11 Slade’s spiritual manifestations most often tookthe form of spirit writings performed by his deceased wife, Allie.According to Slade, Allie could facilitate communication with otherspirits by writing answers to questions asked of her when he helda piece of slate and chalk against the underside of a table. Wallacehad sat with Slade and Slade’s assistant, Geoffrey Simmonds, on atleast three occasions and had been satisfied with what he had wit-nessed. Others, however, were not so convinced.12

Though not present at the September 12th meeting, the zoolo-gist Edwin Ray Lankester was outraged to hear of the introductionof spiritualism into the BAAS and hoped to humiliate Wallace byrevealing Slade as an impostor.13 In the September 16th 1876 edi-tion of the Times, he publicly denounced Slade as a fraud. Lankester

ate the immortality of the soul, as well as nineteenth century attempts to measure andng spiritual technologies. See: Stewart & Tait (1875) and Heimann (1972).d Pels (1995), as well as the biographies of Wallace by Shermer (2002), Slotten (2004),lner (1990, 1994, pp. 107–121, 1996). For an excellent discussion of Wallace’s moral

ualism see Oppenheim (1988), McMullin (2004), and Owen (1989, 2004). For more onhe most prominent Victorian medium, D. D. Home, see Lamont (2005). For more onhenomena, see Lamont (2013). The debates in Germany are covered in Sawiki (2002),stions facing attempts to ‘close’ debate on psychical research from 1920 to the end of

B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24 17

had already attended one sitting with the medium, and followingthat he went again with his friend Dr. Horatio B. Donkin to performwhat he called a ‘crucial experiment.’ Having scrutinized Slade’sdoings on the previous visit and been convinced of their fraudulence,he sought to demonstrate his point:

I had determined to seize the slate at the critical moment—atthe moment when Slade professed that it was entirelyuntouched—and if the writing were already on the slate beforethe spirits were supposed to have begun their work I consideredthat I should have a demonstration of the truth of my hypothe-sis, which would be convincing to persons not already lost toreason.14

Lankester performed this crucial experiment and found the words ‘Iam pleased to meet you, Edwin Lankester’ written on the slatewhen he thought no writing should have been present. In a letterto the Times Slade protested that he had told them that the spiritshad begun and that only two or three words had been written. Eachparty claimed that the other was lying.

Lankester considered this test legitimate because what he wasdealing with was not a force of nature, but human fraudulence.He justified his actions to readers of the Times:

To convict the spiritualist impostor one must not approach himwith theories based on ‘recondite principles of modern science,’nor should one put him on his guard as though an honourablecontest were in hand, but his habits and methods should beas minutely and covertly investigated as those of some elusivewild beast, and then at the right moment he may be seizedand brought to the light ‘taken in the act.’15

Later, Lankester would continue to describe his spiritualist oppo-nents as ‘vermin’ and ‘skunks’ to be ‘hunted.’16 For the zoologistand his colleague it was sufficient to show that Slade’s manifesta-tions were deceptions. All they needed to do was to expose Sladeto discredit every psychic and medium that dared to prey on be-reaved relatives and the gullible. Nowhere was better for this expo-sure than the London Times.

The Times was no stranger to spiritualism. As early as 1863 ithad run an article on the death of an elderly gentleman who diedwhile being ‘ducked,’ thrown into a pond to test his supernaturalpowers. The man ‘had every qualification suitable to the character[of a medium],’ the article explained: ‘He was aged, he was af-flicted, he was eccentric, he was poor, and he was a mystery.’17

The piece concluded that the act was a senseless death caused bymedieval superstitions surviving to the present day, but cautionedthat many ‘wizards’ were no doubt ‘wiseacres’ whose very realpower over people was the result of criminal fraud, deception, andtrickery. It was largely in the pages of the London Times that Wallace,his allies, and his detractors publicly sparred over the evidence,methods, and reasons for exploring spiritual phenomena.18 WhenLankester had Slade charged for an offence under the VagrancyAct, the paper dedicated considerable space to the drama.

The Vagrancy Act was enacted under King George IV in 1824and was modified slightly in 1838. Though it has gone through fur-ther amendments since then, it is still in force in the United King-dom today. As an act to police public morals, it covered a widerange of offenses such as being idle, squatting, begging, and distrib-

14 Lankester (1876, 16 September, p. 7).15 Lankester (1876, 21 September, p. 3).16 See Milner (1999).17 Anonymous (1863, 24 September, p. 6).18 Willis (2006, pp. 192–193).19 Anonymous (1862, pp. 699–700).20 Anonymous (1876, 11 October, p. 12).

uting pornography, as well as homelessness and exhibitionism. Italso condemned to three months hard labour ‘every Person pre-tending or professing to tell Fortunes, or using any subtle Craft,Means, or Device, by Palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and imposeon any of His Majesty’s Subjects.’19 Under the terms of the act Sladewas being charged with the somewhat ambiguous felony of usingsomething to deceive someone.

The trial began on October 1st 1876 and ended on November1st of the same year. George Lewis represented the Crown, theadvocates Munton and C. Massey represented the defence, and F.Flowers was the presiding magistrate. Whatever the trial beganas, it was perceived by many to be about the more fundamentalclaims of spiritualism itself, and it ended as a self-conscious andpublic conflict between communities who identified as ‘sceptics’and those who identified as ‘believers.’ The proceedings saw anumber of asides that put just this question to the defence counsel,Mr. Munton:

Mr. Munton.—I am not called upon to prove that this was doneby any supernatural agency.Mr. FLOWERS [sic].—Excuse me, but I think you are. (Applause.)Mr. Munton.—If the defendant believes that the writing wasthat of his deceased wife, surely that is enough for me withoutmy being called upon to prove it.Mr. FLOWERS.—I don’t want to say much about this matter if Ican help it, for this is a kind of new religion, and many people,no doubt, are sincere believers in it; but we must keep to theissue before us, and the question really is,—Did these personsfraudulently represent, as an act of spiritual agency certainthings which were done by themselves.Mr. FLOWERS asked Mr. Munton if he was prepared to contendthat there was no writing on the slate before it touched thetable.Mr. Munton was not prepared to say that.Mr. FLOWERS thought from the questions put that such was hiscontention. He did not intend to sit there to try the question ofspiritualism.20

Munton wanted to show that Slade believed that he was receivingmessages from his dead wife. However, the magistrate contendedthat that would not be enough to prove Slade’s innocence. Instead,he expected Munton to demonstrate that there was no writing onthe slate before it touched the table and that somehow writinghad appeared on it later. Yet Munton was also expected to explainhow this had happened without any recourse to Slade’s own expla-nations for how his séances occurred. This exchange shows how thedefence was in the difficult situation of having to prove supernatu-ral agency in the case of Slade, while not being permitted to go di-rectly into the issues of spiritualism.

However, despite what the magistrate intended, the question ofspiritualism was tried. The Crown raised this point again shortlyafter Massey was called to the witness box, which the magistrateallowed despite the fact that Massey was the defence counsel:

Mr. Munton here asked a question to which Mr. Lewis objected.He said Mr. Munton was asking the witness not only what hehad seen the defendant do, but what he had seen other conjur-ers do.

18 B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24

Mr. FLOWERS said he thought he could not stop the examina-tion, but he was sorry Mr. Massey had been called at all, as itopened the whole subject of spiritualism.21

It thus seemed evident to the British spiritualist community thatwhat had begun as Lankester’s ‘crucial experiment’ of Slade had be-come a public challenge to the whole of spiritualism. During theproceedings Slade and Simmonds were invited to a conversazionehosted by the British National Spiritual Society. While there thepresident, Mr. Alexander Calder, lauded his guests as ‘martyrs oftheir cause.’22 Nor was Calder alone in believing that the trial wasabout more than Slade as an individual.

Wallace’s presence and ideas permeated the trial. Munton re-ferred to the naturalist as an example of a person ‘of high distinc-tion’ that had attested to the authenticity of spirit phenomena.23

When questioned, Simmonds stated that it was Wallace’s 1874 workA defence of modern spiritualism that had raised his interest in the to-pic.21 Wallace was also called upon by the defence to speak as a wit-ness. His testimony was recorded in The Spiritualist, where he isdescribed answering general questions put to him about his sittingswith Slade, Slade’s posture and position, and the slate used in theséance. Wallace was careful to stick to the specifics of the questionsposed, though he did also comment on the nature of the table Sladeused during his séances.24 While seemingly trivial, the question ofwhat effects could be produced with the table struck to the heartof the charges facing Slade.

The star witness for the Crown was the stage magician John Ne-vil Maskelyne (1839–1917). Maskelyne worked at London’s Egyp-tian Hall and had already made a name for himself by exposingthe methods of fraudulent spiritualists. As the trial went on, Mask-elyne—despite protests by the magistrate—put on a show to dem-onstrate his points. One commentator observed that ‘A sort ofsensation was produced in court when Mr. Lewis called out thename of John Maskelyne as the next witness, and from this pointthe character of the inquiry became absolutely farcical.’25 Themagician performed his own slate writing by erasing a pre-writtenmessage with a sponge dipped in a chemical solution, after whichthe message reappeared. However, the defence took exception tothis line of inquiry, claiming that it was counterproductive to thepurpose of the trial because there was no way to test whether ornot that was what Slade had done during his séance.26

To accommodate this concern, the construction of the specifictable used in Slade’s séances became the main focus of attention:‘It was brought in over the heads of the people, amid roars oflaughter, and looked a very common oak table, with two flaps,worked by bars of peculiar action. A place for even so small a tablewas with difficulty found.’26 Lankester thought that it may havebeen the same table, though he admitted that he was unsure.26

Maskelyne examined the table and testified that it was made for‘fakery’ but that some of the pieces had probably been removed;the magistrate agreed that ‘it was certainly a very unusual table.’26

Both the defence and the prosecution discussed the materialevidence at length. The question of whether or not Slade had em-ployed some ‘subtle Craft, Means, or Device’ to produce the effectswitnessed in his séances was ultimately seen to rest on the kinds ofevidence that these artefacts were capable of producing. By usingMaskelyne as its star witness, the Crown had chosen to stress therepeatability of these effects and their perceived reliance upon

21 Anonymous (1876, 21 October, p. 11).22 Anonymous (1876, 2 November, p. 11).23 Anonymous (1876, 30 October, p. 11).24 Anonymous (1876, p. 161).25 Anonymous (1876, 11 October, p. 12).26 Ibid.27 Anonymous (1876, 11 October, p. 9).28 Anonymous (1876, 1 November, p. 11).

some mechanical contrivance or another. Yet, while Munton couldprotest the relevance of this line of reasoning, he could offer nocounter-examples, as a séance itself was not performed in thecourtroom. At best, he could stress the normalcy of the table em-ployed by Slade, a situation made more difficult by the fact thatSlade and Simmonds had requested the table back:

An amusing contest then arose as to the possession of the table,Mr. Lewis claiming that it should be impounded, like any docu-ment produced in evidence. Mr. Munton said his clients wantedthe table, and could not get on with their professional dutieswithout it.Mr. Lewis,—Then that is an admission that there is some mys-tery about the construction of the table after all.Mr. Munton would be content if Mr. Lewis would pay foranother—say �£1 5s (laughter.)Mr. Lewis would be happy to lend a table which would do quiteas well, if the ‘spiritual agency’ was alone relied on.The table was in the end handed over to the courtkeeper forproduction at a future examination, if required, and the Courtthen rose.26

For Lankester it was enough to show that Slade had deceived him torefute the whole question of spiritualism. As the trial progressed theprosecution took this a step further, arguing that it was enough toshow how it could be done without supernatural agency. TheCrown claimed his position over criticism from the Bench, arguingthat: ‘if it could be done by others, by ordinary men, it was primafacie evidence that there was an attempt to deceive.’27 Instead ofthe Crown having to demonstrate the non-existence of spiritualagents, it put itself in the much easier position of demonstratingwhat subtle ‘Craft, Means, or Device’ Slade could have used in hisséances. This approach had much in common with Carpenter’semphasis on understanding one’s instruments of research, yet atthe same time it also took advantage of the difficulty in proving thatone’s instruments were measuring an effect instead of creating one.The Crown’s emphasis on the table was effective not because it pro-vided conclusive evidence, but because it forced the defence to tryand demonstrate the normalcy of the table rather than exploringthe question of how the writing had appeared on the slate.

Although the magistrate ultimately sided with the prosecution,he publicly disregarded the evidence provided by Maskelyne be-cause it proved what ‘no one can doubt—namely, that some thingsdone by Slade might be done by any conjuror.’28 Instead, he ruledbased on how he thought the natural world worked. As he said inhis closing statement:

I must decide according to the well-known course of nature,and if it be true that the two witnesses saw the motions thatthey describe, and found the writing on the slate immediatelyafterwards, it is impossible for me to doubt, whatever happenedon other occasions, Slade did on that occasion write thosewords on that slate in order to cheat Professor Lankester andDr. Donkin.foonote 27

The magistrate claimed to have dismissed Maskelyne’s evidenceand ruling only according to ‘the well-known course of nature.’He was nevertheless actually restating the very point that theCrown had been trying to make all along. Since the then-understood

B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24 19

laws of nature could only be used to explain the appearance of writ-ing on the slate if Slade was actually an impostor, then, by defini-tion, he had to be an impostor. Given the magistrate’s position,there was no way that Slade could have been anything but animpostor.

Slade was ultimately acquitted at his appeal hearing based onuncertainty surrounding the interpretation of the exact wordingof the Vagrancy Act, and the verdict left many deeply unsatisfied.One contributor to the Times lamented the decision, complainingthat the ‘first systematic attempt to repress spiritualist practicesby force of law has on this unsatisfactory ground been defeated’.29

As a trial of spiritualism, the case against Slade was thus largely inef-fective at swaying either side in the debate.

Yet it did demonstrate the epistemic difficulty facing spiritualistclaims when confronted with charges of imposture, for despitewhat was or was not seen, there could always be a subtler table,or sleight of hand. There were two simultaneous, socially negoti-ated questions at hand: one, what counted as a valid test of spiri-tualism, and two, whether or not the phenomena associated withthis test were ever actually produced.30 The fact that this particulartrial took place in a courtroom, instead of at a meeting of the BAAS asBarrett had proposed, further demonstrates the social dynamics ofthe case. While Wallace never articulated it exactly in these terms,he did bear witness to the trial from its prehistory to its dénouement.He realized that his defence of spiritualism as a viable subject ofrepeatable experiments was not enough to settle the issue. Eventhough the magistrate in the Slade trial refused to accept the evi-dence of a stage magician who showed how the writing on the slatecould have appeared, he nevertheless chose to prosecute Slade be-cause there were alternative mechanisms to spiritual interventionthat could have produced the writing according to the then-acceptedlaws of nature. As long as spiritualists could not untangle the effectsthey were claiming to observe from the effects that they themselvesmay have produced, they would not be able to prove their caseagainst hostile magistrates, not to mention hostile scientists. Yetthe case only became more convoluted when the question of slatesand tables was put aside in favour of the question of the psycheitself.

3. In possession of possession

From at least the 1850s onward, two emerging critiques of thetraditional understanding of consciousness threatened the ideathat human personality was a unified whole. With his studies ofdominant ideas, unconscious cerebration, and prepossession, Car-penter sought to demonstrate the insufficiency of spiritualist testi-mony while avoiding the difficulty of having to show that all thosewho believed in spiritual agency were either incompetent, liars, orboth. Citing the case of Michael Faraday’s 1853 experiment onwhat he called the ‘table-turning epidemic’, Carpenter wrote pro-lifically on how the prepossessions of the séance observers, com-bined with unconscious muscular action, explained almost allspiritual phenomena without recourse to any radically new systemof nature.31 Even more troubling for Wallace, Myers’ work on thesubliminal self threw doubt on the belief that possessed mediumswere actually being influenced by external, disembodied personali-ties. Worse still, the subliminal self implied that there was a core

29 Anonymous (1877, 30 January, p. 9).30 Collins (1981, pp. 33–62). See also: Rheinberger (2001).31 Carpenter (1888, p. 250).32 For more on the subversive character of the unconscious in debates surrounding spiri33 Slotten (2004, p. 244).34 Wallace (1878, 12 January, p. 54).35 See Wallace (2013h, 2013i).36 Carpenter (1888, pp. 246–247).

of deception at the heart of everyone, potentially rendering observa-tion itself unreliable and inherently suspect.32

Carpenter was the first eminent scientific colleague whom Wal-lace invited to a Friday evening séance.33 The physiologist was apromising candidate because he was a devout Unitarian who soughta space for theistic reasoning in scientific life, and he had already ex-pressed some reservations about natural selection based on his reli-gious views.27 As early as 1864, he had also written to Wallaceexpressing his sympathy with the possibility of mind reading andsome mesmeric phenomena, which Wallace considered to be alliedwith spiritual research.27 Instead, however, Carpenter went on to be-come one of Wallace’s most persistent antagonists in questions re-lated to spiritualism. Their published debates spanned a range ofpopular and scientific periodicals, seldom staying confined withinany one in particular. As a result, Wallace complained about Carpen-ter’s erratic mode of carrying on a debate,34 and their relationshipbecame increasingly strained.35

Despite Wallace’s complaint, Carpenter eventually did presentthe bulk of his thoughts on the matter in his Principles of mentalphysiology, first published in 1874, and his article ‘On the fallaciesof testimony in relation to the supernatural’, which appeared in theJanuary 1876 edition of the Contemporary Review. There he at-tempted to steer a course between the mathematician WilliamKingdon Clifford’s (1845–1879) claims that the human being wasfundamentally an automaton and the spiritualists’ claims aboutthe ineffable powers of disembodied intelligences. To accomplishthis, Carpenter presented a series of recent researches into thephysiology of the mind to show which parts of it were automatic,which parts could be made automatic, and which parts were sub-ject to a person’s own volition. In doing so, he attributed most spir-itualist claims to unconscious cerebration, the capacity of thehuman mind to deceive the senses, or, in the case of motor autom-atism, to cause the observer to make subtle, unconscious motionsto confirm some previously held expectation, be it that a tableshould turn or a pendulum swing in some meaningful way.

Carpenter was much more concerned with elucidating the var-ious roles that delusion had to play in producing spiritualist beliefsthan with questions of imposture. He classified unconscious cere-bration’s various manifestations with many different names: ‘delu-sions’, ‘artefacts of expectant attention’, ‘prepossessions’,‘dominant’, and ‘fixed ideas’. Carpenter was especially interestedin answering how otherwise reasonable scientists such as Wallaceand Crookes could become susceptible. He did not doubt their hon-esty, but maintained that if honesty was all that was required toprove something, then they were also forced to believe that eventhe visions of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg were true:

That they were true to him I cannot doubt; and in the same man-ner, I do not question that Mr. Crookes is thoroughly honest,when he says that he has repeatedly witnessed the ‘levitationof the human body.’ But I can regard his statement in no otherlight, than as evidence of the degree in which certain minds areled by the influence of strong ‘prepossession,’ to believe in thecreations of their own visual imagination.36

These delusions were tied to the strength of a person’s volition.Those who were freest from their prepossessions were also thosewho were most in control of their own observations and experi-

tualism and, in particular, mesmerism, see Winter (1998).

20 B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24

ences, and thereby, also fundamentally the most free.37 In such dis-cussions he often pointed to spiritualists’ tendency to believe in the‘idols’ of prepossession described by Francis Bacon,38 or as subject toa sort of ‘diluted insanity’.39

Co-opting their language, Carpenter described spiritualists asbeing so ‘possessed’ by their dominant ideas that their own expe-riences were fundamentally less objective than those who werefree of such prejudices.40 Here, he likened spiritualism to the reli-gious epidemics of the middle ages, claiming that ‘nothing is moreremarkable in the history of these epidemics, than the vividness withwhich people who were not asleep, saw visions that were obviouslyinspired by the prevalent religious notions of their times’.41 Employ-ing legal language, a common technique in the spiritualist debates ofthe 1870s, Carpenter contested that:

If [. . .] we put these witnesses out of court, as rendered untrust-worthy by their ‘prepossession,’ what credit can we attach tothe testimony of any individuals or bodies dominated by astrong religious ‘prepossession;’ that testimony having neitherbeen recorded at the time, nor subject to the test of judicialexamination?42

Believing, as they did, in the reality of the phenomena they wereexploring, spiritualists were doomed to see what they wanted tosee, given that their volition had been suspended by the power ofdominant ideas, or unconscious cerebration. These implications in-censed Wallace and caused him to turn the charge of prepossessionback around to Carpenter.43 He answered the physiologist in his col-lection of essays On miracles and modern spiritualism, which wentthrough three editions, with later appendices and commentariesspecifically directed against Carpenter, between 1875 and 1896.

Wallace accused Carpenter of inventing the ‘magic’ words‘unconscious cerebration’ in his attempts to dispel spiritualist facts,and of only substantially citing Faraday’s twenty-one-year-oldtests on table turning instead of addressing more contemporaryobservations.44 Surveying the teachings of modern spiritualism asdistilled from interviews with numerous possessed mediums, Wal-lace contended that the philosophical system structuring thoseteachings represented the exact opposite of what one should haveexpected from expectant attention. Almost all of the mediums thathe was aware of had been raised within some kind of orthodox set-ting, and yet, he claimed:

There is no more startling and radical opposition to be foundbetween the most diverse religious creeds, than that betweenthe beliefs in which the majority of mediums have been broughtup and the doctrines as to a future life that are deliveredthrough them.45

The disparity between traditional Christianity and the doctrines ofspiritualism was evidence for Wallace that no kind of unconsciouscerebration could account for the most salient spiritualist claims.

37 For more on Carpenter’s argument about the relationship between freedom and uncomental physiology more broadly, see Smith (2013, 2004).

38 Carpenter (1888, p. 243).39 Carpenter (1891, p. 633).40 Carpenter (1891, p. 632, 1888, p. 247). For a discussion of how these ‘prejudices’ wer41 Carpenter (1888, p. 247).42 Carpenter (1888, pp. 248–249).43 Wallace (1877, December, p. 700).44 Wallace (1875, p. 226).45 Wallace (1875, p. 219; see also p. 114).46 Wallace (1876, 19 December).47 Wallace (1876, 25 August, p. 42).48 Wallace (1876, 19 September, p. 4).49 For more on Myers’s role in the development of theories of the subliminal self and th50 Myers (1907, p. 19).51 Myers (1907, p. 10).52 Myers (1885, p. 233).

Instead, in the face of what he saw as the overwhelming evidenceagainst his opponents, their insistence only demonstrated theirown prejudices. In a letter to The Daily News, Wallace went so faras to insinuate that:

[Carpenter] is the slave of a ‘dominant idea’—the idea that allsuch facts as we have adduced (and they could be multiplieda hundred-fold), whether witnessed by conjurors, physicians,or men of science, and however carefully investigated, are tobe got rid of by the cry of ‘delusion or imposture.’ Dr. Carpenterhimself assures us, however, that ‘the subjection to a tyranni-cally dominant idea is monomania or insanity.’46

While Wallace was able to challenge Carpenter on his own grounds,however, their competing accusations of unconscious cerebrationand prepossession remained notoriously difficult to prove in anyconclusive way, especially to those deeply embroiled in the debatessurrounding them. Before the Slade trial Wallace had suggested thatthose who ‘have accused others of prepossession and self-delusion,should, after having seen Dr. Slade, make some public acknowledg-ment of their error’.47 However, in the lead up to the trial, all Wal-lace could do was comment on how Lankester, still unconvinced,must himself be deluded:

His account of what happened during his visit to Dr. Slade is socompletely unlike what happened during my own visit [. . .] andmany others, that I can only look upon it as a striking exampleof Dr. Carpenter’s theory of preconceived ideas. Professor Lank-ester went with the firm conviction that all he was going to seewould be imposture, and he believes he saw impostureaccordingly.48

Despite another intellectual stalemate, however, it was the testi-mony of a much more sympathetic commentator that would trou-ble Wallace the most.

In 1882 Frederic Myers co-founded the SPR; he would later goon to serve as its president in 1900. More so than Carpenter, hehad immersed himself in the literature on mediums, automaticwriting, and other spiritualist phenomena. He arrived at the viewthat instead of demonstrating the existence of external intelli-gences impressing themselves upon the minds of mediums, thesetests showed the existence of a second self apart from, but con-nected to, the conscious self.49 He employed a range of analogiesto explain the second self’s fragmentary but coherent qualities, com-paring it to the visible and invisible wavelengths of light,50 to therelationship between colonies,51 or to a kingdom ‘insensibly dissolv-ing into a republic’.52 Ultimately, he wished to show how:

there may be,—not only co-operations between these quasi-independent trains of thought,—but also upheavals and altera-

nscious cerebration, as well as the debates surrounding free will and determinism in

e debated see Lightman (2009, 2010).

e unconscious, see Shamdasani (2003) as well as Chapter Two of Hayward (2007).

B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24 21

tions of personality of many kinds, so that what was once belowthe surface may for a time, or permanently, rise above it. And Iconceive also that no Self of which we can here have cognizanceis in reality more than a fragment of a larger Self,—revealed in afashion at once shifting and limited through an organism not soframed as to afford it full manifestation.53

In this way, like Carpenter, Myers added to the body of evidenceattesting to the idea that the self could no longer be seen as an undi-vided whole. Unlike Carpenter’s work, however, Myers’s work alsoimplied that some aspects of this fragmentary self could have theirown kind of legitimate autonomy.

Despite this autonomy, however, Myers warned against thetemptation to see, in the otherness of the subliminal self, an exter-nal intelligence. While accepting ‘how analogous these actions [ofthe subliminal self] are to much which in bygone times has beenclassed as possession’,54 we should not think that ‘some Puck orsprite was intervening with a ‘‘third intelligence’’ compounded ofaimless cunning and childish jest’.55 Where Wallace criticised as a‘stupendous difficulty’56 the seemingly alien deceptions of honestmen and women, Myers concluded instead that: ‘the real cause forsurprise would have been if our secondary self had not exhibited acharacter in some way different from that which we recognize asour own’.57 In their dreams people were nightly presented with as-pects of themselves that were shocking and strange. By arguing thatit was contiguous with the dreaming self, Myers helped to excusethe subliminal self’s potentially outrageous aspects while accountingfor its superficial similarities with spiritual possession.

While Myers did not wish to rule out the idea that spiritualinfluences could act on the material world, he did seek the limitsof the scope of these influences. His posthumously published Hu-man personality and its survival of bodily death, which expandedand commented on the work he did from the 1880s onwards,was ‘in large measure a critical attack upon the main Spiritist posi-tion, as held, say, by Mr. A. R. Wallace, its most eminent living sup-porter’.58 Despite his cordial relations with Myers,59 Wallacebelieved that the subliminal self was a ‘cumbrous and unintelligi-ble’60 hypothesis. Yet for Myers either something like the subliminalself had to exist, or else there would have to be constant and invasivespiritual intervention in the material world. There would be no otherway to explain all of the various interruptions of ‘normal’ conscious-ness experienced by people in their everyday lives. With this inmind, he wrote: ‘my conception of a subliminal self will thus appear,not as an extravagant and needless, but as a limiting and rationaliz-ing hypothesis, when it is applied to phenomena which at first sightsuggest Mr. Wallace’s extremer view’.61

In An elusive Victorian, Martin Fichman comments on the ironythat Wallace—who always tried to seek unifying principles in nat-ure—opposed the subliminal self, even though it could account forhypnotism, automatic writing, and many other spiritual phenom-ena.62 Yet Wallace thought that his own approach to spiritualismwas the one best able to unify these phenomena, and many others

53 Myers (1907, p. 15).54 Myers (1885, p. 236).55 Myers (1885, p. 247).56 Wallace (1893, 15 September, p. 441).57 Myers (1885, p. 247).58 Myers (1907, p. 8). For more on the often-rocky relationship between psychical resea59 For letters between Myers and Wallace that show this relationship, as well as Wallace’s

for his commitment to the ‘delusion & imposture theory’ see: Wallace (2013b, 2013c, 20160 Wallace (1893, 15 September, p. 440).61 Myers (1907, p. 16).62 Fichman (2004, p. 119). See also Smith (1972).63 Wallace (1901, 19 January, p. 29). For a discussion by Milner about how Darwin held sim

and explain the most disparate phenomena, see Milner (1994, p. 107).64 Wallace (1895, pp. xvi–xv).

besides, because in doing so he was able to preserve the unity ofthe psyche.63 We can turn to the question of the unity of nature tofind a deeper understanding of Wallace’s rejection of the subliminalself, but the answer is not to be found in any of the stated spiritualphenomena. Instead, considering how these external forces wereunified at the cost of a divided sense of self, of a truly ‘independentintelligence’, the greater question was how to prove the existence ofa whole personality capable of being a reliable witness. In the samepassage where he describes the supremacy of any hypothesis able tounify a broader range of phenomena, Wallace protests the stupen-dous difficulty that

if these phenomena and these tests are to be all attributed tothe ‘‘second self’’ of living persons, then that second self isalmost always a deceiving and a lying self, however moraland truthful the visible and tangible first self may be, has, sofar as I know, never been rationally explained.64

For Wallace the subliminal self implied that even while people wereawake, some subterranean aspects of the psyche—who knew howmany?—could upset the continuity of their experience and theircapacity to report on experiences. Not only did Wallace think thatthe subliminal self unified only a handful of spiritualist facts, hethought that it did so at the cost of the coherence of objectiveobservation.

The debate over who was more deluded than whom, Wallace orCarpenter, failed to conclude in a satisfactory manner. Each simplydenied the validity of the other’s observations, claiming that theywere based upon preconceived ideas. They each believed that theother’s prejudices were faulty instruments that produced the ef-fects that they were supposed to objectively observe, and in this re-gard it was not entirely unlike the impasse seen during Slade’strail. These two threads help to explain the eagerness with whichall sides of the spiritualist debates sought some crucial experiment,one that could not be denied by pointing to the unconscious falli-bility of those conducting the investigation or to the mechanicaland moral fallibility of the instruments used to investigate spiritu-alist phenomena. Lankester hoped to accomplish this with his pub-lic exposure of Slade. Stuck in the epistemic limbo surrounding theSlade trial and his debates with Carpenter, and concerned aboutthe growing popularity of the subliminal self, Wallace turned tothe clearer lens of spirit photography.

4. Between ghost and machine

Very early on in his career, Wallace’s interest in photographywas spurred on by exchanges with his sister’s husband, ThomasSims. Sims ran a photography business from the 1850s to the1890s. Wallace often wrote him to ask about the business andabout various photographic techniques. After his sister died, Wal-lace tried to find work for Sims, writing to a friend that he was agood and experienced photographer, well-versed in current

rchers and spiritualists, see Cerullo (1982).denial of the subliminal self, interest in spirit photography, and his critique of Donkin3d, 2013e, 2013f, 2013g).

ilar views in regards to the ability of evolution by means of natural selection to unify

22 B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24

theories and methods.65 Wallace had been interested in spirit pho-tography well before the Slade trial began and continued to defendits value in his debates with Carpenter and Myers long after the trialwas over. It made a number of appearances in his On miracles andmodern spiritualism. As late as 1891, he was still describing it asthe ‘crucial test of objectivity’66 for spiritualism over and againstMyers’ theory of the subliminal self.

What made these photographs so important to Wallace? Cer-tainly, such images were in no way definitive proof of the existenceof spiritual beings, neither to the general public, nor to most of thescientific elite. Huxley kept a private collection of spirit photo-graphs for the express purpose of refuting them for his acquain-tances,67 while magicians such as Maskelyne gave public anddramatic demonstrations showing how they could be faked.68 Wal-lace himself admitted the ease with which these images could beproduced, but instead of weakening the epistemic status of spiritphotography, he concluded that this very ease and familiarity meantthat imposture was essentially impossible.

Most persons have heard of these ‘‘ghost-pictures,’’ and howeasily they can be made to order by any photographer, andare therefore disposed to think they can be of no use as evi-dence. But a little consideration will show them that the meansby which sham ghosts can be manufactured being so wellknown to all photographers, it becomes easy to apply tests orarrange conditions so as to prevent imposition.69

In the Slade trial, the Crown had used the very simplicity of the ta-ble and slate to cast suspicion on the mechanisms underlyingSlade’s séances. By comparison, Wallace came to believe that thecomplex skills required to develop photographs made spirit photog-raphy far less susceptible to charges of imposture than any séanceconducted with a slate, table or other simple device.

At the 1876 meeting of the BAAS Wallace had held up Slade’sséances as an example of reliable and repeatable spiritual experi-ments. He would later make this claim for spirit photography,though with an added emphasis on the role of experts. Spirit pho-tography was more valuable because ‘in the first place, it is exper-imental evidence, and experiment is rarely possible in the higherpsychical phenomena; in the second place, it is the evidence of ex-perts, in an operation the whole details of which are perfectlyfamiliar to them’.70 By presenting spirit photography as a repeatableand technically familiar series of tests subject to the oversight of ex-perts, he hoped to protect it against the all-too-common charges ofimposture.

He gradually shifted his emphasis from Slade and his slates tocameras and photographic plates, which provided physical dis-tance between the medium, instrument, and investigator. In his1893 article ‘Are there objective apparitions?’ Wallace employedspirit photography to stress the independent and indivisible natureof spirits. When considering the images produced in the presenceof the medium Agnes Guppy (1838–1917), he went to greatlengths to point out the change of the relative position of the spec-tral sitter in relation to Guppy, and how it was in exact accordancewith Guppy’s own change of position. He took this to mean that itwas the representation of a living, intelligent, and invisible being.71

65 See Wallace (2013a, 2013j, 2013k).66 Wallace (1891, p. 146).67 Tucker (2005, p. 107).68 Tucker (1997, p. 395).69 Wallace (1875, p. 186).70 Wallace (1891, p. 145). See also, pp. 141–142.71 Wallace (1875, p. 188).72 Wallace (1891, pp. 145–146).73 Wallace (1875, p. 185).74 Wallace (1875, p. 204).75 Schaffer (1992, p. 362).

He likewise stressed in a series of experiments made in 1873, that inevery instance the invisible figure described by the medium wasidentical with the image that later developed on the photographicplate. This suggested that what the medium was describing had anobjective existence. While Wallace admitted the possibility of hallu-cinations, and even collective hallucinations, spirit photographyshowed that: ‘[true] phantasms often behave like objective realitiesin relation to material objects and to different persons [. . .]. This is asit should be if they are objective, but is hardly explicable on the sub-jective [. . .] theory’.72 Existing in the space between the photo-graphic apparatus, the image produced, and the sitter, spiritphotography could avoid the frailties of the witness’s subjectiveimpressions while at the same time demonstrating the autonomous,independent wills of both sitter and spirit.

Lankester had therefore not been alone in his desire for a crucialtest; Wallace saw spirit photography in much the same light. Twoyears before the trial, Wallace had described a hypothetical com-mentator who questioned him on the kinds of evidence availableto spiritualists:

I should like to have them submitted to a crucial test, whichwould quite settle the question of the possibility of their beingdue to a coincident delusion of several senses of several personsat the same time; and, if satisfactory, would demonstrate theirobjective reality in a way nothing else can do. If they really reflector emit light which makes them visible to human eyes, they can bephotographed. Photograph them, and you will have an unanswer-able proof that your human witnesses are trustworthy.73

In this response Wallace relied upon the very ‘recondite principlesof modern science’ that Lankester had eschewed in favour of hisspiritualist ‘hunt’. He went on to describe why this spiritual tech-nology could finally offer a crucial test:

Through an independent set of most competent observers wehave the crucial test of photography; a witness which cannotbe deceived, which has no preconceived opinions, which cannotregister ‘subjective’ impressions; a thoroughly scientific wit-ness, who is admitted into our law courts, and whose testimonyis good as against any number of recollections of what did hap-pen or opinions as to what ought to and must have happened.74

Wallace believed that spirit photography was the crucial test ofspiritualism because it left no room for imposture or delusion.The skill involved in developing photographs meant that no compe-tent observer could be fooled by such a deception. Spirit photogra-phy could also be used ruled out delusion because it provided a wayto separate the medium from the effects that they produced.

5. Conclusion

In Self evidence, Simon Schaffer concludes that self-registrativetechnologies and ideas of disembodied genius are produced to-gether. There is an intimate relationship between the trust givento self-registering instruments and the authority of the scientificexpert.75 This helps to explain how mechanical objectivity could

B.D. Mitchell / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 46 (2014) 15–24 23

inspire Myer’s undermining of the coherence of the self in favour of asubliminal self, Carpenter’s emphasis on instruments and the train-ing of the will, and Wallace’s reliance on spirit photography. It alsohelps to explain how Wallace’s insistence on the unity of will wasnot fundamentally opposed to the dominant scientific narratives ofthe nineteenth century. Wallace faced a number of impasses in hisattempts to demonstrate the reality of spirits. To overcome them,he appealed to the same values that lent mechanical objectivity itspersuasive force. Yet unlike his contemporaries who were drivenby these values to demonstrate the fallibility of the will, Wallacewas driven instead to demonstrate its reliability. Indeed, it was notonly possible to employ self-registering technologies in the investi-gation of spiritual phenomena; it was necessary if science was goingto be based upon the unity and coherence of human observation.

The Slade trial is a dramatic example of how debates over spir-itualist imposture tended to reproduce the prejudices of the partiesinvolved. It also reveals the important ways in which instrumentswere being used to justify these prejudices. During the proceed-ings, the slate and table were subject to intense scrutiny becauseof their suspicious simplicity and the role the Crown felt they musthave played in the séance with Lankester. In contrast, Wallace pro-posed photography as a crucial experiment because its mecha-nisms were complex, routine, and easily subject to the scrutinyof experts. Spirit photography also solved the problem of the sub-liminal self and unconscious cerebration, for unlike spirit drawing,writing, and possession, it removed the medium from any directaccess to the devices of inscription used to demonstrate a spiritualpresence.

Occult and paranormal controversies, the objects of which tendto be derided as mere hoaxes, superstition, or folklore, make forparticularly valuable subjects of study, for they help to reveal theways in which claims about nature become accepted and en-trenched. The debates over spiritualism at the end of the nine-teenth century bore a remarkable resemblance to those overmesmerism at the end of the eighteenth. It is productive to con-sider Schaffer’s observations about the French commission set upto judge the mesmerist Charles Deslon, in which the various exper-imental impasses were only broken because the commissionershad power: ‘they ran the show and defined the available explana-tory resources’.76 Yet the very demonstration of social force andmoral authority used to break these impasses makes them placesof interest for historians of science. When dealing with these mat-ters, authorities often feel safe dismissing evidence out of hand,and thus are more likely to reveal the power dynamics at play intheir own claims about nature. This is exactly what the magistratein the Slade trial did when he simultaneously rejected the evidenceprovided by the Crown about the possible mechanisms behinds theséance while nevertheless ruling against Slade based on what he be-lieved to be the ‘well-known course of nature’.

Frustrated over what he perceived to be repetitive and disin-genuous calls for further confirmation of spiritualist experiments,Wallace exclaimed: ‘But why more confirmation? And when again‘confirmed,’ who is to confirm the confirmer?’77 As can be seenfrom the persistence, and yet also the persistent rejection of spiritphotography throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,Wallace was never able to disprove the charges of his opponents.Yet his attempts and the resistance he met helped to question, ex-plore, and test the limits of what constituted evidence, objectivity,and confirmation at the turn of the nineteenth century. In thisway, even if spirit photographs failed to give conclusive form and fig-ure to the invisible, they nevertheless prevented Victorian commen-tators from assuming in an uncontested way that the cacophony of

76 Schaffer (1992, p. 356).77 Wallace (1875, p. 203).

wills working through the photographic image were in fact ‘well-known’.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Joseph-ArmandBombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship during the time whenthis article was written. I would also like to thank Charles H. Smith,Martin Fichman, James Elwick, Ernie Hamm, Bernard Lightman,and Coren Pulleyblank for their advice and assistance.

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Wallace, A. R. (2013b). Alfred Russel Wallace to Frederic William Henry Myers, 18April 1895. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1583/1362/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

Wallace, A. R. (2013c). Alfred Russel Wallace to Frederic William Henry Myers, 5February 1895. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1582/1361/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

Wallace, A. R. (2013d). Alfred Russel Wallace to Frederic William Henry Myers, 4February 1893. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1577/1356/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

Wallace, A. R. (2013e). Alfred Russel Wallace to Frederic William Henry Myers, 1August 1891. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1575/1354/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

Wallace, A. R. (2013f). Alfred Russel Wallace to Frederic William Henry Myers, 18April 1886. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1569/1348/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

Wallace, A. R. (2013g). Alfred Russel Wallace to Frederic William Henry Myers, 21December 1883. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/1568/1347/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

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Wallace, A. R. (2013i). Alfred Russel Wallace to William Benjamin Carpenter, 7October 1877. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/2564/2454/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

Wallace, A. R. (2013j). Alfred Russel Wallace to Fanny and Thomas Sims, 6September 1858. Wallace Letters Online. <http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/368/368/T/details.html> Accessed 8 November 2013.

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