...--Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

P.S.--I am fairly well, but almost past work.--A.R.W.

* * * * *

TO SIR OLIVER LODGE

_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. October 9, 1913._

Dear Sir Oliver Lodge,--Owing to ill-health and other causes I have only
now been able to finish the perusal of your intensely interesting and
instructive Address to the British Association. I cannot, however,
refrain from writing to you to express my admiration of it, and
especially of the first half of it, in which you discuss the almost
infinite variety and complexity of the physical problems involved in the
great principle of "continuity" in so clear a manner that outsiders like
myself are able to some extent to apprehend them. I am especially
pleased to find that you uphold the actual existence and _continuity_ of
the ether as scientifically established, and reject the doubts of some
mathematicians as to the reality and perfect continuity of space and
time as unthinkable.

The latter part of the Address is even more important, and is especially
notable for your clear and positive statements as to the evidence in all
life-process of a "guiding" Mind. I can hardly suppose that you can have
found time to read my rather discursive and laboured volume on "The
World of Life," written mainly for the purpose of enforcing not only the
proofs of a "guiding" but also of a "foreseeing" and "designing" Mind by
evidence which will be thought by most men of science to be unduly
strained. It is, therefore, the more interesting to me to find that you
have yourself (on pp. 33-34 of your Address) used the very same form of
analogical illustration as I have done (at p. 296 of "The World of
Life") under the heading of "A Physiological Allegory," as being a very
close representation of what really occurs in nature.

To conclude: your last paragraph rises to a height of grandeur and
eloquence to which I cannot attain, but which excites my highest
admiration.

Should you have a separate copy to spare of your Romanes Lecture at
Oxford, I should be glad to have it to refer to.--Believe me yours very
truly,

ALFRED R. WALLACE.

* * * * *

The last of Wallace's letters on astronomical subjects was written to
Sir Oliver Lodge about a week before his death:

TO SIR OLIVER LODGES

_Old Orchard, Broadstone, Dorset. October 27, 1913._

Dear Sir Oliver Lodge,--Many thanks for your Ro