After spending months, or sometimes years, in reading and digesting all the literary matter he could obtain on a subject,—and forming a plan for the treatment of it, he would commence writing, and keep on steadily for five or six hours a day if his health permitted. He also wrote to people all over the world to obtain the latest facts bearing on the subject.
In 1903 he began writing "Man's Place in the Universe."
TO MR. W.G. WALLACE
Old Orchard. July 8, 1903.
My dear Will,—I have just finished going over your notes and corrections of the last four chapters. I can't think how I was so stupid to make the mistake in figures which you corrected. In almost all cases I have made some modification in accordance with your suggestions, and the book will be much improved thereby. I have put in a new paragraph about the stars in other parts than the Milky Way and Solar Cluster, but there is really nothing known about them. I have also cut out the first reference to Jupiter altogether. Of course a great deal is speculative, but any reply to it is equally speculative. The question is, which speculation is most in accordance with the known facts, and not with prepossessions only?
Considering that the book has all been read up and [pg 122] written in less than three months, it cannot be expected to be as complete and careful as if three years had been expended on it, but then it is fresher perhaps. The bit about the pure air came to me while writing, and I let myself go. Why should I not try and do a little good and make people think a little on such matters, when I have the chance of perhaps more readers than all my other books?
As to my making too much of Man, of course that is the whole subject of the book! And I look at it differently from you, because I know facts about him you neither know nor believe yet. If you are once convinced of the facts and teachings of Spiritualism, you will think more as I do.
The following letter refers to his little book on Mars.