T.H.  Huxley.

As Mr. G. Darwin wrote of the seance, “it has given me a lesson with respect to the worthlessness of evidence which I shall always remember, and besides will make me very diffident in trusting myself.  Unless I had seen it, I could not have believed in the evidence of any one with such perfect bona fides as Mr. Y being so worthless.”

[On receiving this report Mr. Darwin wrote ("Life” 2 page 188):—­

Though the seance did tire you so much, it was, I think, really worth the exertion, as the same sort of things are done at all the seances...and now to my mind an enormous weight of evidence would be requisite to make me believe in anything beyond mere trickery.

The following letter to Mr. Morley, then editor of the “Fortnightly Review,” shows that my father was already thinking of writing upon Hume, though he did not carry out this intention till 1878.

The article referred to in the second letter is that on Animals as Automata.]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., June 4, 1874.

My dear Mr. Morley,

I assure you that it was a great disappointment to me not to be able to visit you, but we had an engagement of some standing for Oxford.

Hume is frightfully tempting—­I thought so only the other day when I saw the new edition advertised—­and now I would gladly write about him in the “Fortnightly” if I were only sure of being able to keep any engagement to that effect I might make.

But I have yet a course of lectures before me, and an evening discourse to deliver at the British Association—­to say nothing of opening the Manchester Medical School in October—­and polishing off a lot of scientific work.  So you see I have not a chance of writing about Hume for months to come, and you had much better not trust to such a very questionable reed as I am.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., November 15, 1874.

My dear Morley,

Many thanks for your abundantly sufficient cheque—­rather too much, I think, for an article which had been gutted by the newspapers.

I am always very glad to have anything of mine in the “Fortnightly,” as it is sure to be in good company; but I am becoming as spoiled as a maiden with many wooers.  However, as far as the “Fortnightly” which is my old love, and the “Contemporary” which is my new, are concerned, I hope to remain as constant as a persistent bigamist can be said to be.

It will give me great pleasure to dine with you, and December 1 will suit me excellently well.

Ever yours very faithfully,

T.H.  Huxley.

[The year winds up with a New Year’s greeting to Professor Haeckel.]

4 Marlborough Place, N.W., December 28, 1874.

My dear Haeckel,

This must reach you in time to wish you and yours a happy New Year in English fashion.  May your shadow never be less, and may all your enemies, unbelieving dogs who resist the Prophet of Evolution, be defiled by the sitting of jackasses upon their grandmothers’ graves! an oriental wish appropriate to an ex-traveller in Egypt.