456 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xxviii 



lieved in the evidence of anyone with such perfect bona fides as 

 Mr. Y being so worthless. 



On receiving this report Mr. Darwin v^rrote (Life, ii. p. 

 i88) :— 



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 think- 

 ing 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.,_/m;« 4, 1874. 



My dear Mr. Morley — I r.ssure you that it was a great dis- 

 appointment 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 even- 

 ing discourse to deliver at the British Association — to say noth- 

 ing 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., A/'ov. 15, 1874. 



My dear Morley — Many thanks for your abundantly suffi- 

 cient 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 Fort- 

 nightly, 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 



