To T. H. Huxley   29 January [1874]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Jan. 29th

My dear Huxley

It was very good of you to write so long an account.2 Though the seance did tire you so much it was, I think, really worth the exertion, as the same sorts of things are done at all the seances, even at Crookes;3 & now to my mind an enormous weight of evidence would be requisite to make one believe in anything beyond mere trickery.— It is a very significant fact that Williams now regularly goes to Crookes.—4 I am pleased to think that I declared to all my family the day before yesterday, that the more I thought of all that I had heard happened at Queen Anne St, the more convinced I was that it was all imposture.—5 I would not have believed that H. Wedgwood would so easily have been humbugged:6 my theory was that Williams managed to get the two men on each side of him to hold each others hands, instead of his, & that he was thus free to perform his antics— I am very glad that I issued my ukase7 to you to attend

Yours affecty | Ch. Darwin

George is as much pleased at the result as I am—& attributes all the success to you

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from T. H. Huxley, 27 January 1874.
3
William Crookes investigated several mediums in the 1870s and 1880s and became convinced that some practitioners possessed genuine psychic abilities (ODNB).
4
Charles E. Williams was the medium at the séance reported on by Huxley (see letter from T. H. Huxley, 27 January 1874). An observer at a séance held at the home of Crookes claimed to have seen the materialisation of a spirit, ‘John King’, while Williams was asleep behind a curtain in the room with Ellen Crookes keeping her hand on his shoulder (Melton ed. 1996, p. 1406).
5
CD had been present briefly at a séance in the home of Erasmus Alvey Darwin in mid-January 1874, but did not remain for most of the proceedings (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 18 January [1874]).
6
Hensleigh Wedgwood had hosted the séance and was seated next to the medium when the movement of furniture took place (see letter from T. H. Huxley, 27 January 1874).
7
Ukase: a decree or edict, having the force of law, issued by the Russian emperor or government (OED).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.8 I was] after del ‘convinced’
1.9 Williams] above del ‘he’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9258,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9258