Ɛpsilon

To W. M. Moorsom   11 September [1877]1

Down | Beckenham Kent

Sept: 11.

Dear Sir

I wish I could give you any information as I look at your cause as one of the most important in which any man can engage—2 I suspect most monkeys would take habitually to alcohol if they could get it. I heard lately of a publican who keeps several monkeys & his customers give them drink so that they become quite tipsy— It is very difficult to draw a just line between scepticism & credulity in natural history but I sh’d not believe the Elephant story without very good & detailed evidence—3 It is almost incredible how utterly untrustworthy the stories of men not trained in science are, as I have learned by long experience & of which I could give many amusing instances

Dear Sir | yours faithfully | Ch: Darwin

Copy

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from W. M. Moorsom, 10 September 1877.
2
See letter from W. M. Moorsom, 10 September 1877. Moorsom was a supporter of the temperance movement.
3
Moorsom had referred to a published account of elephants becoming intoxicated after eating a particular fruit (see letter from W. M. Moorsom, 10 September 1877 and n. 2).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11134,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11134