v4!^americanvalues.org/catalog/pdfs/the-ethics-of-gambling... · 2014-09-11 · ® THE ETHICS OF...

'•'.uA,; -v :. •

0;

•.&. -' •-v4!^

• • -. :,- -•.

J'-'\'^..'.. JV'''

' - v;" ./.;*:••>, •.,'•>/*\^^V..';-^:'':V7^|||, f; >y -... /iV", v'r*-,/.

fMjJM

r-

•S, 6. UCL,

L •

S>< T'jc ^ttcU

THE

EtfTics of Gambling

BY

w. DOUGLASS Mackenzie, m.a.

PHILADELPHIA

henry altemus

COF7R1GHTBD 1896

BY HENRY ALTEMUS

Hbnr7 Altbmos, ManufactorbrPHII.AOBLPBIA

CONTENTS.

PAGECHAP.

I. Thb Need tor a Theory of Gambling . . 7

II. The Act of Gambling Described 13

III. The Economic Nature of the Act .... 19

IV. The Moral Quality of the Act 26

V. The Elementary Chance in Commerce . 33

VI. Why Gambling Weakens Character ... 39

VII. Why Gambling Leads to Suicide 44

VIII. Gambling and National Life 49

Appendix. . . .

X

THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING.

CHAPTER I.

THE NEED FOR A THEORY OF GAMBLING.

Throughout the many discussionswhich have taken place in recent years

on the subject of gambling, one assumptionhas been steadily made even by those whowere most earnest in denouncing the evils ofthe gambling habit. It has been assumedalmost universally that it is impossible toprove that gamblingis wrong. In otherwords,weare asked to believe that no moral principle is involved when one man stakes sixpenceat a quiet rubber in a country parsonage, orwhen another puts down his five-franc pieceoh a table at Monte Carlo. Accordingly wefind, that qyen prominent leaders in publiclife feel compelled to weaken their denunciations of the gambling habit that is spreadingaround us by the confession that they cannotprove gambling to be in itself sinful. It wasa few years ago reported in the newspapersthat "The Calcutta Diocesan Conference,with the Metropolitan at its head, recently

(7)

® THE ETHICS OF GAMBLmo.spent a whole day tiying to discover what

cee/'̂ Tlf ' .gambling, but did not succeed. They carried a resolution, howeverdeclaring it to be the duty of all to discount-nance betting. No paper has expounded

thp ^ persistence many ofthe evils associated with gambling, and manyof the psychological and ethical problems involved m this habit, than the Londontator; but no writer has more emphaticallyand powerfully asseverated the impossibilitvof defining wherein the guilt of gambling, assuch, consists. ^

Among our great teachers of morality,Herbert Spencer appears to have been thefirst to perceive that the evil of gambling cannever be successfully combated until we g-obehind the secondary effects of the gambliLhabit to discover the essential immorality ofthe act itself. He points out that in conver-sation and, he might have added, in platform'and pulpit denunciations of the evil, emphasisIS laid upon the ruin in which so many gam-biers become involved, and the misery which

ey frequently bring on their families, andeven their business relations. "Rarely,"pencer declares, "is there any recognition

of the fundamental reason for condemning

THE NEED FOR A THEORY OF GAMBLING. 9

the practice." It is surely evident that publicreprobation can only be aroused mits utmostintensity when that "fundamental reason islaid bare, and men are made to feel that theinitial act, the one bet on a horse-race ortheone stake at a roulette-table, is as truly wrongas one lie or one theft.

Spencer himself proceeds to give what appears to him to be the fundamental reasonfor condemning the practice of gamblmg.It is a kind of action by whichts obtained at the cost ofpain to another. Thenormal obtainment of gratification, or of themoney which purchases gratification, implies,firstly, that there has been put forth equivalent effort of a kind which, in some way,furthers the general good, and implies, secondly, that those from whom the money isreceived, get directly or indirectly, equivalentsatisfaction. But in gambling the oppositehappens. Benefit received does not implyeffort put forth, and the happiness of thewinner implies the misery of the loser. Thiskind of action is therefore essentially antisocial, sears the sympathies, cultivates a hardegoism, and so produces a general deterioration of character.

In this passage Spencer goes very directly

10 THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING.

to what is, from his general standpoint, theultimate test of the ethical quality of ouracts. We may put it somewhat as follows—That which conduces most to social happiness is the right and that which producessocial misery is the wrong. Here, in the actof gambling, there is a certain amount ofpleasure gained, but its price is pain to another, and, wherever individual pleasure isbought by the infliction of individual pain,such conduct is anti-social, it makes self thesole end, and deliberately sacrifices others forthat end. There is undoubtedly much forcein such an attack upon the system of gambling. But it is not unanswerable, and it doesnot go, after all, to the very root of thematter. ^7

In the first place, it is possible for both thewinner and the loser of a bet to assert thateither he was willing to pay for the pleasurable excitement which he experienced beforethe matter was decided, and was willing alsoto run the risk of losing, on the conditionthat he had a chance of winning. There canbe no doubt, as we shall see, that the pleasuregained in making a bet and waiting for thedecision is in some natures very intense, indeed, and many hold that this pleasure so far

THE NEED FOR A THEOR Y OF GAMBLING, ii

outweighs the pain of losing a small sum ofmoney that they are justified in facing thelatter feeling for the sake of the former. Infact, Spencer has based his denunciation ofthe bet upon the feelings excited after themoney has been won, and lost. But a verylargeproportion ofthe bets, perhaps the greatmajority of the small ones, which are beingmade from day to day, are made with a viewto this peculiar sensation that passes throughthe human frame before the decisive eventhas taken place. And this is not dealt within Spencer's paragraph.

In the next place, there are many who believe, with the present writer, that the balancing of pleasure and pain is not the ultimatetest or ground of the distinction betweenright and wrong. Pleasure and pain are, indeed, effects produced in us by our conduct,but they are only reflections in the region offeeling of personal relations, which by ourconduct we have established with one another.There are, in truth, various other effects whichthese personal relations produce, and whichaffect our whole nature, at once socially, mentally, and physically. If, then, we are to getat the root of any evil which produces misery,or any virtue which produces happiness, weniust obtain a view of the relations which are


established between man and man by the evilor the virtuous act. It will be found that the

relations established by a wrong act, such aslying or theft, are irrational, sometimes indescribable in human language, just becausereason cannot penetrate their darkness. Toaffirm that lying is right, or that universalthieving is conceivable as a social custom,would be as irrational as to say that two andtwo make five. The universe is not so con

structed, as to allow any place within it forsuch facts ; the nature of thought is such thatthese affirmations cannot be thought out intoconsistency. The pain or derangement offeeling, which results in personal and sociallife, as the consequence of lying or theft, isan effect in the region of feeling equivalentto that derangement which is produced in aman's accounts when he says that two and twomake five.

With reference to this matter of gamblingwe are under a rational compulsion to go beyond the evil effects emotionally and sociallywhich the act or the habit produces. Wemust try to understand the act in the light ofreason and of human nature, that we may seewhat it is in itself; why it is so fundamentallywrong, so truly irrational, that evil and onlyevil flows or can flow from it.

CHAPTER 11.

THE ACT OF GAMBLING DESCRIBED.

Let us go back for astudy of* gamblingin its simplicity to the savage man.

Here are two South African natives, of whomone has returned from his garden with a quantity of corn, and the other from the hunting-fields of his tribe with a supply of skins andostrich feathers. There are two great principles which men recognize universally as thegrounds of transferring property, namely,exchange and benevolence. Out of kindnessthe one man may give to the other somethingof that which he possesses, whether it be cornto satisfy the hunter's hunger or a bunch offeathers to decorate the gardener's head. Inthis case the giver has a right to give and thereceiver to receive the property in the nameof that emotion which has prompted the deed,and henceforth what belonged to one has become bothtruly andindisputably the propertyof his friend. Or, with the shrewdness andvigor of the business hour these twospecimens

(13)

14 • THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING.

of primitive man may sit down to arrange abargain, in virtue of which, when the matterhas been fully discussed, so much corn is allowed to stand for a skin and a few feathers,and then an exchange is effected. Again wesee that a transference of property has takenplace upon a principle universally recognizedas morally right.

If it were asked why the conscience of mankind approves these two methods of transferring property it would be hard to give an adequate answer. But at least an approximateexplanation may be found in the idea that,under either of these conditions, it is possiblefor a man to " realize himself." Whether a

man is parting with, his property, under thegentle guidance of benevolent feelings, or onthe strict conditions of equitable purchase, hecan, though in a varying degree, throw intothe deed every part of his nature. His judgment must be used and used aright both inbenevolence or purchase, on pain of his actingthe fool; his conscience must be heard approving the hour, the motive, and the mannerof the deed; his affections must be free atleast from direct injury and dishonor; hisemotions must have no unnatural strain uponthem. Not all the parts of our nature are

THE ACT OF GAMBLING DESCRIBED. 15

necessarily and equally involved in every separate act of benevolence or purchase, butthese two principles, ideally considered, allowof the free outflow of the whole man. Inthem he can realize his true self.

There is one mode of transferring propertywhich is as universally condemned by thehuman conscience as the two already namedare approved, that is theft. There are, it istrue, races and classes of men who do notattach a deep moral stain to the deed of theft,who may even extol the cleverness of the manthat is able to pilfer his neighbor's propertyand remain undetected. But his deed is condemned by being made the ground of justifiable revenge when it is detected. Purchaseand benevolence cannot be avenged, but theftcan. A partial explanation of this may befound in the fact that the man who stealsthereby wrongs not only his neighbors, buthimself. The principle of ownership is reallyattacked by his deed, for when he treats tuumas meum he proceeds on a method which, if itwere universally practised, would annihilatethe possibility of calling anythingmciim.

To go back to our two primitive men. Letus suppose that they suddenly discover a newmethod by which property may betransferred

i6 THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING.

from one to the other. They agree to toss intothe air a flat piece of wood marked on oneside and plain on the other, and according asthe marked or unmarked side turns up thehunter will part with some of his feathers orthe gardener with some of his corn. Thewood is thrown up, falls, and forthwith thegardener finds that he must hand over someof his corn to the hunter. The latter receivesit, and they separate for their respective huts.There we have an act of gambling in its simplest form, from a study of which we may, Ibelieve, reach some important and, to somereaders, perhaps startling conclusions.

It is worth while to emphasize the fact thatin gambling there is a transference of property. A bet is an agreement or a resolve totransfer property from one to another on certain specified conditions^ whether that property be in the form of feathers and corn, orsovereigns and sixpences. This somewhatelementary observation is necessary, becausesome minds have lost sight of the fact thatwhen dealing with money down to a sixpenceyou are dealing with property, and that theprinciples on which you proceed when parting with that sixpence come under criticismswhich are applicable to the transference of

THE ACT OF GAMBLING DESCRIBED. 17

property in general from the possession ofone man to the possession of another. Itwill be found, accordingly, that many menare more awed by the mention of propertythan of money, and feel more responsibilityregarding the former than the latter. Forinstance, we would more easily give awayhalf a dollar than a book from our librarieswhich cost half a dollar. The reluctancemay, in an instance like that, be due tc thepersonal associations which we form with theobjects surrounding us in our homes; butapart altogether from such associations thereis a distinctly keener realization of the sacred-ness of property when we deal with it in kindthan when we deal with it indirectly throughmoney. Hence a gambler may end his gambling career by staking all his goods, if thegradual loss of his means has been accompanied by the creation of the terrible gambler's craving, but it is almost certain that hebegan by risking small coins.

For the fact that we are not m9rally sensitive in regard to our use of small sums ofmoney there are of course obvious psychological reasons, and we are not anxious atpresent to attempt any homily on the subject.But it is all the more necessary that we should

I8 THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING.

clearly go behind the coin which the gamblerstakes, if we are to understand the real ethicaland economic significance of his deed. He isadopting a certain principle for the transference of property, a transference which involvesneither free gift, nor exchange, nor theft, butwhich looks a little like each of these in turn,as you study it now in this light and now inthat. It is a little like real giving, becausethe loser gets no return from the winner; itis a little like theft, because the winner consents to take what his opponent parts withneither from benevolence nor for a price; yetit is a little like exchange, because there wasa contract between the two, and some say theloser pays for the pleasure of his momentaryexcitement and for the chance which he hadof winning. Since then, in gambling, thereal principle on which the transference ofproperty is conditioned is other than any ofthese, we must now proceed to discover whatit is.

CHAPTER HI.

THE ECONOMIC NATURE OF THE ACT.

CAN we discover the real ground or principle on which the transference of

property consequent upon a bet proceeds ?In the example which we have taken as ourguide the condition is that he who guessesbeforehand which side of the piece of woodwill fall uppermost is to receive some of hisfriend's property. It is supposed that neitherhas anycontrol over the motions of the wood,noryet any knowledge of the laws guidingits fall; to each man, therefore, the event isa matter of mere chance. Chance is, ofcourse, a purely relative term, having reference only to the limits of our knowledge. Wecall any event a matterof chance when themanner and time of its occurrence lie beyondour power of prescience. For instance, theoccurrence of the next eclipse of the sun isnot a matter of chance, because the exactmoment of its inception and its^ conclusioncan be foretold, and the whole reasons of the

{19)

20 THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING,

event are already known. But the restingplace of the little ball at a roulette-table ismatter of chance, because no man is quickenough to balance the forces which are de«termining its final position and foretell theirresult.

It is of course evident that you cannot betupon any event unless this element of chanceenters into it; that is, unless those who makethe bet are ignorant or at least uncertain regarding it; you cannot bet on an eclipse noryet on a flat race between the winner of theDerby and a donkey. The real matter of dispute is whether at any time chances cease tobe the sole ground for the transference ofproperty in gambling. It is asserted by somethat in certain forms of gambling certainforms of skill receive a natural and fitting reward, while the present writer is convincedthat at no time does the transference of property in betting cease to be based upon chancein the mind of at least on^ of the parties tothe bet.

It is impossible to argue this point fullywithout direct reference to well-known formsof betting, after which we may be able to laydown one or two principles as the result ofour investigation. For example, it is widely

THE ECONOMIC NATURE OF THE ACT. 21

proclaimed and believed that in betting uponhorse-races a valuable knowledge of horseflesh, a certain quickness of insight into men,and skill in the calculation of probabilitiesare acquired, and that these estimable attainments are rewarded by the income from successful bets. It is insinuated that in thiscase one kind of trained ability is paid, just asthe trained ability of a carpenter or a novelistis paid by those who purchase their respectiveproductions. The same idea is urged regard'ing billiards and whist and other games whichrequire great skill both physical and intellect-ual. When a man stakes money in any suchgames upon his own play, and wins, he isreally supposed by many to be receiving thenatural and fit reward of his superior attam-ments.

In order to understand this point in theproblem we must consider not only the winner but also the loser of the bet, and theminds of both, not after the bet was decided^but before the game began. There can be nodoubt that, if he can, the winner will attributehis success to his superior knowledge or acute-ness in the study of horse-racing, or his superior skill at a particulargame. But whatdoes the loser say as to the conditions on


which he agreed to the bet ? If A. and B. areboth equally well-informed and equally certainthat a particular horse will win, no bet cantake place. If each supposes himself as well-informed as the other, but they differ in theirjudgment, the bet is made by each side onthe chance that he may turn out right. Butsuppose B. to be an ignorant man. When hebets with A. does he suppose that the latterhas such knowledge and information as renderhim practically certain which horse will win ?Assuredly not. If B. has an inkling of theextent of A.'s information he will either refuse to bet or will demand an adjustment ofthe amount which each stakes, so as if possibleto equalize the chances; that is, B. must feelit to be worth his while to risk losing a smallsum on the bare chance that A.'s superior information may contain a flaw, and so a largersum be won, and on that chance the contractis founded. This analysis brings us to thestrange conclusion that in the former eventA.'s acknowledged skill is the reason why nobet is made at all; and in the latter the betis avowedly made upon the basis of that, perhaps remote, chance that A. may be misinformed. If we pass now to the case of billiards we shall at first no doubt be tempted to


confess that here, at any rate, if a man betson his own play and wins, his receipt is thereward of his skill. But we must first askagain how the loser looks at it ? If the loserA. is on the whole equal to B., then over alarge number of games the results will beabout equal, but the winning or losing of anyparticular gameis, beforehand, when the betis agreed to, a matter of pure chance. Butif A. knows that he is really a worse playerthan B., will he agree to bet on even terms,in order to give B. the reward of his skill ?He will, of course, demand a handicap; thatis, the moment two players are known to beso unequal that one has no chance againstthe other, arrangements are made to equalizethe chances.

The same result is reached by studyingthe conditions under which the player of anyother game, even whist, bets upon his ownplay. Always the chances are presumed tobe equal, or thereis an effort to make themequal. The bet never rests avowedly upon theskill of either player, but always upon theequality of the chances for or against eachplayer. The result indeed may show that thedifference between the opponents was notaccurately struck, or may be traced to infiu-


ences which could not be foreseen at thebeginning of the game. But these are alsochances which each party to the bet must runthe risk of encountering. As a matter of factthere is not so much betting by players ofgames requiring great skill, upon their ownplay, as compared with the amounts whichonlookers stake upon their games. Thepatienceand self-control, the prolonged physical and intellectual effort demanded arescarcely compatible with the anxiety andeager restlessness which the risking of largesums of money involves. It is the onlookersat an importantbilliard matchwho stakelargesums of money upon the result.; it is theywho, when an inter-university cricket matchis drawing, amidst breathless excitement, to aclose conclusion, express their excitement byhasty giving and taking of odds on this sideor on that. And always that form of amusement at cards becomes the most alluring tothe gambler, in which the result is reduced asnearly as possible to mere chance, and themovement from suspense to decision is themost rapid.

This, then, I must consider as proved, andthis would be my definition of gambling, thatas the result of a bet^ property is transferred


from one to another upon the occurrence of anevent which, to the two parties to the bet, wasa matter of complete chafice, or as nearly so astheir adjustment of conditions could make it.Chance is the principle upon which the transaction is founded.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MORAL QUALITY OF THE ACT.

Having considered the real nature ofgambling, simply from the economic

point of view, as a transaction in money orkind, and ascertained its principle, we mustnext inquire into its moral quality. The firstand most obvious fact is that the ground ofthe transaction is outside human nature. Inother transactions with property, throughbenevolence or exchange, the whole man may,as we have seen, have free play; but in bettingthe whole man is repressed. The applicationof reason to the adjustment of the conditions,in fair and open betting, is intended by making chance as great as possible to negatereason. The desire and burning hope thatchance may give me my opponent's moneynecessarily destroys anydesire that he shouldhavemine—in gambling, benevolence is slain;and not benevolence merely but the affectionsas a whole, because I have no right either tolove or hate my opponent, whatever the result

(26)

T

THE MORAL QUALITY OF THE ACT. 27

may be. There is no room for the play ofthesense of justice, because in the nature of thecase exchange is impossible—the winnermustreceive money which is given without love,and returns to the loser neither money norgratitude. Even the will is treated in aludicrously irrational manner, for the resolveto stake money is not a decision absolutely topart with it, but only to risk it—it is the willto have no will, no voice in deciding whetherit is to continue mine or to pass out of mypossession; neither I nor any other humanbeing is to decide, but only chance. In thisact, then, a mandeliberately and as completelyas possible forsakes his manhood, and resolvesto deal with his own property and that of hisneighbor on a non-human principle. It is hiswish to get as far as he can away from reasoninto a region that is to him irrational, wherethe laws of love and labor, knowledge andskill, do not follow.

In trying to discover whether this uniquemethod of acting is right or wrong we mustnot be deluded by the common query, withwhich the best men confront us,about bettingfor diminutive coins. In an otherwise trenchant and vigorous letter against gambling, thepresent headmaster of Harrow—one of the


greatest among England's many great headmasters—has said, "I cannot see that it iswrong in itself to bet. . . . Thus, to say thata rich man who plays whist for three-pennypoints commits a sin, is, in my judgment, tostrain the law of morality almost to snapping."This unnatural straining of the law of moralityis a calamity which we are all very anxiousnowadays to avoid.

But, after all, we wish to discover whatethical quality attaches to betting as such,whether the stake be a three-penny piece orhalf a rich man's fortune. The same difficultypresses upon us in studying the morality ofother actions. For instance, there is a classof men who live sober and on the whole indus

trious lives, though not on a high level ofintelligence, and who resolve twice or thricea year to get drunk, and do so. Now, is itstraining the law of morality to say that eachof these men commits a sin} They could urgethat they enjoy their biennial orgies, that theyharm no one in the midst of them, and awakesimply with a headache, which is part of theprice they were willing to pay for the pleasure.On what ground do we say that they havedone wrong.? Most men will probably feelthat it is not enough to argue that they run a


great danger of becoming habitual drunkards,and so deduce their guilt from the probableconsequences of frequent repetition of thedeed. Is there not something in the veryresolve to get drunk for the pleasure of feeling drunk, whichweall instinctively condemn.?We all have a right to reach after pleasurewithin certain limits, and we have a right tospend our money in its purchase; but we condemn the drunkard, because he flingsawaynotmoney only but manhood on the pleasure ofbeing drunk. He temporarily yields the control of his reason, affections, conscience, will,in the very first bout, and thus prostitutes hisnature for the pleasure of feeling drunkenness creep over him. He has dishonored hismanhood.

If our previous study of the psychologicalconditions involved in gambling be accurate,we must be struck by the resemblance thereis between the first bet and the first bout. Imean to say that there is really a strikingpsychological analogy between these twoactions. In each case, as we have seen, will,reason, conscience, affection are deliberatelylaid aside for the purpose of enjoying a certain feeling; in the one case the feeling isthat of intoxication, which we might describe


as uncertainty about everything; in the other,it is that of uncertainty as to whethera particular sum of money is to be mine or not.This uncertainty contributes largely to thegambler's pleasure, and it is around this thatthe emotions gather with such unnatural concentration as to produce in some a kind ofmoral or spiritual inflammation which we callthe gambler's craving or passion.

When we ask, then, whether gambling iswrong, the problem is not whether you havea right to spend a particular sum of moneyupon a particular pleasure, but whether youhave a right in spending your money uponthat form of pleasure, to step outside the conditions of rational, human action, to resignthe use of your own manhood, in relation tothat sum of money. The utilitarian has littleor no perplexity in the matter. Being convinced that he has a right to perform anyaction to which the desire for pleasure promptshim, until it has been proved that his performance of it is injurious to his fellowmen,he calmly waits until the evidence that betting is producing definite and widespread evilin the land has become overwhelming. Thenhe will place this too in the list of his deadlysins.


Now it is true that a community as suchgenerally discovers the injuriousness of acertain class of actions before it proceeds tocondemn them by la>y and custom. To expect anything else of a'cbmmunity would beraising it to the dignity of actual personality.But the condemnation is usually accompaniedor followed by a profound conviction that theevil consequences of this course of conductflow from its very nature, and by a keen insight into the essential wrongness of the deed.Thus slavery was condemned, and is beingpursued by the English race to its remotestand foulest haunts, because the English mindhas seen that for the slave-holder thus to

treat a man is to desecrate humanity, andimpliedly, therefore, to dishonor sell Onthe other hand, while betting in various formshas been condemned by law, there is no suchrigorous annihilation of it as there is of slavery,because even those who deplore and condemnits consequences, when carried on on a largescale, "cannot see that it is wrong in itself tobet." I believe that a day is coming in thehistory of the English race, when it will beseen that betting involves as real a dishonorto the idea of humanity as slavery. To someminds, no doubt, this will seem a monstrousexaggeration, but it must be observed that I


have said "as real" and not "as great."This future intuition will be based probablyon an intelligent apprehension of the follow-ing points.

Firsts To deal with property on the principle of chance, which is non-moral, must beimmoral, because it involves the false proposition that property itself is non-moral.

Secondly^ To resign for the nonce the useof my reason, by resolving to risk my moneyon a mere chance, for the mere pleasure ofbeing uncertain, is as real a dishonor to mynature as to give up the control of my reasonfor the pleasure of intoxication.

Thirdlyy There is involved in this resolveand this deed an effort to stand to my neighbor in a relation which is outside all thinkable moral relations. To elucidate this, letme ask if any one can give a name to the relation in which I stand to my opponent whileour bet is undecided; and, further, can anyone bring that relation under cover of anethical category ?

When these three points have been clearlyapprehended, I do not think that any one, ofa public-school head-master's standing, willcomplain that the law of morality is undulystrained when we call betting in itself wrongand disgraceful.

CHAPTER V.

THE ELEMENT OF CHANCE IN COMMERCIALLIFE.

ATHEORYought not only to be expoundedby careful analysis, and supported by

what we may call direct and immediate evidence, if such can be found; we ought to seewhether, by its use, various problems whichhave gathered round the central question canbe easily and clearly solved. Around thediscussion of the singlepoint,What is gambling ?several important difficulties have been raised,and as I believe that the theory which I havebeen advancing presents a satisfactory explanation of each ofthese I must proceed toconsider one or two of them, by way of illustration.

Let us, in this chapter, look at a problemwhich has been thus expressed in the Spectator: " If you may buy corn in hope ofa rise,which is of the essence of commerce, whymay you not stake a similar sum upon theturn of a card.? In either case the wrong

3 (33)


turn may ruin you, but yet the one transac-tion, supposing you can pay the differences,is moral, and the other is not." '

Now at first sight there is here a real difficulty, but the difficulty will vanish if we remember that in betting, as we have seen, theeffort of the two parties to the bet, when bothare thoroughly honest, is directed towardsmaking the matter as much as possible one ofpure chance. Neither gambler wishes to knowbeforehand how the card willturn up, becauseto discover it beforehand would either be tocheat or to spoil the game. The merchant,on the other hand, is fulfillinga certain vitalisocial function. In the present condition ofcommercial relations he is paid for the honestand able performance of this function bymeans of what he calls his profit. Thisprofit consists—^to take the Spectatoi^s illustration—in the rise of the price at which hecan sell corn above the price at which hebought or agreed to buy, weeks, or evenmonths, beforehand. This rise is the legitimate tax which he and all other importers putupon the community in return for the laborand responsibility involved in the importationqf corn.

Now contrast hi§ action with that of the

CHAACE IN COMMERCIAL LIFE. 35

gambler, and what do we get ? First, whileboth have risked their money and aimed atwealth, the one has done so in the carryingout of a solemn social trust; the other, in thesearch for pleasure or for an increase ofwealth on the gambler's conditions. Secondly,while the one man works hard to get rid ofriches, the other adjusts chances to increaseit. The merchant aims continually, in thedischarge of his function, at the eliminationof chance ; none would be more glad than heif the science of meteorology were so far advanced as to make him certain how theweather will vary from day to day betweenspring-time and harvest.

He does not wish to risk his moneysbut intelligently to pay it down, with the assurancethat he will receive his own again with profit.The gambler aims continually, in the pursuitof his own end, at the elimination not ofchance but of certainty. He wishes to riskhis money and to go forward, not knowingwhether he is to lose it or to gain more.

The Spectator'squestion then is one which,in the light of this analysis, must look a littleabsurd, when we know that the two transactions which are therein compared really proceed from desires and upon principles which


are diametrically opposed to one another.The confusion arises fromseeing that chanceenters as an element into all our calculationsof the future, and from not seeing that in theperformance of all the real duties of life it isour aim to reduce this element to a minimum,while the gambler makes it his atmosphere,in which he would fain move as freely aspossible, unhindered by such a trammel asintelligence.

Of course we must recognize that in thecommercial world there is much pure speculation, and it may be that at certain points itis not easy to decide whether a man's deedbelongs to the category of pure gambling orto that of real commercial transactions, butI do not despair of some day seeing the twoeverywhere clearly distinguished.

Roughly speaking, that form of buying andselling is gambling in which the buyer is orought to be aware that he performs no realsocial function ; when he comes in upon themarket, not to facilitate the distribution ofcommodities, not to supply legitimate commercial ventures with the necessary capital,but merely to hold a nominal and temporaryownership for a few hours or a few days, inthe hope that "bychance " between his buy-mg and his selling theprice may rise. Legit-

V

CHANCE IN COMMERCIAL LIFE. 37

imate commerce is burdened and hindered

by this class of transactions, alike on theCom and on the Stock Exchange. There isthis dark side to the "commercial gambler's "life, that while he acts without the purposeand, shall I say, " social consciousness " ofthe true merchant, he is also free from themore or less arbitrary restrictions, called lawsof honor, with which custom has surroundedthe various forms of betting upon sports andgames. The card-player who takes means toknow his opponent's card is kicked out ofthe club, but the stockbroker who, in orderto save himself, sells to you what he knowswill rum you, is only a sharp business man;yet the latter has virtually seen your cards,while pretending to deal honestly. It is practically impossible for the habitual commercialgambler to escape this moral stain. Possibly,the time is coming when the law will aim atremoving this disastrous gambling diseasefrom the commercial world.

For instance, all agreements to sell stock,which the present holder has owned for lessthan three months, might be declared legallynull and void, excepting where a certificate ofthe death or bankruptcy of the holder provesthe sale to be a necessary and normal commercial transaction. This would put an end


to a large amount of pure speculation, and tosuch asystem as thehalf percent, profit systemwhich some firms are pushing so vigorously.

There is one class of transactions whichmay occur to some reader, in which the present problem is presented at a slightly different angle. I refer to those departments inwhich, owing to the constant and serious risksto life which are involved, unusually highwages are paid to the workers. When thechance oflosing lifeis greatest, the wages risehighest. Are, then, the chances paid ? Thequestion is absurd when put thus baldly. Ofcourse, the pay represents the value to thecommunity of the function performed. It isthe higher order of courage and skill, of human strength as a whole, demanded by thesepursuits which the community rewards withhigher pay.

It is true that many laborers enter theseforms of service with somewhat of the reckless gambler's spirit, saying, "The pay ishigh, though the risks are great;" but thesecret motives of even a large number of individuals cannot be considered as describingthe ideal principle on which the communityproceeds. The community does not keep theconscience, nor vouch for the integrity ofeach man who serves it.

CHAPTER VI.

WHY GAMBLING LOWERS CHARACTER.

The second problem or class problemswhose solution I must attempt, by aid

of the key at present in my hand, is alsostated by the Spectator in a valuable articlefrom which I have already quoted. "Thegambling habit seems to exercise some weakening and degenerating influence of its ownupon the muscle of character, and we shouldIjke much to know precisely what that is, for,if we could define it, a great difficulty in theway ofdenouncing gambling woulddisappear."There are two notorious wa3'̂ s in which thedeterioration of character through gamblingbecomes revealed, namely, cheating and suicide. To the appalling extent to which thesecalamities result from the formation of thegambling habit our daily newspapers bearcontinud witness. It is worth our while todiscover why precisely in these ways thedegenerative influence of this practice shouldbecome manifest. And, first, of cheating. It

(39'


has been recently asserted bya writerof highliterarystandingthat cheatingisalmost inseparable from gambling, and many, no doubt,feel inclined to demur to this apparentlyuncharitable, albeit gracefully expresseddogma.Yet the possibility, at least, of the plungeinto conscious dishonesty is given by thepsychological analysis to which I have sooften referred. The first wrench to a man'sconsciousness of integrity is given when heresolves to deal with his own and his neighbor's property on grounds of pure chance,because, as we have seen, he is carriedby that resolve into the region of the irrational and the non-moral, and finds pleasurein making these enter into the very substanceof his life, just when excitement has made itmost plastic. If, as I believe, there is moralwrong in the first deed, considered in itssimplicity, it is not unnatural but natural thatother wrongs should flow from its repetition.Indeed, it seems almost a psychological necessity, that the very sense of responsibilityshould be gradually impaired.

But one of the most fruitful causes ofcheating is to be found in the fact that, inmany forms of gambling, knowledge and skillare allowed to enter into the preliminary cal-

WHY GAMBLING LOWERS CHARACTER. 41

culations. For instance, knowledge of horses,together with more or less reliable gossipabout.jockeys and the intentions of owners,are understood to be the furnishing withwhich the regular turfman proceeds to thebetting-ring. But if A. knows that he hasmore, and more accurate, information than B.supposes him to have, and a bet is agreed to,as it always will be,on the scale of knowledgewhich B. supposes A. to possess, then thelatter is at once and necessarily a deceiverand a cheat. He is, of course, within hisri^ht, according to the rules of the ring, tokeep his own counsel; it is the code of honorunder which he acts which allows him tocheat in this way and to this extent. Whenthis permission to conceal the real extent ofyour information becomes a part of a hugesystem, anyone can see that deception andfraud or the contemptible self-complacentattempts at these by would-be "knowingonies " must necessarily enter in some degreeinto a very large proportion of the bettingtransactions connected with any single race-meeting.

Further, there are certain games, for instance whist, in which it is understood that aplayer may exercise his ingenuity in discov-


ering such information as will enable him tomodify the event. At chess a player wouldscorn to watch his opponent's eyes, in orderto find out on what men his thoughts andplans are concentrated. But at whist youmay study the faces of the other players, inorder if possible to learn with what feelingsthay regard the playing of this and that card.The Spectator tells the story of Count Cavour,who won or saved a fortune at a critical

moment, when one card would decide thegame, by noticing a bead of perspiration formon an opponent's brow. That bead told theCount what card he ought to play, and hewon, not through his skilful management orforesight, but rather through quick interpretation of the other player's feelings. I cannoturge that this acquirement of useful knowledge in the course of the game inducescheating, because among honorable men theconditions under which that knowledge is tobe gained are clearly defined. But everyonemust feel that where large sums are beingplayed for, this power to modify the eventmust prove to some men an irresistible temptation. If an accidental movement of confusion betrays itself in an opponent's look, andI interpret it aright and win, I am an honor-

WHY GAMBLING LOWERS CHARACTER. 43

able man; but if an accidental nervous turnof his hands brings the face of his cardswithin my field of vision, and I use the information thus gained, I am a cheat. Thereal difference between the two accidents isso narrow that a moment's temptation, amoment even of indecision, with a large sumto be lost or won, will sweep a man from therock of conscious rectitude into the sloughof conscious dishonor. How easy it will beto stay there undetected and enriched 1

CHAPTER VII.

WHY GAMBLING LEADS TO SUICIDE.

IN passing now to the question of suicidelet US again quote the writer in the Spec-

tatory who has already set our problems." If we could but obtain accurate statistics,

we should find that gambling was of all vicioushabits, not even excluding hard drinking, theone which most predisposed its victims tosuicide." "Yet," continues this writer, "onedoes not quite see at first why gamblingshould so greatly predispose to suicide. Thegamblerfacie ought to be a man trainedby his life to bear ill-luck with fortitude."This, of course, is true only if there be nothing in the very conditions of his life secretlydisintegrating that fortitude.

Let us see. It is probable that an intelligent jurywill always account for the gambler'ssuicide by supposing that, ere he consummated the awful deed, he had come under theresistless control of temporary insanity.Hence we must try to discover those facts

(44)

WHY GAMBLING LEADS TO SUICIDE. 45

in the gambler's inward history which lead tothis insanity.

I believe they are of two classes, accordingas we study his experience in the light ofethical or of psychological and physiologicallaws. In the region of moral consciousness Ido not think we need seek far for the cause of

the insanity. The loss of a man's whole possessions by gambling must work upon himlike a sudden accident upon a drunk man—itawakens him. And now as he looks at theresult of his career, at the obligations he hasignored, the relatives he has wronged, even theriches he has lost in pursuit of the gambler'spassion, only one word can rise to his mind,and that is, " Fool!" As he glances round, themen with whom he has been gambling lookat him in pity, and mutter " poor fellow," or"poor fool;" the very servants who havewatched his ruin gaze now at one poorerthan they, and call him in their hearts, "poorfool." I believe that this word of scorn, echoing within and without, filling the atmospherefor that man's ear, accurately describes theshame which he feels. Ashamed, crushed,ruined, despised by the associates who needhim no longer, and called to no new and congenial surrounding by any human voice, the


wonder is not that so many become insane,but that every ruined gambler is not drawn,in the hour of his awakening, into the terrible vortex of insanity. The man who loseshis all in a legitimate commercial undertaking retains at least his self-respect, and self-respect is the soul of fortitude.

The psychological analysis of the act ofgambling leads us to a still more stern conclusion. In the making of a bet, as we haveseen, a man resolves to repress the use of hisreason, his will,his conscience, his affections;only one part of his nature is allowed freeplay, and that is his emotions.

The man is permitted to fear or hope, togrieve or rejoice as much as he likes, and mostof his pleasure, in the heart of the true gambler, arises from the intensity with which eachand all of these emotions can be roused as helooks at the one possibility and then at theother, uncertain which is to be his finally overthat bet. The feeling of uncertainty probably heightens the vivid imagination of thealternatives, and becomes itself a strong intoxicating emotion.

He sits there, only a being of strong emotion, who dares not think and cannot act,chained and seeing ruin or fortune hastening

WHY GAMBLING LEADS TO SUICIDE. 6n

upon him, he knows not which. He, then,who spends much of his time in this pursuitviolently stops the flow of energy to thoseother parts of his nature which are intendedto control and rationalize his feelings, andconcentrates upon that one channel the wholeenergy of his being. The mental physiologists will tell us that this strain upon theemotions cannot but result in serious mischief to the brain and to the balance of theman's powers.

A crisis is necessarily reached when thelast farthing has been lost, not merely becauseshame rushes over the heart at vision of theworkthat has been done, but because now afierce craving burns within, and there is nomeans of satisfying it. The wretched victimmay have stripped himself not only of cashbut of goods, he may have borrowed moneyto " try his luck once more," and at last hefinds himself likeDante's victims in hell, whohad an eternal passion and nothing to feed itwith. And all this comes from Ghance, thatdark Fate which has haunted his play andblighted it with failure continually.

The emotions, which hitherto were fedwith gambling, consume now the mere relicsof rational manhood. The poor man tries


once more, the gambler's last and greatestventure, and stakes his life on the unknownfuture.

Yet, after all, the madness which ends insuicide is the logical conclusion of the firstbet, if our analysis be correct. The man whoresolved to abandon reason for a moment inthe use of one coin, who found the deed soalluring that he made it a habit, finds thatreason leaves him, and she rightly leaves him,altogether, when he has made this habitcover his whole life. Nature is profoundly,irresistibly, relentlessly logical when shemakes the gambler mad.

CHAPTER VIII.

GAMBLING AND NATIONAL LIFE.

IT is impossible to conclude this brief studyof the ethics of gamblingwithout saying

something of the effect which gambling willproduce on national character and life if itshould become a national habit. It is unnecessary, of course, to attempt any proof ofthe universally recognized fact that a communitynot only can but always does possessmoral characteristics of its own. Nor is itnecessary to prove that these moral characteristics must and do produce the same effectsupon the life of the community as a wholewhich they produce upon the nature andconduct of the individual. It is self-evidentthat a habit which interferes with a man'sbalance of judgment in his own affairs willlikewise make a community incapable of wiseaction in commercial affairs, when a certainproportion of its members have all come under the influence of the same habit.

The main difficulty does not lie in the4 (49)


direction of convincing people that privatehabits, when widely spread, may becomedangers to the safety of the state. Excepting the extreme case, all classes of thinkersare agreed about that. The real problem maybe somewhat roughly put by asking. Howmany private persons must be involved in acertain wrong before it becomes a nationalconcern ? And to this, there is no uniformanswer. Some kinds of wrong-doing arefound intolerable if even only a few be guiltyof them; others are not effectively attackedeven when large portions of the communityare injured by them. Very stringent, for example, are the laws which affect the manufacture and handling of dynamite and thesale of prussic acid. Yet it is more thanprobable that a relaxation of the stringencyin regard to these articles would not resultin one-tenth of the number of deaths whichare actually caused year after year by alcoholpoisoning.

There are various elements in any kind ofwrong-doing which require to be consideredbefore we can determine how far the state

must be held responsible for its continuance.The chief of these are, first, the relationwhich it bears to the pleasure of the individ-

GAMBLING AND NATIONAL LIFE. 51

ual; and, second, the extent to which anylaw directed against it could be made reallyeffective bypolice supervision and magisteriipenalty. Some of the most dangerous formsof vice can never be made amenable to thelaw of the land, just because the offence is sobound up with the personal life as to makedetection and conviction extremely difficultand punishment practically impossible. Moreover, some harmful customs become intertwined with the life of the community, withthe passions and prejudices of the people in amanner which renders it very difficult to winpublic consent to the enactment or even theenforcement of laws directed against thesecustoms.

Undoubtedly the gambling habit is in thisclass of harmful but elusive customs. Manyhave been the laws aimed at it, but they areto a large extent rendered powerless, eitherbecause it is so easy to escape them by artificeor because the administrators of the lawshrink from its full and unmitigated application. Even when an attack is made uponsome of the haunts of gambling men, to obtain evidence which will lead to a convictionis by no means easy; and there is nothingabout which the officers of the law have to


be more careful than the institution of fruitless prosecutions. Not only so, but there hasbeen always a tendency in the minds of ourmagistracy to make numerous and importantexceptions in their administration of lawsagainst betting and gambling. The mostnotorious of these cases are the permissionof lotteries or raffles for religious or charitableobjects, and the avoidance of certain centresof the gambling world in London when policeraids are made upon betting-houses.

To those who may agree with the conclusions arrived at in the preceding chaptersthe custom of "raffling" at church bazaarsmust henceforth appear in a particularlyodious light. And yet in towns where anumber of bazaars are held every winter itwill generally be found that certain individuals who would be shocked at the idea ofputting a stake on the Derby, or even atplaying "sixpennywhist," make a practice ofgoing from bazaar to bazaar for the sake ofthe "raffles," They may be partly actuatedby the mean craving for bargains, but that isthe veryessence of the gambling spirit,whichwishes to get as much as possible on chancefor as little as possible of personal expenditure. The interest of gamblers like these in


"such a good object" as the bazaar can onlybe as a rule faint and sentimental.

They have no real motive but the desire togamble innocently. It is surely unworthyof the Church to bless this base passion byusing it to make money for its own holy uses.It is surely disastrous that the Church shouldhave any share, however small, in breakingthe law of the land, which in condemninglotteries is trying so far to hinder the freeplay of the craving for betting and gambling.Attempts have been made by Church authorities to discourage the practice, but their efforts have proved vain. It only needs, butit does need, that one prominent case shouldbe tried and condemned, to sweep the practiceaway for ever.

It is becoming clearer every day that theonly effective way of reaching and destroyingthe gambling customs of our day is not tolegislate against this particular form or that,but to destroy the instruments by which thosecustoms are maintained and advanced. There

can be little doubt that the chief home andcentre and fountain of betting is the racecourse. Throughout the land the number ofrace-courses is yearly increasing. There arenow considerably over one hundred in the


country, and every one is a fresh reminder ofthe gambling spirit. By means of the telegraph and the newspaper many thousands inall parts of the country are kept in daily excitement as to the events which arehappening at one or other of these race meetings.And it would manifestly befutile to attemptthe total prohibition of horse-racing, evenalthough other evils confessedly accompanyit besides gambling. The result would onlybeto precipitate the bettors in a mass uponother forms of amusement, notably perhapsupon football. Always the crowd will follow wherever they can find some arrangedevent on which they can stake their money.It is not that they love horses as horses, stillless that they love racing-horses as such.For it must be observed that while it may betrue that a good many bet at whist, in orderto enjoy the game, the game of horse-racingexists, is watched and pursued, in order toenjoy the betting. Forbid horse-racing, andsome other kind of exercise of man or beastwill be at once adopted as a substitute.

But it is time to emphasize the fact thatthe real supports ofthe gambling habit, in itspresent enormous extent, are the telegraphand the newspaper. Half the race-courses in


the country would be abandoned almost immediately if newspapers were forbidden toreport on the betting, and if telegraph officesdeclined to transmit agreements to bet, or information which is intended to guide would-bebettors. How this is to be done it is not for

me to say. My present object and duty areexhausted in pointing out the fact that thenational life is being deeply injured, the Stateseriously weakened by the wide spread of thegambling habit, and further, that this habit,in its present extent and intensity, is nourished most of all by the daily press and thetelegraph. It must certainly be in the powerof the State to deal with this, the most potentinstrument by which the gambling fiend fightshis way into home after home throughout thelength and breadth of the country.

But in what direction are we to expect thatthe gambling habit as it spreads will injureand weaken the national life, and the functions of the State ? In attempting to answerthis question, my intention is briefly to indicate the lines along which it may be expectedthat statistics can be obtained, if the conclusions of this essayare sound, I ought to say,however, that I have found enough corrobora-tion, by means of veryslight inquiries, to con-


vince me that well-directed investigations inour large towns will result in ample proof ofthe following assertions

1. In the first place, the habit of gamblingis very often allied with, and is even an incentive to, the practice of other vices, whosedarkness is beyond dispute. The ordinaryaspect of the return from a race-meetingwill fully confirm this. There we find thatdrunkenness, licentiousness, and gambling gohand in hand, a well-assorted trio, whose ministry to separate passions is not inconsistentbut consistent with mutual incitement andco-operation in the destruction of the honorand purity and strength of men.

Gambling is, after all, the intense excitationof a certain nerve in our intellectual andmoral being, which sends out its tinglinginfluence over the whole man, and awakensother cravings to activity.

2. In the second place, betting is interferingwith and destroying many of our noblestforms of recreation. To a large extent billiards, football, boat-racing, and to a certainextent even cricket and golf, are being invaded bythis horrible blight. Nothingmakesthe true lover fo these manly sports moreindignant than the idea of having them, to

GAMBLING AND NATIONAL LIFE.57

any degree howeversmall,degraded into mereinstruments of this unworthy spirit of gambling. The sense of purity is gone from agame, much of its joy for the man whosemind is clear from this vice at least, when hesees that game more and more associated withthe making and advertising of bets as to theprobable winners. Many young men havefound their first introduction to the gamblinghabit in the thoughtless making of small betsupon their games and their matches.

3. In the third place, the gambling spirit isproducing many obvious and many more indirect evils in the commercial'life of ourcountry. The haste to be rich isundoubtedlyincreasing, and the more it becomes a Jiasteto be rich the more nearly does it becomeallied to the passion of the gambler. It isnotorious that during the last few years certain methods of dealing in Stock Exchangeoperations havebeen greatly developed, whichit is quite impossible todistinguish ina singlefeature from mere gambling. I have seen theavowal made, in so many words, by two London firms, that the methods which theyemploy and in which they invite clients tojoin with them, are but one form of gambling.Now the result of the growth of this spirit in

58 THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING,

our large business centres must necessarily beto increase rapacity, to degrade the honor ofthose who become its victims, to make workof a solid and painstaking kind distasteful.The very determination to be rich soon, whenaccompanied by the cherished longing to berich by some glorious chance, without longyears of honest toil, is itself dishonest anddisgraceful, and it is the natural precursor ofactual dishonesty in word and deed. Fornature is veryrigid,and insists in an appallingnumber of cases upon forcing a man's inwardthoughts and cravings and inclinations someday to step forth into the clear light of realized and too often of immediately criminalacts.

This is one result of the gambling habit,which is constantly coming to public view inthe criminal court, but which occurs in a farlarger number of cases than are ever madeknown. This is the embezzlement of moneyand petty pilfering by subordinates, in shopsand offices, who have got into pecuniary difficulty through losses in gambling. There arefew men who do not number such casesamong their personal acquaintance. Theymust be innumerable in our large cities, andthe misery which they create is intense andhumiliating in many a home.

gambling and national life. 59

4. In the fourth place, gambling tends todestroy all intellectual interests and to diminish the attention which ought to be given bylarge sections of the community to social andpolitical questions. For ademocratic countrylikeour own, nothing canbe of greater importance than that the people should continueto take delight in thegreat problems of theirnational life. It will be disastrous to our system of government, and to ourprogress as anation, if the electors lose their great passionfor politics, which has been one of the maincauses of our historical development. I believethat abundant evidence could beobtainedto prove that loveof gambling is slowlysappingour strength away. In conversation with afriend, who isat thehead of thechief politicalorganization in a large manufactunng town,famous for the intelligence of its people andtheir deep interest in politics, I happened toask whether the working men and artisans ofthis generation are as keen intellectually andas much alive to social problems as theirfathers had been. " Not at all," was the unexpected reply, "it is amost difficult thing toget them to take any interest in politics." Inastonishment, I asked how he accounted forso remarkable a change, and was further

6o THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING.

startled to hear him say, " They have notimeto sparefor anythingbut betting." In manylarge factories throughout the country, mostof the operatives make it a constant practiceto be betting on some event or another in theworldof sport; and the staple topic of conversation is, of course, the chance which thereis of winning or losing what has been staked.

Many of the most serious students of contemporary history look upon the facts whichI havestated with increasing concern. Theysee and feel that this gambling custom iseating its way into the heart of the nation,and is certain to inflict most lamentable andshameful sufferings upon the whole community. My purpose has been to show thatthese sufferings are not mysterious in theirorigin. They are the natural and inevitableoutcome of the act of gambling. In itself,that act is a misuse of property. It is theexpression and the nourisher of.a wrong craving for property gained by chance. It is theact of those who in its accomplishment dethrone reason as well as conscience. Whenmultitudes in any nation find an unspeakablepleasure in this dethronement of reason, inthis pursuit of gain by chance, the state mustsuffer, the national life must be less pure, lesscalm, less noble and strong.

APPENDIX.

The following analysis of the argumentcontained in this essay may be found

useful. It has been drawn up by the Rev.W. D. McLaren, M.A.

1. Property, even of the smallest coin, represents results or possibilities of labor andexchange. That is, it stands for a part of aman's life-blood,

2. The praise or blame accorded in allages by public regard to the use of propertyexhibits ownership as an acknowledged trustfor the highest good of the owner, the benefitof thepublic, and, in theeyes of theChristian,for the gloiy of God.

3. Benevolence and justice are the principles upon either of which the universal conscience recognizes that a transfer of propertyfrom one owner to another may rightly takeplace, and the use of the reason must guidethe application of these to each case.

(61)

62 APPENDIX.

4' The acquisition of another's property,neither as a free gift nor at a price, is ordinarily condemned as theft in all cases outsidethe disputed question of transference bychance.

5. In every form of betting or ^gambling,transference of property takes place on theprinciple of chance in the mind of at leastone of the parties.

6. While in the ordinary transactions oflife the reason is employed to outweigh asfar as possible the inevitable element ofchance by the element of knowledge;—^inevery form of betting, on the contrary, thereason is skilfully directed to increase andadjust the element of chance so as to makeit the determining principle of the transfer.That is, the reason is used only the morecompletely to escape the control of reason.

—Transference of property by chanceis a denial of the control of reason in that department of action, just as intoxication is adenial of the control of reason in all departments ; hence, "a mans first bet is like hisfirst boiur

APPENDIX, 63

7. Certain forms of honest business resembling gambling are distinguishable from it,not only by the endeavor to prevent chancedeciding the event, but also by the consciouseffort to discharge a public service. That is,lawful adventure is sometimes distinguishedfrom gambling only by its motive.

8. Gambling is distinguished from transferof property through benevolence by the absence on the part of the loser of all desire togive, and by his probable desire to gaininstead.

Note—T\i^ interest given by a bet to anypastime, otherwise insufficiently interesting,proves, in spite of all protestations, that therehas been excited, in however small a degree,the desire for unbought acquisition of property. That is, he who " doesn't care" if hewins or loses the sixpence at stake reallycares,—just sixpence!

9. Gambling is distinguished from transferof property through just exchange by the absence of any real equivalent received by theloser, equality of risks being no exchange foractual possessions, and the excitement pro-

64 APPENDIX.

vided being paid for on chance by one party-only.

10. The wrong of gambling lies, therefore,not at all in the excessive indulgence in.anintrinsically innocent practice, but in the surrender to chance of acts which ought to be controlled by reason aloneand decidedby the willin accordance with the moral law of justice orof benevolence. That is, gambling is anattempt to act outside the moral law withoutappearing to act contrarily to it.

11. Transference of property by chance,being thus exposed as wrong in principle,appears as in no sense excused by beingpractised only within certain limits or fromcertain motives, whether of personal pleasureor of private or public charity, the offence inthe latter case being rather aggravated by thehypocrisy.

12. This essential disregard in gambling ofthe control alike of the reason and of themoral law, is the sufficient and only explanation of all the dangers, vices, and results ofthe gambler's career.

Date post:	24-Jul-2020
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	3 times
Download:	0 times

v4!^americanvalues.org/catalog/pdfs/the-ethics-of-gambling... · 2014-09-11 · ® THE ETHICS OF...

Documents