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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60005 ***</div>
<h1>
<span class="xxlarge">Gambling:</span><br />
<span class="subhead">Or, Fortuna, her Temple and<br />
Shrine. The True Philosophy<br />
and Ethics of Gambling. By<br />
James Harold Romain.</span></h1>
<div id="if_i_p000" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 5em;">
<img src="images/i_p000.jpg" width="65" height="62" alt="" /></div>
<p class="p2 center vspace wspace">CHICAGO:<br />
<span class="smcap">The Craig Press.</span><br />
1891
</p>
<hr />
<p class="newpage p4 center smaller">
COPYRIGHT, 1891.<br /><br />
JAMES HAROLD ROMAIN.</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p>
<h2 id="Publishers_Note">Publisher’s Note to the Public.</h2>
</div>
<p>America is free and her people boast of her freedom in
every realm of thought and every department of activity.
Her pride is a form of discussion from which no man is excluded
because of the opinions he may advocate. We declare
a man should be heard in the very face of prejudice or passion.</p>
<p>Mr. Romain’s book, in our judgment, is entitled to publication
for other reasons than those above mentioned. It is
replete with learning, and original in conception. The philosophy
is broad and the tone dignified. Patient research is
manifest in every page. Every branch of knowledge has been
made to contribute its force to the argument. The work is a
mine of information in political speculation, social science and
moral philosophy. Mr. Romain is obviously in sympathy with
the widest possible circle of culture. For that reason, if for
no other, what he has to say is entitled to a respectful consideration.
His book is unique in design and wrought out
with vigor. His appeal is to philosophy, science and history;
not to idle curiosity, purposeless gossip, or the unimportant
“personal equation” to which others have been so prone.</p>
<p>In the interest of fair play, but, confessedly, with no sympathy
for gambling, the book is offered to the people to decide
as to the correctness of its conclusions.</p>
<p class="sigright">
<span class="smcap">Adam Craig</span>, Publisher.</p>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span></p>
<p class="newpage p4 center vspace wspace larger bold">
This book is dedicated<br />
To the<br />
<span class="larger">Hon. John Cameron Simonds,</span><br />
by the author,<br />
as a token of esteem for his<br />
fair-mindedness and sense of justice.<br />
Although that gentleman is not a gamester,<br />
nor in sympathy with the pursuit,<br />
yet the author desires thus to acknowledge his<br />
indebtedness to him for many valuable suggestions<br />
in the preparation of this work.
</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span></p>
<div id="ip_7" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 42em;">
<img src="images/i_p007.jpg" width="666" height="255" alt="" /></div>
<h2 id="PREFACE" class="nobreak">PREFACE.</h2>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">Two</span> doughty knights, clad cap-a-pie in
burnished mail, once journeyed forth
in search of martial adventure. Their
noble steeds all caparisoned for war, both
wandered up and down through the world,
defending the fair and protecting the weak.
Betimes they chance to meet where stood in
majestic beauty a bronze statue of victory.
In her right hand the goddess clasped a
sword, while in graceful pose her left rested
upon an ægis richly wrought in the precious
metals. Approaching from opposite directions,
to one warrior the shield appeared as
of gold, while to the other it was of silver.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>
Low were bowed their crested helms in
courtly salutations.</p>
<p>“Comely, Sir Knight,” said one, “comely
and noble is this figure.”</p>
<p>“Yea, thou hast spoken truly,” was the
reply.</p>
<p>“Precious, very precious,” rejoined the
first, “must be yon golden targe.”</p>
<p>“Nay, Sir Knight, it is of silver, I trow.”</p>
<p>“By my lady, thou liest,” quickly came
the hot retort.</p>
<p>Then, prancing chargers well in hand,
with lances lowered to deadly level, they
prepared for the “wager of battle.” Both
were unhorsed in the onslaught. Regaining
an upright posture, with swords drawn to
renew the duel, each observed that his reverse
of the shield was what the other had contended
for. Moral: It is wise to look first
upon both sides of the subject.</p>
<p>Not so, it is evident, has it been with
books heretofore devoted to a discussion of
gambling. Their authors professed an exposition<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
of gaming in the interest of morality.
Well may some of the books be
read for their wealth of information and
excellent diction. Some have been earnest,
in places eloquent, and often suggestive.
Vivid and dramatic are the descriptions of
a passion that has possessed the world in
all ages; yet, that the various assaults were
conceived in wisdom, or that they have resulted
in permanent good, I am constrained to deny.</p>
<p>True, I believe with Sir Walter Raleigh,
that out of history may be gathered a policy
no less wise than eternal; “by the comparison
and application of other men’s forepassed
miseries with our own like errors and ill-deservings.”</p>
<p>But why did it not occur to these writers
that circumstances should not be recorded
merely because they have happened; that
events deserve memorial only because they
illustrate some great principle; because
some inference is to be drawn from them,
which may increase the happiness or enlarge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
the powers of man? That it did not, we
must infer from the pages they have
given to the world. Cicero declared that
“History is the light of truth.” In vain,
however, do we look for a consideration of
causes in any history of gambling. “Histories,”
said Carlyle, “are as perfect as the historian
is wise.” Is that book wise wherein no adequate
remedy is suggested for the evil it depicts?
Although interesting, such a work is
but a chronicle devoid of moral purpose. It
is clear, to dwell upon the follies of man will
not cure them; that it will not strengthen
humanity merely to portray their weaknesses.
The passion our author would combat is
rooted in the soul.</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“Whose powers at once combat ye, and control,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Whose magic bondage each lost slave enjoys.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>How would you extirpate the evil, if such
it is? Expose a folly, you may say, and
wisdom will turn from it. You would have
us believe, perhaps, that:</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“Wisdom from heaven received her birth;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Her beams transmitted to the subject Earth.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
And yet</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“This great empress of the human soul<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Does only with imagined power control,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">If restless passion, by rebellious sway,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Compels the weak usurper to obey.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>So far as the history of gambling has ignored
causes and neglected remedies, it is incomplete.
That it is deficient in both is my
reason for this book. Some one should
begin the subject where other authors have
deserted it.</p>
<p>I have long made a study of gaming in
all its aspects and relations; aiming, the
while, at breadth, impartiality and thoroughness.
At first my reading was not conducted
with a view to authorship. I desired information
for its own sake. As a gamester,
I sought the philosophy of gaming.</p>
<p>What is chance? How far does it influence
all mankind and circumscribe their
efforts? What is gambling, in the broadest
sense of the term? Is gaming wrong <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">per se</i>:
i.e., absolutely vicious? Where in human<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
nature is the passion grounded? Why does
the propensity exist? Is it an inevitable tendency
of human nature? What is morality?
Wherein does the gambler differ from other
men? How should his occupation be distinguished
from business generally? How
far may the conduct of an individual be
dictated by society? How may the essentially
punitive be distinguished from that which
is not so? What are the true limits of State
power in relation to appetites and propensities?
Are sumptuary laws effectual? Does
history, as the philosophy of example, justify
such enactments? Can the law eradicate
innate tendencies? Can character be transformed
by statute? Is it possible to legislate
morality into mankind? What should be
the policy of statesmen and reformers in
the realm of morals? If it is not possible
to extirpate the passions by law, how may
they be regulated, directed, educated and
purified?</p>
<p>Such were the problems that confronted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
my understanding. Each and all were resolved
to the best of my knowledge and
capacity. I make my observations public in
the interests of fair play and common sense.
I am at least entitled to the literary chances
of a reading age.</p>
<p>I have dallied with fickle fortune for
years. As gamester, I anticipated prejudices
against the pursuit. My deductions are
amply fortified, therefore, from the mature
studies of great and wise men. I did not
expect my book to stand unsupported. It
is substantiated, throughout, by the teachings
of profound and impartial philosophers.</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span></p>
<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2>
</div>
<table id="toc" summary="Contents">
<tr class="small">
<td> </td>
<td class="tdr">Page</td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Publisher’s Note</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Dedication</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Preface</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Worship of Fortuna</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">What is Truth; or, The Philosopher’s Stone?</span></td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Destinies; or, The Reign of Law</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Legislative Exorcism; or, The Belief in Word-Magic</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">“The King is Dead—Long Live the King!”</span>,</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td></tr>
</table>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span></p>
<h2 id="Introduction">Introduction.</h2>
<div id="ip_19" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;">
<img src="images/i_p021.jpg" width="649" height="152" alt="" /></div>
<p class="chaphead">INTRODUCTION.</p>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap a"><span class="smcap1">A traveler</span> once sought to explore
an unknown country. Compass he
had not, and both chart and guide were
wanting. In the distance a mountain loomed
above the plain. To its summit our traveler
made his way. From thence he beheld the
region stretching away in all directions. The
land he would traverse the eye could now
sweep from center to circumference. It was
not possible to know the landscape in detail,
but the relative proportions, distances and
boundaries were unfolded at his feet. So,
when properly conceived, with the introduction
to a book. A perspective of the topic is
conducive to a better understanding of its
scope and purpose. My object is to sustain
the following propositions:</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
<i>First.</i>—Men have gambled in all ages of
the world. That they will continue to do so
is a reasonable presumption. To gamble
would seem instinctive—inherent in the souls
of mankind and fostered by the very nature of
their environment. History reveals that all
alike are possessed by this subtle passion—male
and female, young and old, good and
bad, wise and unwise, rich and poor, the exalted
and the lowly. In every century may be
seen a motley throng kneeling in devotion at
the feet of Fortuna. Eagerly about her shrine
press the mighty concourse of emperors,
kings, chieftains, statesmen, ecclesiastics, savants,
philosophers, poets, soldiers and the
wayfaring. Now and ever will mankind court
the mysterious and uncertain.</p>
<p><i>Second.</i>—To define a wager is to defy intolerance
of opinion. Truth is not absolute but
relative. It is not to be established <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">ex cathedra</i>.
Moralists are not in a position to denounce
gambling <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">per se</i>. They are not yet
agreed upon the unconditioned principles of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
right and wrong. Before it can speak with
authority, moral philosophy must find an ultimate,
self-evident and irrefragable foundation.
That it is essentially criminal or necessarily
vicious to invoke a chance has never been
demonstrated. To live is to gamble. We all
wager in one way or another. Luck is appealed
to in every department of human activity.
Everywhere uncertainty is the rule and
certainty the exception. In the business world
vast realms are specifically founded upon the
doctrine of chances. If absolutely wrong,
then gambling should be discountenanced in
all persons under every circumstance. In
whatever guise it should be condemned as a
principle. Until this has been done society is
not in a position to punish in one person what
it permits or commends in another. In its
treatment of gambling the law is now inconsistent,
unjust and hypocritical.</p>
<p><i>Third.</i>—Man is the creature of circumstances.
Society is an organism conditioned
by its environments. Every nation must complete<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
a cycle of infancy, youth, manhood and
old age. Briefly, history is a science—an unbroken
chain of causes and effects throughout
the ages. Volition, so-called, is delusive and
shadowy—more apparent than real. At best,
we but yield to the greatest pressure of temperament
or motive. Human nature, in a
word, is the result of inevitable tendencies.
The passions are inherent and cannot be violently
uprooted. Character is innate and not
subject to arbitrary reform by extrinsic force.
Here, as elsewhere, evolution is the law of existence.
While our appetites and propensities
may be educated, they can never be obliterated.
Social and political philosophy have
repeatedly deduced these truths from the
history of man. In the field of reform
officialism has been repudiated by the
greatest thinkers. Legislation, therefore,
should conform to the light of experience
and the dictates of science. <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Ergo</i>: in the
future, as in the past and present, the
gaming passion will everywhere assert itself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
despite repressive legislation, however
severe.</p>
<p><i>Fourth.</i>—Sumptuary statutes are futile and
impertinent. They are to-day and ever have
been indefensible and impolitic. Such laws
are an infringement upon individual rights
and an insult to human nature. Officious and
pharisaical legislation in the province of
morals and taste should be abandoned once
and forever. <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Per se</i>, to gamble is neither a
sin nor a crime. For the law to punish the
practice is futile and unwarranted.</p>
<p><i>Conclusion.</i>—An enlightened age demands
the overthrow of an effete administrative policy.
In the realm of morals, let that be wisely
guided which the law cannot prevent. Gambling,
with certain conditions, should be licensed
and placed under the surveillance of
a police.</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span></p>
<h2 id="The_Worship_of_Fortuna">The Worship of Fortuna.</h2>
<div id="ip_29" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 42em;">
<img src="images/i_p029.jpg" width="668" height="240" alt="" /></div>
<p class="chaphead">CHAPTER I.<br />
<span class="subhead">The Worship of Fortuna.</span></p>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap b"><span class="smcap1">Reader,</span> in imagination go backward
with me more than 20 centuries. Enter
with me the magnificent and imposing
Temple of Fortuna, in old Præneste. We
are within the portico of that stately hemicycle.
Far above is the marble dome, and
about us cluster the snowy columns. As it is
early morn, flamens and virgins are assembled
inside the sacred precincts. They are grouped
about the flaming tripod, and the robes of
purple and white blend in harmony of color.
The sanctuary is redolent with burning incense.
A golden image of the goddess, in
heroic mould, flashes back the rays of sunlight
that penetrate the inner shadows. A solemn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
chant entrances the ear, and our eyes turn to
the westward. Before us expands the Campagna,
ninety miles in length and twenty-seven
in breadth. The undulating plain stretches
away in all directions until it sinks into the
sea; thickly studded is the superb picture with
prosperous cities and “every rood of ground
maintains its man.” Everywhere is presented
an appearance of comfort and rich cultivation.
Yonder, Mount Albanus towers to a height of
3,000 feet above the sea. Looming majestically
above its topmost peak is the Temple of
Jupiter Latiaris. The grandeur of mighty
Rome is at our feet, a splendid and stupendous
panorama of temples, amphitheatres,
basilicas, palaces, circuses, baths, arches and
aqueducts. Such was the spot dedicated to
Fortuna by the ancient Prænestians. She
was more deeply enshrined in their hearts
than Olympian Jove himself.</p>
<p>Præneste flourished before the birth of
Christ or the glory of Rome. The noble
city occupied a projecting point or spur of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
the Apennines and was distant from Rome,
due east, about twenty-three miles. Above
its walls towered the Temple of Fortuna.
The Temple proper was circular in form
and crowned the summit of a hill more than
2,400 feet above the Mediterranean level.
Standing out boldly against the sky, its
majestic outlines were visible from a great
part of Latium. As extended by Sulla, the
sanctuary occupied a series of six vast terraces,
which, resting on gigantic substructions
of masonry, and connected with each
other by grand staircases, rose one above
the other on the hill, in the form of a
pyramid. Closely associated with the ritual
of the Temple were the “Prænestine Lots,”
or Sortes Prænestinæ, and in existence at
the beginning of the Christian era. Constantine,
and subsequently Theodosius, suppressed
the oracle. Its celebrity is attested
by Lucan, Horace and Ovid. Cicero speaks
of the great antiquity and magnificence of
this shrine. Numerous were the great men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
who petitioned the Prænestine Fortuna for
assistance. Of the number may be mentioned
Tiberius, Domitian and Alexander Severus.
Even Sulla sought to propitiate the goddess
before engaging in his successful wars with
Mithridates.</p>
<p>Plutarch tells us of Timotheus, the Athenian,
son of Conon, who, “when his adversaries
ascribed his successes to his good luck, and
had a painting made representing him asleep,
and Fortune by his side, casting her nets
over the cities, was rough and violent in
his indignation at those who did it, as if,
by attributing all to Fortune, they had robbed
him of his just honors; and said to the
people, on one occasion, at his return from
war: ‘In this, ye men of Athens, Fortune
had no part!’ A piece of petulance which
the deity played back upon Timotheus; who,
from that time, was never able to achieve
anything that was great.”</p>
<p>“Sylla,” he continues, “on the contrary,
not only accepted the credit of such divine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
favors with pleasure, but gave the honor of
all to Fortune. He once remarked: ‘that
of all his well-advised actions, none proved
so lucky in the execution, as what he had
boldly enterprised, not by calculation, but
upon the moment.’ He gave Fortune a
higher place than merit, and made himself
‘entirely the creature of a superior power.’”</p>
<p>The Goddess of Chance, or Good Luck,
actually existed in the imagination of the
ancients. Chapman writes:</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i18">“The old Scythians<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Painted blind Fortune’s powerful hands with wings,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">To show, her gifts come swiftly and suddenly,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Which, if her favorites be not swift to take,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">He loses them forever.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Temples to Fortuna (the Greek Tyche)
dotted the sunlit landscape from Thebes to
Rome. She was adored by the Etrurians as
Nortia. Originating near Mount Parnassus,
her worship gradually extended into all parts
of Greece and Italy. Antium, an opulent and
powerful city of Latium, was once celebrated
for its splendid temple of Fortune.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
History discloses not a period, however
remote, when Fortuna was not a favorite with
the Latins. Numa Pompilius daily prostrated
himself before her altar, and the ceremonial
received a new impetus from his pious grandson,
Ancus Martius. Servius Tullius ascribed
his power and success to the gods. Especially
did he assume the protection of Fortuna.
Two temples were erected to her by this
great king, one in the Forum Boarium and
the other on the Tiber. By some it is said
that the edifices were respectively dedicated
to Bona Fortuna and Fors Fortuna. Yet
another gorgeous structure afterward graced
the Quirinal.</p>
<p>Precisely when the mythological system
lost its influence is not known. It is not
true, however, as was once generally believed,
that immediately after the birth of Jesus
the oracles were forever hushed. While, long
prior to that event, many fanes had been
deserted, yet others continued to flourish for
at least two centuries thereafter. Before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
the Christian era, Mythology had been repudiated
by Philosophy and Science. To
the learned it was at best but expressive of the
principles back of natural phenomena. Only
because it was largely identified with the
state, did it receive the support of politicians.
Yielding to the spirit of Christianity, the
Olympian deities departed with the decline
of Rome as a pagan power.</p>
<p>Of all the shining throng that beautified
the Pantheon, Fortuna alone refused to abdicate
a sovereignty she would exercise to the
end of time. True, the exquisite forms in
which she had charmed the eye were destroyed
and her temples razed with the earth;
yet has Fortuna continued her uninterrupted
sway over the hearts of men. Sanctuaries
and statutes were not necessary to her supremacy
in the world. She was enshrined
in the soul—her worship instinctive in the
very nature of humanity. Where is the
epoch of Christendom in which an innumerable
multitude have not worshiped this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
imperial goddess? Among her devotees
may be included men famous in every department
of life: politics, statesmanship, war,
eloquence, philosophy, science, art, literature
and the liberal professions. A review of
the brilliant procession is profoundly suggestive.</p>
<p>Great Cyrus, who founded the Persian
monarchy; Darius, who originated centralized
imperialism and reduced it to a system;
Artaxerxes Third, the greatest administrator
of remote antiquity; Miltiades, a name associated
with the glories of Marathon, once
designated “freedom’s best and bravest
friend;” Themistocles, to whom may be
fairly ascribed the victory at Salamis; Simonides,
gentle and patient, the poet of nationality
and patriotism; Aristophanes, the
great father, and Menander, the acknowledged
master of Greek comedy; Pericles,
the “Olympian Zeus of oratory,” a great
statesman and one of the most remarkable
characters of Greece; Plato, whose name<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
is synonymous with all that is most exalted in
idealism; Xenophon, a friend and pupil of
Socrates, and to whom the world is indebted
for “Memorabilia,” “Anabasis,” and “Cyropædia;”
Demosthenes, known to oratory as
the “greatest Hellenic star;” Isocrates, his
contemporary, the distinguished rhetorician;
Philip of Macedon, the famous father of a
more famous son; great Alexander, “Child of
Zeus,” “Son of Peleus,” familiar to every
schoolboy as the greatest of military conquerors.</p>
<p>In the resplendent story of Rome are
Scipio Africanus, a military genius, and the
conqueror of Hannibal; Cornelius Sulla, the
great general, sagacious politician, accomplished
scholar, “one of the most remarkable
figures of all time;” Julius Cæsar, equally
preëminent in statecraft, war and letters;
Marc Antony, brave and generous; Lepidus,
not the least of the second great triumvirate;
Augustus, than whom a more consummate
ruler and prudent statesman never lived;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>
Tiberius, a writer of Greek odes and an
orator at nine years of age; in battle he
repeatedly worsted the Parthians, Cantabrians,
Dalmatians, Pannonians and Illyrians;
Domitian, conspicuous for his piety, who
enforced the laws against adultery and other
gross forms of immorality; Titus, bewailed
at his death as “the love and light of the
human race;” Hadrian, just, liberal, valorous
and energetic; Nerva, humane and progressive;
Trajan, indomitable and heroic; Alexander
Severus, a virtuous prince, a student
of Christianity, and the friend of Paulus and
Ulpian; Sallust, distinguished in Latin literature
for power and animation; Livy, the
man of beautiful genius; the graceful Catullus;
exquisite Horace and facile Ovid.</p>
<p>Among the Germanic peoples, Eugene of
Savoy, a memory cherished by Austria, who
lived but for glory, and raised the Hapsburg
arms to a prestige unequaled before or since;
Wallenstein, bold, imperious and of versatile
ability in civil and military affairs.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
In Italy, the Abbes Ruccellai and Frangipanni,
pious and charitable; Reni Guido,
who painted the marvellous “Crucifixion of
St. Peter’s,” and the “Aurora.” In art, he
expressed a most refined and fervent spiritualism.</p>
<p>The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Charles
of France, distinguished, respectively, as
“The Wise,” “The Beloved,” and “The
Victorious;” Charles VIII., who, with but
9,000 soldiers, defeated an Italian army of
40,000 men; Louis XI., ever admirable for
his administrative talent, a friend of the
middle classes, he restrained a turbulent and
oppressive nobility; Louis XII., of France,
a “father of the people;” Louis XIII., distinguished
for valor and martial ability; Louis
XIV., better known to the world as “The
Great,” and to his country as Dieu-donne—“God-given;”
the amiable and picturesque
Henry of Navarre, the champion of Protestantism
and protector of the Huguenots;
Philibert de Chalon, fertile and resolute;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
Bertrand du Guesclin, “king of the tournament,”
the “hero of heroes;” Condé and
Turenne, both profound and alert; Marshall
Saxe, energetic and courageous; Napoleon
Bonaparte, a titanic genius of transcendent
powers, king of kings, “the astonishment and
terror of the world;” Ney, bravest of the
brave, the victor of Elchingen, Mannheim
and Moskva; Murat, “the Gold Eagle,” a
truly wise king, and the greatest cavalry
leader of his time; Richelieu, greatest statesman
of the 17th century; Mazarin, brilliant
in ministerial policy, and the wise architect
of peace at Westphalia; Mirabeau, a man
of gigantic thoughts and deeds—the mental
Colossus of his age—“an intellectual Hercules;”
Talleyrand, unexcelled in diplomacy
and eminent as a financier; Thiers, equally
able in politics and literature; M. Sallo,
counselor to the Parliament of Paris, and
Mathieu Mole, at one time the Premier-President
of that body; Molière, the inimitable;
Corneille, creator of French tragedy; Rotrou,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
his master; and Racine; Montaigne, the
essayist, extraordinary for his learning and
sound reason; Paschasius Justus, an erudite
and excellent physician; Rousseau, apostle
of universal happiness, and unrivaled in the
literature of France for the subtle eloquence
of his style; Voltaire, world-famous Sage of
Ferney, the “sovereign writer of his century;”
René Descarte, deservedly exalted in philosophy
and mathematics; the delightful poets,
Voiture and Coquillart, with the renowned
Cardinals D’Este and De Medicis.</p>
<p>Fair Albion comes into the story with
“Lion-Hearted” Richard, the incomparable
knight-errant; Edward I., unequaled in his
century as warrior and ruler; Edward III.,
who befriended literature and art, and espoused
the cause of progress; his son, the
Black Prince, “most glorious star of chivalry;”
Henry VIII., a foe to papacy, and for a time
the most popular monarch in English history;
“Ye Merrie King Charles;” Duke of Marlborough,
the brilliant and successful general;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
Arthur Wellesley, “The Iron Duke,” venerated
and beloved; Horatio Nelson, of magnificent
exploits and stupendous victories,
who said: “Where anything great is to be
done, there Providence is sure to direct my
steps;” unrivaled was he in daring resource
and skill; Sir Charles Napier, conqueror of
Sinde and the “acknowledged hero of a family
of heroes;” Dan Chaucer, “that first sweet
warbler” of English verse, philosopher, politician
and poet; Marlowe, the mightiest of
Shakespeare’s pioneers; Shakespeare, himself,
“sweet swan of Avon,” myriad-minded
and wondrous; “rare” Ben Jonson; Raleigh,
a universal genius—“the glass of fashion
and mould of form;” Surrey, polished
and chivalric; John Dryden, of whom
Dr. Johnson said: “As Augustus was to
Rome, so was Dryden to English literature.
He found it brick and left it marble;”
Dr. Tobias Smollett, who wrote “Humphrey
Clinker;” Fielding, the frank and manly
author of “Tom Jones;” sweet Oliver Goldsmith,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
in letters perspicuous, vivacious, and
graceful; Halifax,</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“Jotham of piercing wit and pregnant truth,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Endued by nature and by learning taught<br /></span>
<span class="i0">To move assemblies;”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">the first Marquis of Anglesey, high-spirited
and impetuous, a dashing general of cavalry;
that best of Irish Viceroys, Frederic Howard,
Earl of Carlisle; Lord Bolingbroke, accomplished
and eloquent; Shaftesbury, the incorruptible
statesman, upright judge and friend
of religious freedom; Horace Walpole, of
whom Macaulay said, that his writings “were
among the delicacies of intellectual epicures;”
Dr. Dodd, divine, author, editor and chaplain
of the king; George Selwin, the celebrated
conversational wit; Sir Philip Francis, immortal
as “Junius,” and a “friend of the
people;” the artistic Farquhar; courtly
Waller; elegant Dorset; charming Sedley;
and scholarly Congreve; jolly Dick Steele, a
master of classical prose; Charles James Fox,
of whom James Mackintosh said: “He is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
the most Demosthenian speaker since Demosthenes;”
Sheridan, “capable of the grandest
triumphs in oratory,” and noted for his sparkling
wit and exquisite songs; Wilberforce,
who dedicated his life to a struggle for the
abolition of the slave-trade; Edward Gibbon,
the historian, splendid, imposing and luminous;
Ponsonby, once speaker of the Irish
House of Commons; Dr. Colton, author of
“Lacon;” William Pitt, of dauntless spirit and
unimpeachable integrity; and Lord Byron, a
poet famed for his passionate eloquence and
pathetic gloom.</p>
<p>Fortuna may proudly enumerate her great
votaries in America: Aaron Burr, Edgar
Allan Poe, William Wirt, Luther Martin,
Gouverneur Morris, Daniel Webster, Henry
Clay, General Hayne, Sam Houston, Andrew
Jackson, Generals Burnett, Sickles, Kearney,
Steedman, Hooker, Hurlbut, Sheridan, Kilpatrick,
Ulysses S. Grant, George D. Prentiss,
Sargeant S. Prentiss, Albert Pike, A. P. Hill,
Beauregard, Early; Ben Hill, Robert Toombs,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
George H. Pendleton, Thaddeus Stevens,
Green of Missouri, Herbert and Fitch of California,
“Jerry” McKibben, James A. Bayard—father
of the recent Secretary of State—Benjamin
F. Wade, the lamented Broderick,
John C. Fremont, Judge Magowan, Charles
Spencer, Fernando Wood and his brother
Benjamin, Colonel McClure, Senator Wolcott,
Senator Pettigrew, Senator Farwell, Matthew
Carpenter, Thomas Scott, Cornelius Vanderbilt,
Hutchinson of Chicago, and Pierre Lorrillard.
Names might be extended indefinitely.
Enough have been mentioned to illustrate how
the gambling habit permeates all ranks of
society in the United States.</p>
<p>With the conclusion of our retrospect,
we may well exclaim: What is the nature of
a passion so inveterate and general: of a
propensity that dominates all mankind alike,
whether noble or mean, wise or foolish, strong
or weak? “Is there a remedy?” propounds
the philosopher. The legislator asks, “What
is my duty?”</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span></p>
<h2 id="What_is_Truth">What is Truth?<br />
<span class="smaller">or,</span><br />
<span class="subhead">The Philosopher’s Stone.</span></h2>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span></p>
<div id="ip_49" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 43em;">
<img src="images/i_p049.jpg" width="673" height="295" alt="" /></div>
<p class="chaphead">CHAPTER II.<br />
<span class="subhead">What is Truth; or, the Philosopher’s Stone?</span></p>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">In</span> mediæval romance the Alchemist is a
familiar figure—with flowing robe and
skull-cap, in the midst of crucibles and
alembics. This period of the world did not
present a feature more weird and picturesque:
a body of learned but misguided men, professing
the “chemistry of chemistries.” With
eagerness and devotion they vainly sought for
a principle that could indefinitely prolong human
life and transmute the baser metals into
gold and silver. Although centuries have
elapsed since Gebir and Paracelsus, yet the
“philosopher’s stone” is a desideratum. Of
the Alchemists it has been quaintly said by
Percy, “that their respective histories were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
accurate illustrations of the definition which
describes Alchemy as an Art without principle,
which begins in falsehood, proceeds in
labor, and ends in beggary.”</p>
<p>Forcibly suggestive is this picture of moral
philosophy and philosophers. From the remotest
ages certain men have arrogated
to themselves a knowledge in the realm of
ethics much superior to their brethren. It
was manifested by the “gnomic” poetry of
Greece, more than 700 years B. C., and in
the oracular sayings of the so-called “seven
sages” of antiquity. To this day a similar
class of wiseacres may be found in all parts
of the earth. The moralists, however, search
not for the universal medicine or an irresistible
solvent. Such persons admit the “grand
elixir” is a delusion; and yet, their ambition
is more daring and presumptious. They
would “be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
“Gold is but dross,” they exclaim, “our quest
is for <em>necessary</em> moral truth. We seek <em>immutable</em>
righteousness.” Long ago was Alchemy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
abandoned as futile. Not so the
egotistic dogmatism of the moral philosophers:
with them self-conceit has remained
incorrigible, from Socrates and Plato, through
Kant and Hegel, to Martineau and Janet.
In vain, their assumptions have been repeatedly
demolished and their deductions refuted.
Unmindful are they, also, of the irreconcilable
conflict of “schools”—the hopeless contradiction
of “systems.” Fully one hundred great
thinkers, first and last, have asserted the
discovery of indubitable “good.” But no
two of them all agreed upon the infallible
line of distinction between what “ought to
be” and its opposite. In fact, every individual
of the number represents a different
scheme. All moral philosophers asseverate
the necessity for an authoritative standard
of right and wrong—for some peremptory
and incontestable guide to human conduct.
Otherwise, they admit, one opinion is no
more acceptable or commanding than another.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
Some affirm the existence of an innate
faculty, the unerring dictates of which are
defended. But Bentham (a great jurist)
denounced the “moral sense” man as a
bully who would brow-beat others into accepting
his verdict. All such appeals were
described by him as sheer “<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">ipse dixitism</i>:
as a fraud by which incompetent philosophers
would palm their own tastes and fancies upon
mankind.” “One man,” wrote Bentham of
Shaftesbury, “says <em>he</em> has a thing made on
purpose to tell <em>him</em> what is right and what
is wrong; and that it is called <em>moral sense</em>:
then he goes to work at his ease and says
such and such a thing is right, and such and
such a thing is wrong. Why? ‘Because <em>my</em>
moral sense tells me it is.’” Of the inner-capacity-philosopher,
Hazlitt remarked that
“his excessive egotism filled all objects with
himself.” To Crabbe, “he was a self-conceited
man, who pretends to see through intuition
what others learn by experience and observation;
to know in a day what another wants<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
years to acquire; to learn of himself what
others are contented to get by means of
instruction.”</p>
<p>Archdeacon Paley, again, ridiculed as
worthless a “moral sense” which man may
disregard if he chooses. What is an <em>authority</em>,
said Paley, merely felt in the individual
consciousness: a personal whim, the mere
accident of individuality. What, he asks, is
the authority of another’s conscience to me?
What, indeed, <em>is</em> my conscience, and <em>why</em> is
it an authority to myself? We can never
know whether it is “a real angel with flaming
sword, or a scare-crow dressed up by the
moral philosophers.” Did the “moral sense”
exist, should we not see a universal evidence
of its influence? Would not men exhibit a
more manifest obedience to its supposed
dictates than they do? Would there not be
a greater uniformity of opinion, as to the
rightness or wrongness of opinions, as to the
rightness or wrongness of actions? “We
should, not, as now, find one man or nation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
considering as a virtue what another regards
as a vice—Malays glorying in the piracy abhorred
by civilized races—a Thug regarding
as a religious act that assassination at which
a European shudders—a Russian piquing
himself on his successful trickery—a red Indian
in his undying revenge—things which
with us would hardly be boasted of.</p>
<p>“Again, if this moral sense exist and
possess no fixity, gives no uniform response,
says one thing in Europe and another in
Asia—originates different notions of duty in
each age, each race, each individual, how
can it afford a safe foundation for a systematic
morality? What can be more absurd
than to seek a definite rule of right in the
answers of so uncertain an authority?”</p>
<p>Can it be fairly said, my reader, that such
men are in a position to judge the gambler,
or to denounce his vocation? May not the
gamester ask of this sect: By what authority
do you pronounce judgment, “out of hand,”
upon me and mine? Where is your standard—authentic,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
determinative, undeniable, irrefutable?
Am I subject to the dominion of
your conscience? In my opinion, gaming is
not a sin. In what is your judgment superior
to mine? Moreover, I defy you to demonstrate
a wager is wrong, <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">per se</i>. If you find this
impossible, I am free to repudiate your dogmatism.
To know, also, that gaming is
not <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">prima facie</i> sinful, we have but to define
it.</p>
<p>The lexicographers define a gamester as
“one who plays for money or other stake;”
and gaming “to be the use of cards, dice,
or other implement, with a view to win
money, or other thing, wagered upon the
issue of the contest.” Is this a description
of anything forbidden by the decalogue?
Where, in the old or new testament, is a
similar transaction denounced as a sin? But,
it may be said, perhaps, the foregoing definition
does not suffice for moral consideration:
it ignores the element of chance,
which enters more or less into all games.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
This would imply that it is immoral to invoke
a fortuity. Is it?</p>
<p>Here, the great Jefferson may be quoted
with propriety: “It is a common idea that
games of chance are immoral. But what
is chance? Nothing happens in this world
without a cause. If we know the cause, we
do not call it chance, but if we do not know
it, we say it was produced by chance. If
we see a loaded die turn its lightest side
up, we know the cause, and that it is not an
effect produced by chance; but whatever side
an unloaded die turns up, not knowing the
cause, we say it is the effect of chance. Yet,
the morality of the thing cannot depend on
our knowledge or ignorance of its cause.
Not knowing <em>why</em> a particular side of an
unloaded die turns up, cannot make the act
of throwing, or of betting on it, immoral.
If we consider games of chance immoral,
then every pursuit of human industry is immoral,
for there is not a single one that is
not subject to chance; not one, wherein you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
do not risk a loss for the chance of some
gain.”</p>
<p>In “Paradise Lost,” Milton declares:</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“Next him, high arbiter,<br /></span>
<span class="i0"><em>Chance</em> governs all!”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">And of mankind we read in Ecclesiastes that
“time and <em>chance</em> happeneth to them”—mankind.
(9:11). Among the Hebrews, property
was divided and disputes were decided,
“by lot.” The custom is mentioned by Solomon,
Matthew and Luke. (Prov. 16:33; Matt.
27:35; Luke 10.) Furthermore, this mode
of appeal to destiny is sanctioned, yea, even
prescribed, by the Bible. According to
Leviticus, Aaron was commanded “to take
the two goats, and present them before the
Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation. And Aaron shall <em>cast lots</em> upon
the two goats; one lot for the Lord and the
other lot for the scape-goat. And Aaron
shall bring the goat upon which the Lord’s
lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. But
the goat on which the lot fell to be the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
scape-goat, shall be presented alive before
the Lord, to make an atonement with him
and to let him go for a scape-goat into the
wilderness.” (16:7, 8, 9.)</p>
<p><em>Thus was chance invested with the sanctity
of a religious observance.</em></p>
<p>Moses was instructed that the “Promised
Land” should be divided among the Hebrews
“by lot.” The method is described in Numbers:
“Notwithstanding, the land shall be
divided by lot, according to the names of
the tribes of their fathers shall they inherit.
According to lot shall the possession thereof
be divided between many and few.” This
direction was followed to the letter by “Eleazar,
the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun,
and the heads of the fathers of the tribes
of the children of Israel;” for we are told
in Joshua, that “By lot was their inheritance;
as the Lord commanded by the hand of
Moses, for the nine tribes and for the half
tribe.” (Josh 14:1, 2; 18:6.)</p>
<p><em>Luck, then, decided the tenure of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
tribes in Canaan—a title dictated by Divinity.</em></p>
<p>Joshua determined, by lot, that it was
Achan, of the tribe of Judah, who had taken
“the accursed thing” and thus brought upon
Israel the disaster at Ai. (Josh. 7:14.)
During the great battle of Michmash-Aijalon,
Saul said unto the Israelites:
“Cursed be the man that eateth any food
until evening, that I may be avenged on my
enemies.”</p>
<p>Unmindful of this oath, wild honey was
eaten by his son, in a moment of extreme
hunger. No one would divulge that the
king’s adjuration had been disregarded by
the beloved Jonathan. “Therefore, Saul
said unto the Lord God of Israel, give a
perfect lot. And Saul and Jonathan were
taken: but the people escaped. And Saul
said, Cast lots between me and Jonathan,
my son. And Jonathan was taken.” (1 Sam.
14:40, 42.)</p>
<p><em>By lot, likewise, the question of “ministry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
and apostleship” was decided against Justus
and in favor of Matthias.</em> (Acts 1:26.)</p>
<p>Briefly, if the Bible is a divine production,
how can appeals to chance be stigmatized
as vicious or irreligious? Also, it is not to
be denied that chance, or casualty, enters
very largely into every department of human
action. Men are compelled to take ventures
every day; the engineer faces them; so does
the sea captain; the same may be said of
the doctor, the surgeon, the lawyer and the
banker. A merchant encounters all the
risks of trade; the hostility of the elements
and the bankruptcy of others. The rains
may rot or the drouths destroy the crops
of the farmer. And almost, in the words of
Ben Jonson, throughout the world,</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“All human business, fortune doth command,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Without all order, and with her blind hand,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">She, blind, bestows blind gifts, that still have nurst,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">They see not who nor how.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p class="in0">The politician, too, might say with Macbeth:
“If chance will have me king, why, chance
may crown me.” War is a mighty game<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
between giants. In truth, of Napoleon the
poet has said:</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Whose table, earth; whose dice, were human bones.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Beyond this, even our laws and institutions
appeal to chance. In the United States
Senate, whom, respectively, of two members—elected
at the same time—shall serve
for the long and short term, is decided by
lot. The law recognizes that even property
may be thus divided. “When an estate is
apportioned into three parts, and one part
is given to each of three persons; the proper
way is to ascertain each one’s part by drawing
lots.” Thus is the rule stated by Bouvier
and Wolff. The Illinois Statutes, for the
regulation of elections, enact that “when
two or more persons receive an equal and
the highest number of votes for an office
to be filled by the county alone, that county
clerk shall issue a notice to such persons
of such tie vote, and require them to appear
at his office, on a day named in the notice,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
within ten days from the day of election,
and determine by lot which of them is to
be declared elected. On the day appointed
the clerk and other canvassers shall attend,
and the parties interested shall appear and
determine by lot which of them is to be declared
elected.” Similar laws exist in
other states.</p>
<p>Some moralists admit the validity of a
transaction, notwithstanding it may depend
upon chance. They will concede there is
no intrinsic wrong in any species of game,
unless there exists an inequality of chance
or skill. Not so, thought Paley, the Christian
philosopher, whose name is a household
word for purity, zeal and power. He said:
“What some say of this kind of contract, that
one side ought not to have any advantage
over the other, is neither practical nor true.
This would require perfect equality of skill
and judgment, which is seldom to be met
with. I might not have it in my power to
play with fairness a game of cards once in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
a twelvemonth, if I must wait till I meet
with a person whose art, skill and judgment
are neither greater nor less than my own.
Nor is this equality requisite to the justice
of the contract. One man may give to
another the whole of the stake if he chooses,
and the other may justly accept it if it be
given him; much more, therefore, may one
give another an advantage in the chance
of winning the whole. The only proper
restriction is, that neither side have an advantage
by means of which the other is not
aware. The same distinction holds of all
transactions and proceedings into which
chance enters; such as insurance, and speculations
in trade or in stocks.”</p>
<p>In this connection, with what force could
be quoted the sweet Nazarene in His parable
of the vineyard laborers: “Friend, I do
thee no wrong; didst thou not agree with
me for a penny? Take that thine is, and
go thy way; I will give unto this last
even as unto thee. <em>Is it not lawful for me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
to do what I will with mine own?</em>” (Matt.
20:13, 14, 15.)</p>
<p>Here the mathematicians attempt to rescue
moral philosophy. They would demonstrate
the improbability of luck. If asked
how it happened that a man won a hundred
thousand dollar prize, while his neighbor drew
a blank, the mathematician might tell you it
was chance; that there was a necessity for the
prize to fall somewhere, and that he who had
the most chances was the most likely to obtain
it. Such caviling could be dismissed with the
answer: You acknowledge the necessity of a
prize falling <em>somewhere</em>, then why not to me.
Surely my chances are as good as my neighbors’,
perhaps more so. It may be; and what
may be may be now. “There is no prerogative
in human hours.” “There is a tide in
the affairs of men, which taken at the flood,
leads on to fortune.”</p>
<p>No intelligent gambler is a believer in
“luck” as <em>a personal quality</em>. He recognizes
the phenomena of chance. <em>How</em> they will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
operate is not known to the mathematician
more than to him; the “chances” may result
favorably or unfavorably for a gambler; the
law may so work as to benefit him, or it may
not. Whether “chance” or “luck,” is immaterial
to the issue.</p>
<p>But seriously, for what do these aspirants
contend? A method of reasoning from the
happening of an event to the <em>probabilities</em> of
one or another cause; that the possible combinations
in a pack of cards, or a handful of
dice, may be computed, even when the question
involves the chances of a thousand dice,
or a thousand throws of one die. In its very
nature this is a vain-glorious pretension, and
upon what is it based? An <em>hypothesis</em> presenting
the necessity of one or another out of
a certain number of consequences. In other
words, <em>given</em> an event as having happened,
and which <em>might</em> have been the consequence
of either of several causes, or explicable by
either of several <em>hypotheses</em>, the probabilities
can be <em>inferred</em>.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
In this way is the philosophy of supposition
substituted for that of caprice. We
are asked by the mathematician, at the very
outset, to assume something he has not
proved, and which is not susceptible of proof.
We are required to take for granted the
imaginary premises upon which his argument
depends. Is this not the acme of intellectual
audacity? But having yielded his
antecedent proposition, what is the result?
A bare probability—a mere likelihood of the
occurrence of any event.</p>
<p>So much for the boasted “Doctrine of
Chances.” Besides, I assert that every premise
of the mathematician has been refuted
by my experience as a gamester. In the
proper place, I could disprove his every
theory with a fact. For example: De
Morgan and Proctor tell us that it is not
probable seven could be thrown ten successive
times, with a pair of dice. We are told,
on good authority, that in 1813, a Mr. Ogden
wagered 1,000 guineas that his opponent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
would not perform this feat. That gentleman
threw seven <em>nine times</em> running.</p>
<p>However, the mathematicians are not concerned
with the right or wrong of play for
money. They seek to demonstrate the inequalities
of chance, hoping thus to dissuade
humanity from its pursuit. Their efforts are
idle. “The proverb which advises us to
throw a sprat to catch a whale, shows that
mankind consider a chance of a gain to be
a benefit for which it is worth while to give
up a proportionate certainty.” These gentlemen
have extended their conjectures to the
risks of loss or gain in general commerce;
the probable continuity of life and duration
of marriage; the contingencies in political
results and the verdicts of juries; the distributions
of sex in births, and even the probability
of error in any opinion that may be
generally received. In fact, should their
guesses be heeded by the world, enterprise
and hope would depart.</p>
<p>Another class of moralizers reject and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
deride the idea of “innate notions.” Truth,
they maintain, is not to be found in worn
out abstractions and moral senses, which are
the weak reproductions of material organisms.
In ethics, if they are to be followed, we must
set out with the convictions that our materials
are relative and not absolute, and that our
highest moral conceptions must partake of
the same character. As stated by Posnett,
systems of ethics, more or less perfect in
their day, have vanished in the progress of
society and mind. Systems of ethics, whether
we see or care to see it, are gliding from
amongst us at this moment, while others,
“with strange faces are growing familiar
by the slowness of their approach.”</p>
<p>To illustrate from Chenebix: Nothing
can appear more definite than virtue; yet, in
Asia, the term may denote submission; in
Europe and America, resistance; to Mussulmans
war; to Christians, peace. Honor, too,
which its votaries describe as one and incorruptible,
assumes various significations.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
In some countries it prescribes revenge for
an injury received; in others, forgiveness.
Here, the violation of female chastity is a
disgrace, elsewhere it is a duty. To a
Mussulman the eating of pork is “vile and
unclean: fills his soul with aversion, repugnance,
disgust. To this habit their antipathy
is deep and intuitive. To the natives of
Western India, eating beef is sacrilegious
and revolting. In Spain, any other worship
than that established by the Catholic church
is impious and in the highest degree offensive
to God. The people of all Southern
Europe regard a married clergy as irreligious,
indecent, unchaste, gross and disgusting.
Wherever the Puritans have been sufficiently
powerful they have endeavored to put down
all public, and nearly all private amusements:
music, dancing, the theatre and public games.”</p>
<p>This denomination, strange as it may
seem, also urge upon mankind what, in their
opinion, is the “true moral rule”—the correct
standard of right. It is that which is established<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
by authority, custom, or general consent.
A variable and doubtful criterion,
this, one would naturally suppose. How
severely has it been treated by Spencer and
Carpenter. Right and wrong are not <em>essentially</em>
different. All moral distinctions are a
matter of arbitrary establishment by the
“powers that be.” That which is statutory,
customary, fashionable, or generally habitual,
is fit and proper. Conduct is purely a question
of majority and might. Place gambling
in the ascendant to-morrow and it would be
just; or, as the major part of humanity,
gamesters would be respectable; for an
opinion commonly accepted is the correct
opinion. With this as a guide, can the state
hold the gamester reprobate?</p>
<p>Society keeps changing its sentiments
with the centuries. Absolutely, we can never
know when it is right or when it is wrong.
The outlaw of one era is the idol of another.
Servetus was immolated by the Calvinists,
to-day he is a martyr to conscience. Bruno<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
was burned as a heretic, now he is the hero
of philosophy and science.</p>
<p>Galileo and Roger Bacon were once execrated
by the church—their bones lie in
unknown and unhonored graves. We regard
them as brave pioneers of human thought.
The formerly despised and hunted Christians
are become the greatest power on earth.
The Jew money-lender of the “dark ages”
(whom such as Front-de-Bœuf once tortured
with impunity) is the Rothschild of our
century—“the guest of princes and the instigator
of commercial wars.” Shylock is
now an influential and courted capitalist.
“All the glories of Alexander do not condone,
in our eyes, for his cruelty in crucifying the
brave defenders of Tyre, by thousands, along
the sea-shore; and if Solomon, with his
thousand wives and concubines, were to appear
in London or New York to-morrow,
even the most frivolous circles would be
shocked, and Brigham Young, by contrast,
seem a domestic model.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
From Cæsar we learn that the Suevi held
their lands in common; that private property
in the soil did not obtain with the Gauls
and Germans. The same is true of the
North American Indians and some of the
Pacific Islanders. It is conceded, moreover,
that communistic principles were generally
prevalent in the earliest ages of the world.
Then, any attempt at exclusive individual
possession of land or chattel would have been
deemed a theft.</p>
<p>The mediæval ideal was an ascetic and
monastic life. To-day, millions regard such
a course as unwise, if not wicked. Poverty,
heretofore esteemed as the badge of honor
and dignity, is by our era adjudged offensive.
Nomadism prevailed in a former age. Now
gypsies and tramps are the outcasts of society.
Regarding marriage, public opinion has varied
through all phases, without attaining finality.
In earliest times how indiscriminate is the
tie—the monstrous relation of brother and
sister being the rule, rather than the exception.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
Polygamy prevails with one people
and polyandry among another. In India
and the Orient a wife is hidden from the
dearest friend, while in Africa a chief will
put his mate to bed with a guest. In Japan
young women, even of good birth, “are free
in their intercourse with men, till they are
married; at Paris they are free after.”</p>
<p>In ancient Greece and Rome, again, marriage
was not the highest conception, and
largely “a matter of convenience and housekeeping.”
Wives were little, if any better,
than slaves. The class of women known as
Hetairai (concubines and mistresses) were
openly honored and trusted by both political
and social leaders. The name of Aspasia
is closely associated with that of Pericles.
Theodota was the intimate of Socrates.
Diotima has been immortalized in the
“Symposium” of Plato.</p>
<p>The splendid ideal of our century is the
monogamic state—“the great theme of
romantic literature, and the climax of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
myriad novels and poems.” In classic Greece
the idealistic model was male friendship—comradeship.
We have its type in the heroic
figures of Harmodius and Aristogiton. The
Theban Legion, or “Sacred Band,” exemplified
the principle. No man might enter
without his lover. Although annihilated at
the battle of Chæronæa, it was never vanquished.
The literature of Greece and
Rome illuminate this exalted sentiment.
The writings of Pliny the younger, Cicero
and Lucian, are worthy of especial mention.
Many sweet and noble friendships are embalmed
in the poetry of Hellas and Latium;
Demetrius and Antiphilus; Damon and
Pythias; Phocion and Nicoles; Glaucus and
Diomedes; Philades and Orestes; Cicero and
Atticus; Socrates and Alcibiades; Lucilius
and Brutus; Tiberius Gracchus and Blossius;
Caius Gracchus and Licinus.</p>
<p>Suicide was not thought unworthy by the
ancients. It was resorted to by Anthony,
Brutus, Cassius, Cato, and Zeno. To-day,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
the attempt is a crime, and its consummation
a disgrace. In Europe and America it is
<i xml:lang="es" lang="es">felo-de-se</i>. Infanticide is common in many
parts of Asia and Africa. To-day the feudal
baron would be adjudged a freebooter; the
knight-errant a brawling vagabond. A nineteenth
century man may beat his wife within
an inch of her life, and get but three months.
For stealing a suit of clothes he would
be “sent up” for years. So “gambling
on ’change is now respectable enough, but
pitch and toss for halfpence is low, and must
be dealt with by the police. We know that
when questions connected with life contingencies
were first considered, it was regarded
as most deliberate gambling to be in any
way concerned in buying or selling such
articles as annuities, or any interests depending
upon them.” The age boasts of an
advance in the humanities; and yet, public
opinion permits extravagance and selfishness
in the rich while the poor are starving. Our
educated classes, generally, approve the vivisection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
of animals. In ancient Egypt it would
have been stigmatized as the most abominable
of crimes.</p>
<p>From age to age, likewise, law represents
the code of the dominant or ruling class—at
all times only valid because it is the code
of those in power. How often used by
“authority” for selfish purposes, may be read
on every page of history. Monarchy, absolute
or limited, is a synonym for injustice. Feudalism
is another term for murder, rapine and
extortion. In Spain, the lands of nobles
were long exempted from direct taxation.
For centuries the Hungarian turnpikes were
free to the aristocracy. Prior to the revolution
in France, all burdens of state devolved
upon the lower classes. Less than two
centuries ago Scotch lairds exported their
peasantry into slavery. Students will recall
the “Black Act” of George I., and the
“Inclosure Laws” of England. Until quite
recently, slavery existed in Europe and
America; nor has the institution wholly disappeared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
from the earth. Legislation is
mainly in the interest of the wealthy and
powerful. Congress and legislatures are
making the rich richer, and the poor poorer.
Government is largely devoted to the creation
and upholding of corporations, trusts, monopolies,
subsidies and extortionate tariffs.
What care the politicians for manhood?
Wealth is their God.</p>
<p>“Let your rule be the greatest happiness
to the greatest number,” interposes another
authority. But are men agreed in their
definition of “greatest happiness?” Different
notions of it are entertained in all
ages, amongst every people, by each class.
“To the wandering gypsy a home is tiresome,
whilst a Swiss is miserable without one. Progress
is necessary to the Anglo-Saxons; on
the other hand, the Esquimaux are content
in their squalid poverty, have no latent
wants, and are still what they were in the
days of Tacitus. An Irishman delights in
a row, a Chinaman in ceremonies and pageantry,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
and the usually apathetic Javanese gets
vociferously enthusiastic over a cock-fight.
The heaven of the Hebrew is a city of gold
and precious stones, with an abundance of
corn and wine; that of the Turk, a harem
peopled by Houris; that of the American
Indian, a happy hunting-ground; in the Norse
paradise there were to be daily battles, with
magical healing of wounds. It was, seemingly,
the opinion of Lycurgus, that perfect
physical development was the chief essential
to human felicity; Plotinus, on the contrary,
was so purely ideal in his aspirations as to
be ashamed of his body. To a miserly
Elwes, the hoarding of money was the only
enjoyment of life; but the philanthropic Day
could find no pleasurable employment, save
in its distribution.”</p>
<p>Francis, Duke of La Rochefoucault,
likened the soul of man unto a medal, so
constructed that it may represent either a
saint or a devil. Montaigne, also, said the
soul of man was double-faced; the inner<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
beamed upon self-love, while the outer wore
a mask. Voltaire was a scoffer: a master
of satire, who ridiculed without mercy every
human weakness. In “Zadig” and “Micromegas”
he mocked the ignorance and self-conceit
of mankind. His “Memnon,” the
“Wise Memnon,” who, in the morning, foreswore
all women, made a vow of temperance,
renounced gaming and quarreling, and determined
never to be seen at court, was, before
the night of the same day, cheated and
robbed by a female, got drunk, gamed,
quarreled with his most intimate friend, and
made a visit to court, where everyone laughed
at him. The moral of “Candide, or the
Optimist,” is, as interpreted by Smollett,
that nothing is more absurd than the exercise
of human reason; that nothing is more futile
and frivolous than the cultivation of philosophy;
that mankind are savages, who
devour one another. This is cynicism, pure
and simple. I cannot endure a creed so
ghastly: a philosophy that suspects Socrates<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
of incontinence, charges Epicurus with prodigality,
accuses Aristotle of covetousness, and
can say of Seneca that “he had but the single
virtue of concealing his vices.” Horace took
a more charitable view of the moral philosophers,
and ascribed their weakness to inability
rather than hypocrisy. The poet says that
men “upon the stage of this world are like
a company of travelers whom night has surprised
as they are passing through a forest;
they walk on, relying upon the guide, who
immediately misleads them through ignorance.
All of them use what care they can
to find the beaten path again; everyone
takes a different path, and is in good hopes
his is the best; the more they fill themselves
with these vain imaginations the farther
they wander; but though they wander a different
way, yet it proceeds from one and
the same cause; ’tis the guide that misled
them, and the obscurity of the night hinders
them from recovering the right road.”</p>
<p>In truth, the mind of man, unaided by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
Divine light, is not able to determine what
is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. In
the realm of morals, man is to be guided
only by the decrees of God, if known. For
those who recognize the Bible as His word,
the way is clear. Aside from this, the path
is dark and uncertain. But nowhere in
either the Old or New Testament, is gambling
forbidden. Not a word did Moses or Jesus
utter against it, as a general principle, or
in any of its particular forms. What is commanded
by God is our only test of right
and wrong. Theology is of man, and yet
it is a fact that gambling, in itself, is not
inconsistent with the profession of any creed
in Christendom. The ablest theologian cannot
successfully challenge this proposition.</p>
<p>For the sake of argument, heretofore, I
have granted the moral freedom of man.
The fact is, I deny his “liberty,” save in the
most restricted sense. I am convinced every
action is determined by the resultant force
of conflicting motives. However, the possible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
autonomy of man is not necessary to a consideration
of what it is right or best to do.
It is only when we ask about the conduct of
man, in his relation to the law, that it is
important to know whether he could have
done otherwise. I reserve the topic for a
subsequent chapter.</p>
<p>Be this as it may, certain conclusions are
obvious to the impartial observer. It is
very difficult, if not impossible, to draw a
strict boundary between the virtues and vices.
Courage should not be carried to the point
of rashness. Timidity is the abuse of prudence.
Generosity can degenerate into improvidence.
Reverence might merge into
credulity and superstition. Arrogance is the
extreme of self-respect. Chastity is overdone
by the monastic. Some writers, in fact,
deny a fixed line between the virtuous and
vicious passions; this class boldly maintain
a place for both vices and virtues. Hatred
may be just and anger magnificent. Although
out of place in a drawing-room, obstinacy is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
a virtue on the field of battle. Love is divine
and lust monstrous. Are they not yoke-fellows?
Reformers, so called, are impossible
without stupid candor and impassive bluntness.
Timidity, on the other hand, is the
defect of a sensitive temperament. Sensuality
underlies the domain of art, painting,
sculpture and music.</p>
<p>This is suggested by Plato in the “Phædrus”—an
allegory of the soul, wherein the
spirit of man is depicted as a chariot to which
are attached a white and black horse. The
first typifies our higher and the latter our
lower passions.</p>
<p>Mr. Lecky writes in his “History of
Morals,” that in society certain defects
necessarily accompany certain excellencies
of character. He remarks, “Had the Irish
peasants been less chaste they would have
been more prosperous.” “Habitual liars and
habitual cheats have been industrious, amiable
and prudent.” “Civilization is not favorable
to self-sacrifice, reverence, enthusiasm or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
chastity.” He declares of the gambling
table, “that it fosters a moral nerve and
calmness scarcely exhibited in equal perfection
in any other sphere—a fact which Bret
Harte has finely illustrated in his character
of Mr. John Oakhurst, in the ‘Outcasts of
Poker Flat.’”</p>
<p>This thought is boldly illustrated by
Mandeville, in his “Fable of the Bees:”</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“These were called knaves, but, bar the name,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">The grave industrious were the same:<br /></span>
<span class="i0">All trades and places knew some cheat,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">No calling was without deceit.<br /></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The root of evil, avarice,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">That damn’d, ill-natured, baneful vice,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Was slave to prodigality,<br /></span>
<span class="i0"><em>That noble sin</em>; whilst luxury<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Employed a million of the poor,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">And odious pride a million more:<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Envy, itself, and vanity<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Were ministers of industry,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Their darling folly, fickleness,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">In diet, furniture and dress,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">That strange, ridiculous vice, was made<br /></span>
<span class="i0">The very wheel that turned the trade.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>The author of this unique production<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
announced that his main design was to indicate
the impossibility of enjoying all the
most elegant comforts of life “that are to
be met with in an industrious, wealthy and
powerful nation, and at the same time be
blessed with all the virtue and innocence
that can be wished for in a golden age;
from thence to expose the folly and unreasonableness
of those that, desirous of being an
opulent and flourishing people, are wonderfully
greedy after all the benefits they can
receive as such, are yet always murmuring
against those vices and inconveniences, that
from the beginning of the world to the present
day, have been inseparable from all the
kingdoms and states that ever were formed
for strength, riches and politeness.”</p>
<p>“To do this, I first slightly touch upon
some of the faults and corruptions the several
professions and callings are generally charged
with. After that I show that those very
vices of every particular person, by skillful
management, were made subservient to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
grandeur and worldly happiness of the whole.
Lastly, by setting forth what of necessity
must be the consequence of general honesty,
virtue, innocence, content and temperance,
I demonstrate that if mankind could be cured
of the failings they are naturally guilty of,
they would cease to be capable of being
raised into such vast, potent, and polite
societies, as they have been under the several
commonwealths and monarchies that have
flourished since creation.”</p>
<p>Not yet, then, have we found the human
standard by which the gambler is to be
denounced.</p>
<p>Gamblers are accused of avarice, and an
inordinate desire for wealth. As a rule,
the gamester is not penurious. A miserly
or covetous grasp of money is inconsistent
with his vocation. Concede the accusation,
and is he alone? Is he more greedy of
gain than other men? History refutes the
charge. Money is the god of the world.
Get enormous wealth is the cry, no matter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
how; no matter how many impoverished
widows and squalid orphans are crying out
to heaven, day and night, against you; and
such slavish adulation as the world knows
not beside are yours. The passion for
wealth increases gradually, as its end is
achieved, the world over. Its effects are
manifest wherever men strive for gold.</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“Gold! gold! gold! gold!<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Bright and yellow, hard and cold,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Molten, graven, hammered, rolled;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Heavy to get, and light to hold;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old<br /></span>
<span class="i0">To the very verge of the church-yard mould,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Price of many a crime untold;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Gold! gold! gold! gold!”—<cite>Thomas Hood.</cite><br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>The <em>morale</em> of gambling is not to be
determined by political economy, which is
not a part of moral philosophy. It is
not founded on the imperations of duty,
but upon the adequate footing of desirableness
of self-interest. In the language of
Prof. Perry: “One word circumscribes the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
field of morals, ought. One word defines
the field of economy, expediency.” So far
as it is a science, political economy is cold
and selfish; “budded on monopoly values.”
Judged by such a standard, gambling would
be right, if expedient.</p>
<p>Yes, but is not gambling a destructive
luxury? Is it not a wasteful expenditure
of money? I answer, what is luxury, and
is it always an evil? Roscher well says:
“The idea conveyed by the word is an
essentially relative one.” Every individual
calls all expenditure with which he chooses
to dispense, a luxury. The same is true of
every age and nation. “’Tis a word without
any specific idea,” wrote Voltaire, “much
such another expression as when we say
Eastern and Western hemispheres: in fact,
there is no such thing as East and West;
there is no fixed point where the earth
rises and sets; or, if you will, every point
on it is, at the same time, East and West.
It is the same with regard to luxury; for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
either there is no such thing, or else it is
in all places alike.... Do we understand
by luxury the expense of an opulent
person? Must he, then, live like the poor,
he whose profusion, alone, is sufficient to
maintain the poor? Expensiveness should
be the thermometer of a private person’s
fortune, as general luxury is the infallible
mark of a powerful and flourishing empire....
Money is made for circulation. He
who hoards it is a bad citizen, and even
a bad economist. It is by dissipating it
we render ourselves useful to our country
and ourselves.” David Hume also thought
the word of uncertain signification. He
said: “The bound between virtue and vice
cannot here be exactly fixed, more than
in other moral subjects. To imagine that
the gratification of any sense, or the
indulging of any delicacy, is of itself a
vice, can never enter into a head that is
not disordered by the frenzies of enthusiasm.
These indulgences are only vices,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
when they are pursued at the expense of
some virtue, as liberality of charity; in
like manner as they are follies, when a
man ruins his fortune and reduces himself
to want and beggary.” Again, William
Roscher, the political economist, was of
opinion that “prodigality is less odious
than avarice; less irreconcilable with certain
virtues;” and that “prodigality, directly or
indirectly, increases the demand for commodities.”
We know the Epicureans and
Stoics were reproached with being bad
citizens, because their moderation was a
hindrance to trade. Gambling is no more
a luxury than many other practices of mankind.
Some persons may prefer it as a
pastime to any other form of luxury. Who
is to decide a question of taste and expense
but the individual concerned? One
man indulges lavishly in pictures, books,
and clothes; another is prodigal in the
matter of tobacco and liquors; a third delights
in the excitement of chance. All<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
these inclinations are luxurious. Which is
preferable to each, is not for society to determine
in one case, more than in the
others. In a word, the phases of luxury
are so variable and extensive that it is
equally unjust and impracticable for the
state to discriminate unfavorably.</p>
<p>The gambler is said to be idle and non-productive:
that a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">quid pro quo</i> is not given
for what he receives. What is meant here
by idleness and non-production? Does it
signify that <em>labor</em> is the proper basis of exchangeable
value: the <em>only</em> just source of
what is called wealth? If so, the condemnation
includes all who obtain wealth without
working for it. Suppose it be admitted
that <em>service</em> is the one equitable title to property.
What, then, of <em>assumed</em> rights, in
the form of profits, dividends, rent and
interest? If <em>true</em> wealth is the outcome of
physical labor, are not banker, broker, middleman,
landlord, capitalist, gentleman of leisure
and gambler on the same footing.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
Bishop Jewel once said: “If I lend £100,
and for it covenant to receive £105, or any
other sum greater than was the sum I did
lend, this is that we call usury: such a kind
of bargaining as no good man, or godly
man, ever used.” Many contend that interest
contributes nothing to the support of
society, but is a tax on labor. Those who
receive it are said to be extortioners who
live on the gains of other people. Christ,
Buddha, Zoroaster, and Mahomet all put
usury in the category of forbidden sins.</p>
<p>It is discountenanced by Ezekiel, Moses,
David, Aristotle, Cato, St. Basil, Masse,
Bacon, Buxton, Dr. Wilson and Fenton.
Ricardo, the great economist, was of the
opinion that rent is not a creation of wealth,
and adds nothing to the necessaries, conveniences
and enjoyments of society. Adam
Smith, the father of political economy, considered
rent as a monopoly price paid for
the use of land. Were this true, the owner
of a house, when it had paid for itself, could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
rightfully charge for its use, the cost of his
labor in transferring it to you, and the
amount of wear and tear.</p>
<p>It is said of the gambler that he is not
a man of equivalents. But, if wealth is to
be a question of exact equality in values
and labor, then must business generally be
condemned. The great legists, Pomponius
and Paulus, unblushingly said, that “In buying
and selling, a man has a natural right
to purchase for a small price what is really
more valuable, and to sell at a high price
what is less valuable, and for each to overreach
the other.” Harsh as this may seem,
it but voiced the principles of trade in
every age of the world. “Trade is war,”
said the ancient proverb; “and as a nail
between the stone joints, so does sin stick
fast between buying and selling.” Business
is advantage-taking erected into a system.
Get as much more than you give as is possible.
A thing is worth what it will bring.
You may rightfully take from another what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
he is compelled to yield. Exchange is not
a rendering of equivalent for equivalent;
but an effort to get the largest possible
amount of another’s property, or services,
for the least possible return. In business,
justice and mercy are daily displaced by extortion
and mastership: “the producing
classes are vassal to the speculating classes;
the creators of wealth to its stealthy possessors.”</p>
<p>The Christian Fathers deprecated trade.
“To seek to enrich one’s self is in itself
unjust,” said Clement; “since it aims at appropriating
an unfair share of what was intended
for the common use of men.” “If
covetousness is removed,” argued Tertullian,
“there is no reason for gain, and, if there
is no reason for gain, there is no need of
trade.” Jerome taught that “as the trader
did not himself add to the value of his
wares, therefore, if he gained more for them
than he paid, his gain must be another’s
loss.” To Augustine, “business in itself is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
an evil, for it turns men from seeking true
rest, which is God.” Aquinas decided “that
to buy a thing for less, or sell a thing for
more than its value is, in itself, unallowable
and unjust.”</p>
<p>It has been estimated by Bastiat, Karl
Marx and Nordau, that laborers are unjustly
deprived of the value of four days
labor in each week. Terrible is the
injustice to wage-earners, the world over,
if the deductions of Carpenter and Godwin
are to be accepted. “Behold the hire of
the laborers which is of you kept back by
fraud, crieth: and the cries of them are
entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”
Proudhon and Spencer have revealed
the “economic’s lies” of modern society.
“The great game of the business world is
the game of getting on,” wrote John Ruskin;
“not of everybodies getting on, but of somebody
getting on. What to one family is
the game of getting on, to one thousand
families is the game of not getting on. Nay,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>
you say, they have all their chance. Yes,
so has every one in a lottery, but there
must always be the same number of blanks.
Ah! but in a lottery it is not skill and intelligence
that take the lead, but blind
chance. What then! do you think the old
practice that they should take who have the
power, and they should keep who can, is
less iniquitous when the power has become
the power of brains instead of fist?”</p>
<p>Is this a world of equivalents in labor?
What is the ratio of riches awarded to those
who toil? In 1860, the net average income
was but three per cent. Yet, for that year
the income of bare money (which needs
no food, clothing or shelter), was all the
way from five to thirty per cent. In England
30,000,000 people are taxed that interest
may be paid to 300,000. In 1870, the interest
on the national debts of the world amounted
to $1,700,000,000. This rate in nine years
would absorb a sum equal to the entire
property of this country in 1870. We are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
informed that trade is annually taxed (interest
on capital) about $200,000,000, for
which not one dollar of actual service is
rendered. Is interest on “watered” stock
any better than theft?</p>
<p>A world of equivalents, indeed! In
our cities five per cent of the population
own more property than ninety-five per
cent; and twenty per cent of the nation
own more than the remaining eighty per
cent. At the present rate of increase,
within thirty years, 100,000 persons will own
four-fifths of all the property in the United
States. In twenty-five years the number
of our people who own their homes has
decreased from five-eighths to three-eighths.
In New York City more than 1,100,000
persons are dwelling in tenement houses.
“In 1889, the farm mortgages in the western
states amounted to <em>three billion four hundred
and twenty-two million dollars</em>.” In
England, to-day, there are less than 30,000
landed proprietors—one-half of the country<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
is owned by 150 men. Twelve men own
one-half of Scotland. The working classes
of the United Kingdom own but a thirtieth
part of the total real and personal property.</p>
<p>Strictly considered, two things are said
to be equivalent when they are “equal in
value.” Generally speaking, however, interchanges
are seldom, if ever, “alike in worth.”
The equality of labor for labor does not
occur once in millions of times. “Value”
is an indefinite term. Into “worth” enters
such intangible qualities as whim, caprice,
taste, fancy, ambition, pride, habit, desire,
appetite, passion and amusement. Exact
and utilitarian standards would destroy <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">belle
lettres</i> and the fine arts; dissipate recreation
and the amenities of life. Are there precise
“work-a-day” equivalents for literature,
music, sculpture, painting; for the opera, the
theatre, the salon, the club-room? Gaming
is an amusement for many persons. Thousands
enjoy the excitements of chance. It
stimulates their spirits above the cares and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
drudgery of existence. Such men prefer
a game to either book, piano or cigar.
With them it is not a question of utility
but of diversion. Is the value of entertainment
to be measured in muscle or
metal?</p>
<p>Wherein, essentially, does gaming differ
from speculation or insurance? All have
their foundation in chance. Contingencies
and uncertainties enter into each as a consideration
for investment. A gamester bets
upon the turn of a card, or the cast of a
die. The speculator purchases in anticipation
of contingent advance in the price
of a commodity. A corporation indemnifies
an individual, conditionally, against possible
death or loss by fire. In neither
instance can the result be foretold: the
gamester may or may not win, the speculator
may or may not realize a profit, the
assured may or may not forfeit his life
policy, or lose by fire. In every transaction,
fortuity is the controlling element; if for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
this reason any one is invalid or immoral,
so are the others. Large sums have been
won and lost at cards. Many fortunes had
their origin in speculation: also, it has been
productive of widespread disaster, distress
and despair. Insurance companies have
benefited thousands of widows and orphans.
Innumerable are the families upon whom
indigence has fallen through the forfeiture
of policies. Forfeited premiums to the
amount of millions are now invested in
palatial structures throughout the civilized
world. Analysis might show in gaming,
speculation and insurance, that at least the
equities and ethics are even.</p>
<p>View the subject as we may, ye gamester,
“where is thine accuser?” To all men he
can say: “He that is without sin among
you, let him first cast a stone.”</p>
<p>Now, some one may ask: “Is not gambling
immoral to the extent it may induce a
reliance upon chance for a livelihood, instead
of patient industry.” I might reply: “What<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
is industry, as known to political economy;
and what proportion of the world’s wealth
is a result of direct personal exertion?”
But, generally, men are rational creatures,
and do not depend upon games of chance
for a living. The credulous men are relatively
few who rely entirely upon the outcome
of chance in games as a business;
and those few are at least on a par in
wisdom and ethics with the millions who
gamble in future prices of stocks, grain,
and other commodities. “Ah! but you forget,”
rejoins my critic, “that in other pursuits
a man produces something by his industry,
or contributes to that result indirectly,
whereas in gambling nothing is
produced.” I consider this erroneous, in
the face of social experience, as has been
indicated heretofore. It may be as soundly
said, that a “man has no right to invest
his money in cattle, or lands, or bonds,
unless his labor is put in with it. A man
buys a horse and hires him to his neighbor.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
Is he entitled to the money his horse earns
for him? He invests in bonds at fifty
cents on the dollar. Does he not hope
they will appreciate in value, until they
are worth dollar for dollar? He pays
$1000 for a piece of land. In two or three
years, perhaps, his neighbors have invested
around him, and have improved their properties,
and he finds that his land will sell
for $2000. His labor did not contribute
to that result. He risked his capital exactly
as he would have done in a game
of chance.”</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span></p>
<h2 id="The_Destinies">The Destinies;<br />
<span class="smaller">or,</span><br />
<span class="subhead">The Reign of Law.</span></h2>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span></p>
<div id="ip_105" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;">
<img src="images/i_p105.jpg" width="652" height="148" alt="" /></div>
<p class="chaphead">CHAPTER III.<br />
<span class="subhead">The Destinies; or, The Reign of Law.</span></p>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap x"><span class="smcap1">On</span> one occasion, an aged scholar soliloquized
as follows: “Homer was
at the same time beggar and poet: his
mouth more often filled with verses than
with bread. Plautus turned a mill that he
might live. Menander, Cratinus and Terrence
were drowned; Empedocles lost in the
crater of Mount Etna; Euripides and Heraclitus
torn to pieces by dogs; Hesiod,
Archilochus and Ibychus, murdered. Sappho
threw herself from a precipice. Condemned
by a tyrant, respectively, Seneca, Lucan,
and Petronius Arbiter, cut their veins and
bled to death. Poison terminated the lives
of Socrates, Demosthenes and Lucretius.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
“In Plutarch, we read of ‘two eminent
persons, whose names were Attis, the one
a Syrian, the other of Arcadia, both were
slain by a wild boar; of two, whose names
were Acteon, one was torn to pieces by his
dog, the other by assassins; of two famous
Scipios, one overthrew the Carthagenians
in war, the other totally destroyed them;
four of the most warlike commanders of
antiquity had but one eye—Philip, Antigonous,
Hannibal and Sertorius.’</p>
<p>“Paul Borghese, a writer of rhythmic verse,
died of starvation. Tasso, himself the most
amiable of poets, lived like a pauper, and
passed away in an asylum. Bentivoglio, a
creator of classic comedies, in the misery
of his old age, was refused admittance to
an hospital he had founded. Cervantes
died of hunger, and Camoens ended his
days in an almshouse. The body of Vaugelas
was disposed of to surgeons that
his debts might be paid. Spencer was forsaken
and neglected in his old age. Decker,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
Cotten, Savage and Lloyd breathed their
last in jails.</p>
<p>“Might not these men have said, ‘Who
can shut out fate?’ Were they the sport
of circumstances, or could circumstances
have been made their sport? Was each independent
of fatality? Was he free from
destiny; or, was he subject to an unalterable
course—an invincible necessity?”</p>
<p>The query of this venerable sage has
been that of civilized man in every age.
Coming into the world with the dawn of
philosophy, it will remain until the veil of
Isis is uplifted. Profoundest wisdom has
ever taught the subordination of man to
a higher law, by which his career is largely
determined from the beginning. Investigation
will disclose that such, to-day, is the
real opinion of a vast majority of mankind.</p>
<p>The thought was ascendant in the literature
and religion of the ancient Greeks.
Their Moira was a personification of law;
the Goddess of Destiny, who assigned to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
everyone his fate, or “share.” At the birth
of man she spun the thread of his future
life, pursued his footsteps, and directed the
consequences of his actions, according to
the decrees of Zeus. By some she was
conceived as a fatal divinity, who directed
human affairs in such a manner as to restore
the right proportions or equilibrium,
wherever it had been disturbed; who measured
out happiness and unhappiness, and
allotted losses and sufferings to him who
was blest with too frequent gifts of Fortune,
to the end he might be humbled into acknowledging
the existence of bounds beyond
which human happiness cannot proceed with
safety.</p>
<p>To Homer she was not an absolute
sovereign of both heaven and earth, to whom
even the gods must bow; but merely apportioned
the fate of men, as counseled
by Deity. In the theology of Hesiod there
were three: Clotho, the spinning fate; Lachesis,
who assigned to man his fate; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
Atropo, who decreed a fate that could not
be avoided. This conception answered to
the Teutonic Norns, or Weird Sisters. What
was to the earlier poets of Greece a person,
Æschylus apprehended as a principle; a
law for both gods and men; an over-ruling,
ever-present, inevitable necessity, against
which it is vain to contend, and from which
it is hopeless to escape. “His characters
are pre-determined parricides, murderers and
adulterers.” For instance, the destiny of
the pious Amphiaraus led him to that death
his wisdom foresaw; fate impelled him to the
society his judgment forbade. Good Eteocles,
too, lies under the band of fate, but
seeks not to avert the doom. “Stern, uncompromising,
he will meet the man he
must slay, by whom he must himself fall.”
The inexorable destiny of Æschylus was
to Sophocles and Plato an ordering of the
divine will.</p>
<p>Two great schools of philosophy divided
the educated opinion of classic Greece and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
Rome. The tenets of both were fatalistic
in tendency. What was to the Epicurean
a “chance” appealed to the Stoic as “law.”
Man, taught Epicurus, is a mere buffet of
a blind fatality. The phenomenon of life,
said Stoicism, is governed with iron sway
by an imminent necessity of reason. “Man
should be free from passion,” preached
Zeno, “unmoved by joy or grief, and submit
without complaint to the unavoidable power
by which all things are governed.”</p>
<p>Buddhism is the doctrine taught by Gautama,
the Hindoo sage, in the sixth century,
<span class="smcap smaller">B. C.</span>; now the belief of a greater part of
central and eastern Asia and the Indian
Islands. In this creed, fatality is a cardinal
principle. Sir Edwin Arnold has designated
it “The Light of Asia.” The great religion
of Brahma, also, teaches that everything is
subject to a divinely appointed necessity.
It boasts a philosophy that was the admiration
of Bruno, Schelling, Hegel, and Draper.
Manes declared that the moral universe was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>
controlled by two supreme principles; one
the author of all good, the other the author
of all evil. The highest conception of Mohammed
is an arbitrary and inexorable law.
In the Koran we read: “No man can anticipate
or postpone his end. Death will overtake
us, even in lofty towers. From the
beginning, God hath settled the place in
which each man shall die.” The Persian
poet sings: “The destinies ride their horses
by night. No man can by flight escape his
fate. Whether asleep in bed or in the storm
of battle, the angel of death will find thee.”
“I am convinced,” saith Ali, “that the affairs
of men go by divine decree, and not by our
administration.”</p>
<p>In the philosophy of Solomon, as recorded
in Ecclesiastes, we read: “The thing that
hath been, it is that which shall be; and
that which is done is that which shall be
done: and there is no new thing under the
sun.... To everything there is a
season, and a time to every purpose under<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
the heaven: a time to be born, and a time
to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck
up that which is planted; a time to kill,
and a time to heal; a time to break down,
and a time to build up; a time to mourn,
and a time to dance; a time to cast away
stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain
from embracing; a time to get, and a time
to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast
away; a time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time
of war, and a time of peace.”</p>
<p>With Christianity came the dogma of
“predestination” and “election.” This was
promulgated, on the very threshold, by Paul,
a man of the sublimest genius; adorable,
venerable and heroic. Thus he addressed
the church at Rome: “And we know that
all things work together for good to them
that love God,—to them who are the called
according to His purpose. For whom he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
did foreknow, he also did predestinate to
be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be first born among many brethren.
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them
he also called: and whom he called, them
he also justified: and whom he justified,
them he also glorified. What shall we say
to these things? If God be for us, who
can be against us?”</p>
<p>This idea is necessarily involved in the
theology of St. Augustine, who maintained
that “grace is effectual from its nature,
absolutely and morally, not relatively and
gradually.” It remained for John Calvin
to erect the assertions of Paul into a cognate
and masterly system. He insisted upon the
purpose of God from eternity, respecting
all events.</p>
<p>Briefly, of the religion of the world,
to-day, ninety per cent are predestinarian
in theory or practice, consciously or unconsciously.
Of Christendom, those who
agree with Arminius are in a small minority,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
relatively:—a minority whose creed
involves not only the limitation of divine
knowledge, but a paralysis of divine power
and the moral chaos of a universe.
That religion is necessarily puerile and unphilosophic
which attempts to reconcile the
omnipotence of God with the freedom of
man. Either Nature is ordered for the
best—so as to produce the highest good;
or else, everything is purposeless and for
the worst. In a word, either optimism or
pessimism must wholly prevail: logically, a
middle ground is impossible. We must
choose between Leibnitz or Schopenhauer.</p>
<p>Literature and religion aside, the greatest
intellects have promulgated a “philosophy
of necessity.” Everything that exists, wrote
Oersted in substance, depends upon the past,
prepares the future, and is related to the
whole. “Everything throughout creation is
governed by law: but over most of the
tracts that come within the active experience
of mankind, the governing hand is so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
secret and remote, that until very large
numerical masses are brought under the
eye at once, the controlling power is not
detected.” Jonathan Edwards said: “Nothing
comes to pass without a cause. What is
self-existent must be from eternity, and must
be unchangeable; but as to all things that
begin to be, they are not self-existent, and
therefore must have some foundation for
their existence without themselves.” Spinoza
urged that “In no mind is there an
absolute or free volition; but it is determined
to choose this or that by a cause,
which likewise has been fixed by another,
and this again by a third, and so on forever.”
Emanuel Kant contended that “every
action or phenomenon, so far as it produces
an event, is itself an event or occurrence,
which pre-supposes another state wherein
the cause is to be met with; and thus everything
that happens is but a continuation of
the series, and no beginning which occurs
of itself is possible; consequently, all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
actions of the natural causes, in the succession,
are themselves again effects.” Our
own Emerson asserted the omnipotence and
omnipresence of law: “That the wilful and
the fantastic, the low and the lofty, are
encircled by a necessity.” Whatever limits
us, we call fate. If we are brute and barbarous,
the fate takes a brute and dreadful
shape. If we rise to spiritual culture, the
antagonism takes a spiritual form....
The limitations refine as the soul purifies,
but the ring of necessity is always perched
at the top.</p>
<p>None greater than these may be found
in the noble realm of speculative thought.
They are unequalled by few, if any. The
whole field of modern science, also, is in
accord with their deductions: Teaching
that nature is an inevitable sequence, and
that all phenomena, material and mental,
are linked together by an inevitable connection.
In the words of Herbert Spencer:
“Various classes of facts unite to prove<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
that the law of metamorphosis which holds
among the physical forces, holds equally
between them and the mental forces. Those
modes of the unknowable which we call
motion, light, heat, chemical affinity, etc.,
are alike transferable into each other, and
into those modes of the unknowable which
we distinguish as sensation, emotion, and
thought; these in their turns being directly
or indirectly re-transferable into the original
shapes.”</p>
<p>Would you dethrone man, I am asked?
No; I surrender to the behests of philosophy
as fortified by the deductions of science.
Years ago it was argued by Comte that, in
social order, the higher must subordinate
itself to the lower. That the organic finds
itself controlled and limited by the inorganic
world, and man has to work out his destiny
in submission to all the necessities, physical,
chemical and vital, which are pre-supposed
in his existence. “The higher,” he continued,
“can overcome the lower only by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
obedience; if it is to conquer, it must at
least ‘stoop to conquer.’” And as was once
stated by Doctor Conolly, “All the superiority
of man, all those faculties which elevate
and dignify him, this reasoning power, this
moral sense, these capacities of happiness,
these high aspiring hopes, are felt and enjoyed
and manifested by means of the
nervous system. Its injury weakens, its imperfections
limit, its destruction ends them.”</p>
<p>But, it may be asked, is not this a denial
of “free-will?” Yes, as popularly understood.
A “free-will,” in the metaphysical
sense, is impossible. The conception is
unknown to the best modern psychology.
The abstract will, of certain metaphysicians,
is a phantasm. Individual volitions,
only, come within our actual experience.
They have been generalized, by
mental philosophers, into a self-existent,
self-sustaining, and self-procreating entity.
However, an abstraction is not an essence.
Such men but tell us what a “free will”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
should be; that it exists has never been
demonstrated. Again, the phenomenon
“will” is now known to be transmitted from
generation to generation. Heredity teaches
that its energy and its weakness are connected
with certain states of the organism.
“We can no longer doubt the transmission
takes place by means of the organs, and,
in fact, that the ‘will’ is physiological.”
Moreover, in a philosophical sense, the idea
is “at war” with a uniform law of cause
and effect. Chance events are inconceivable
in a universe of causation. Freedom
of the will, therefore, is a delusion. For
ages men believed that the sun revolved
around the earth, because it seemed to do
so. A similar illusion is at the base of our
ethical system, since we enjoy only the appearance
of liberty. “Our apparent freedom
consists in the absence of all physical restraints,
and in our power to do as we
please; but what we please to do depends
upon our mental constitution and the circumstances<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
in which we are placed.” The
idea was beautifully expressed by Emerson
in his poem “Fate.”</p>
<div class="poem-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="iq">“Deep in the man sits fast his fate,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">To mold his fortune, mean or great:<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Unknown to Cromwell as to me<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Was Cromwell’s measure or degree;<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Unknown to him as to his horse,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">If he than his groom be better or worse,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">He works, plots, fights in rude affairs,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">With Squires, Lords, Kings, his craft compares,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Broad England harbored not his peer.<br /></span>
<span class="i0">Obeying time, the last to own<br /></span>
<span class="i0">The genius from its cloudy throne,<br /></span>
<span class="i0"><em>For the prevision is allied</em><br /></span>
<span class="i0">Unto the thing so signified;<br /></span>
<span class="i0"><em>Or say, the foresight that awaits,</em><br /></span>
<span class="i0"><em>Is the same genius that creates</em>.”<br /></span>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>In human history, as in physical nature,
therefore, every event is linked to its antecedent
by an unavoidable connection, and
such precedent is connected with an anterior
effect; and thus the whole would form a
necessary chain, in which, indeed, each man
may play his part, but can by no means
determine what the part shall be.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
The moral actions of men, said Buckle,
are the product of their antecedents. In
other words, when an action is performed,
it is performed in consequence of certain
motives; those motives are the results of
some antecedents; “therefore, if we were
acquainted with the whole of the antecedents
and with all the laws of their movements
we could with certainty foretell the whole
of their immediate results. This great
social law is liable to disturbances which
trouble its operation, without affecting its
truth.”</p>
<p>Ergo, given any set of circumstances,
and nothing could have happened, save that
which did happen; and under exactly the
same conditions, the conduct of men must
ever issue in the same results. The past
should be dismissed without regrets. Our
position, at any time, should be judged as
it really is, and not for what we vainly
suppose it might have been; “for nothing
is more certain than that we could not have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
acted differently in any act of our lives,
with the state of mind and circumstances
then existing.”</p>
<p>Statistics, likewise, are daily making it
evident that the same fixed calculable laws
exist in the departments of life and mind
as in physics. “In individual cases, or in
a limited circle, apparent uncertainty may
exist. Within a given number of cases,
however, and a large field, invariable results
may be looked for.”</p>
<p>In the 12th annual report of William
Farr, Esq., to the Registrar General of England,
we are told “it may be broadly stated
that 27 in 1000 men of the population of
the age of 20 and under 60, are suffering
from one kind of disease or another; that
several are of long duration, that others
are recurrent, and that some are hereditary.”
We are informed in a subsequent
report of the Registrar himself, that it seems
to be a “law” one person out of every 45,
living at the commencement of any year,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
will die within that year. (The entire
system of insurance—life, fire, and marine—is
erected on the principle contended for
in this chapter. Not only do a certain
relative number of men die in each class
annually, but the law extends to the number
of policies lapsed each year. There seems
also to be a periodicity in the number of
fires and marine disasters.)</p>
<p>According to Porter and Buckle, even
“marriage is not determined by the temper
and wishes of the individual, but by large
general facts over which individuals can exercise
no authority. It is now known that
marriages bear a fixed and definite relation
to the price of corn.” A century’s experience
in England demonstrates that marriages
are regulated by the average earnings
of the great mass of people. Cheapness
of provision and not love regulates
the number of nuptials. Combe affirms
the same striking coincidence in the ratio
of births in Great Britain.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
Another singular fact has been deduced
from the official reports of England and
France. “Even forgetfulness is under a
constant law.” Buckle is an authority for
the statement that “year after year, the
same proportion of letter-writers forget to
direct their letters, in some part; so that
for each successive period we can actually
foretell the number of persons whose memory
will fail them in regard to this trifling occurrence.”</p>
<p>By the same witness we prove “the uniform
reproduction of crime is more clearly
marked, and more capable of being predicted
than are the physical laws connected
with the disease and destruction of our
bodies.” Before this, Combe had observed
a similar uniformity, under similar circumstances,
of the recurrence of crimes. He
perceived in human conduct the same striking
indications of constancy in results, as in
the prevalence of disease and the endurance
of life. Combe said, in 1854, in writing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
by way of comment on a certain report
to the House of Commons: “During the
five years, ending with the last year of an
execution, there were committed for the
crimes enumerated, 7276 persons, of whom
196 were executed. During the five years
immediately following the last execution,
there were committed for the same offense
7120. Does not this show that these crimes
arose from causes in themselves permanent,
and which punishment does not remove?”
Rawson also remarked that the greatest
variation which had taken place during
three years, in the proportion of any class
of criminals, at the same period of life, had
not exceeded a half per cent.</p>
<p>And Dr. Brown states (Vol. 8 of the
Assurance Magazine), that “in twenty years,
the number of persons accused of various
crimes in France, and registered under their
respective ages, scarcely varies at any age,
from year to year, comparing the proportional
per cent under each age with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
totals.” M. Quatelet deduced from the statistical
returns of government in the same
country, that for 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829 and
1830, in each year, there was one person
accused out of every 4463 inhabitants, and
61 condemned out of every 100 accused.
“In everything which concerns crime,” observed
this greatest of statisticians, “the
same numbers re-occur with a constancy
which cannot be mistaken, and that this is
the case, even with those crimes which seem
quite independent of human foresight, such,
for instance, as murders, which are generally
committed after quarrels arising from
circumstances apparently casual. Nevertheless,
we know from experience, that every
year there not only take place the same
number of murders, but even the instruments
by which they are committed, are
employed in the same proportion.” Murder,
then, “occurs with as much regularity as
the movements of the tides and the rotation
of the seasons.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
“Self-murder,” Buckle observes, “seems
to be not only capricious and uncontrollable,
but also very obscure in regard to
proof.” Yet, in different countries, for
which we have returns, we find, year by
year, the same proportion of persons putting
an end to their own existence. In
London, for example, about 240 persons
make away with themselves every year; the
annual suicides oscillating, from the pressure
of temporary causes, between 266, the highest,
and 213, the lowest. In 1846, which was
the great year of excitement—caused by
the railroad panic—the suicides in London
were 266; in 1847 began a slight improvement,
and they fell to 256; in 1848 they
were 247; in 1849 they were 213; in 1850
they were 229.</p>
<p>In the “Journey through India,” Heber
mentions the vain attempt of the English
government to check the frequent suicides
by drowning, committed at Benares; and
August Comte has exposed the folly of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
thinking that suicide can be diminished by
the enactments of law-givers.</p>
<p>Of this field, Quatelet says, in conclusion:
“The possibility of assigning, beforehand,
the number of accused and condemned
which should occur in a country, is calculated
to lead to serious reflections, since
it involves the fate of several thousands of
human beings, who are impelled, as it were,
by an irresistible necessity, to the bar of
the tribunal, and towards the sentences of
condemnation that there await them. These
conclusions flow directly from the principle,
already so often stated in this work,
that effects are in proportion to their
causes, and that the effects remain the
same, if the causes which produced them
do not vary.”</p>
<p>Another step is needed to complete our
argument in this branch. Actions are the
production of motives. Motives are the
effects of determinate antecedents. Whence
these antecedents? They are to be found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
in the “Law of Heredity.” Reproduction
is governed by law, and “like begets like.”
To quote from Voltaire: “The physical,
which is ‘father of the moral,’ transmits
the same character from father to son for
ages. The Appii were ever proud and inflexible;
the Catos always austere. The
whole line of the Guises were bold, rash,
factious, full of the most insolent pride and
most winning politeness. From Francis de
Guise down to that one who put himself
at the head of the people of Naples, they
were all in look, courage and character
above ordinary men. I have seen full length
portraits of Francis, of Balafre and his son:
they were all six feet high, and they all
possess the same features—the same audacity
on the brow, in the eyes, and in the
attitude.” M. Taine sees in Lord Byron
a true descendant of the Berserkers. To
Ribot, the French of the 19th century are
the Gauls described by Cæsar and Strabo.
Amphere writes of the character of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
Greeks, that it has not changed; “he has
now the same qualities, the same defects
as of old.” The physiology and mentality
of parents characterize their offspring. The
human mind is not a blank at birth. Its
capabilities and character are inherited.
Every possibility of the soul is innate and
constitutional from the moment of gestation.
Such is the verdict of science substantiated
by Ribot, Galton, and Fowler.</p>
<p>That the peculiar anatomy and physiognomy
of races is persistent and hereditary,
must be admitted. The truth is verified
by every-day experience. We see it in the
Englishman, the Frenchman, the Spaniard,
and Scandinavian. The intellectual characteristics
of a people are likewise transmitted
from generation to generation.
The Indian, for example, is ever wild,
free, cunning and revengeful. Negroes,
on the other hand, are generally timid,
garrulous, urbane and polite. The Hebrews,
again, are noteworthy for intellectual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>
calibre, the acquisitive faculty, and a clannish
spirit.</p>
<p>In the family, likewise, likenesses and
stature pass from generation to generation.
So, also, of size. Fowler found this exemplified
everywhere. Some of his illustrations
were taken from the Websters, Franklins,
and Folgers. Muscular strength is hereditary,
as with the Douglas, Fessenden, and
Garrish families. Physical deformities and
excrescences obey this edict of nature; and
it includes disease, insanity, gray hair, premature
death, propensities, length of life
and beauty. The truth is overwhelming
that mental faculties and qualities descend
from child to child. These sequences in
mental phenomena operate through generations
upon caution, self-esteem, firmness,
pride, benevolence, and religious feeling.
Talent and ability go by descent. Even
genius, although akin to divine, is transmissible.
“Each generation,” said Galton,
“has enormous power over the natural gifts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
of those that follow.... The results of
an examination into the kindred of about
400 illustrious men of all periods of history
were such, in my own opinion, as completely
to establish the theory that genius
was hereditary.”</p>
<p>Now for my application. Gambling, in
some form, is a propensity of the general
mind: an inclination now hereditary in the
race. That such must be the case is clear
from Ribot, Maudsley and Da Gama Machado.
“The dead rule over the living,”
writes Spencer. “Past generations exercise
power over present generations, by transmitting
their nature, bodily and mental.”</p>
<p>The origin and development of gambling
were obvious to the eminent astronomer,
Richard A. Proctor. “Beyond doubt,” he
said, “the element of chance which enters
into all lives, has had a most potent influence
in moulding the characters of men. If
we consider the multitudinous fancies and
superstitions of men like sailors, farmers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
and hunters, whose lives depend more on
chance than those of men in some other
employments, and recognize this as the
natural effect of the influence which chance
has on their fortunes, we need not consider
it strange if the influence of chance, in
moulding the minds and characters of our
ancestors during countless generations, should
have produced a very marked effect on
human nature. An immense number of
those from whom I inherit descent must,
in the old savage days, have depended
almost wholly upon chance for the very
means of subsistence. When, wild in wood,
the savage ran, he ran on speculation. He
might, or he might not, be lucky enough
to earn his living on any day, by a successful
chase, or by finding such fruits of the earth
as would supply him with a satisfactory
amount of food. He might have much depending
on chances which he could not
avoid risking, as the gambler of to-day has
when he ‘sees red’ and stakes his whole<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
fortune on a throw of the dice or a turn
of the cards. We cannot be doubtful about
the effects of such chance influences even
on the individual character. Repeated,
generation after generation, they must have
tended to fill men with a gambling spirit,
only to be corrected by innumerable generations
of steady labor; and, unfortunately,
even in the steadiest work, the element of
chance enters largely enough to render the
corrective influence of such work on the
character of the race much slower than it
might otherwise be. Every man who has
to work for his living at all, every man
who has to depend in any way, on business
for wealth, has to trust to chance, in many
respects. So that all men, in some degree,
more or less, have their characters modified
by this peculiarity of their environment.
The inherited tendency of each one of us
towards gambling, in some one or other of
its multitudinous forms, is undoubtedly
strengthened in this way.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
First, we see, it cannot be said that
gambling is immoral, sinful, or irreligious.
Second, it is clear the propensity to gamble
is as natural as the temperament or complexion.
The law can no more destroy the
natural inclination of the mind, than it can
make “one hair white or black.” If an evil
(which in the absolute sense I deny), it is
not to be prevented by legislation. It is
no more possible, by direct effort, to change
the gaming proclivity in man than to stem
the torrent, or check the eternal progress
of the glacier. The growth of centuries,
down it moves through the years in an
irresistible march. Absurd seem all our
demonstrations; how idle, the beating of the
air. When one form passes away another
immediately takes its place. Disappearing
here, it appears there. Apparently suppressed
in one place it breaks out with more
vigor in another. Continue it will, and continue
it must, whether practiced openly or
in secret. If it is not the faro-bank or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
lottery it is something worse. If not the
gambling-rooms of a Morrissey, a Daly, a
Pendleton or a Hankins, it will be the mammoth
palaces (boards of trade and chambers
of commerce, so-called), which now are a
feature of every city in Christendom, and
wherein millions upon millions are wagered
annually upon the very bread and meat
wherewith our life is sustained; wherein
billions are lost and won, sometimes to the
injury of every department of actual production.
There are the open boards of
trade, too, wherein the petty transactions
aggregate many millions. I am told by
those who have made it a study for years,
that more than 80 per cent of the transactions
on the exchange are fictitious: mere
betting on the rise and fall of commodities
in price. All authority in this matter is
practically powerless. Inclinations will be
satisfied, and until inclinations change, the
demand will be supplied; this, moreover, in
the face of laws however stringent, or police<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
supervision however effective. Such methods
are not only ineffective, but absolutely injurious
to society. No nation or government
has succeeded in restricting, limiting,
or curing the gambling spirit and practice.
That this is true, I call upon every candid
and fair-minded man of experience to bear
witness. I appeal to lawyers, judges, statesmen,
scientists, philosophers, and the police
and municipal authorities throughout the
United States and Europe to corroborate
my statement. The sooner this is generally
realized, the better for humanity. What I
have to suggest, instead of the present
policy, is reserved for consideration in another
place. I may say here, however, that
for the law to punish what it cannot thereby
cure is absurd—absurd as is every attempt
to accomplish the impossible. Systematic
education is the only hope; incessant training
the only remedy for appetites and propensities;
either for their correction, restraint,
or subversion. If it had been revealed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
man that gambling is a sin, even that would
not vitiate our reasoning in this chapter.
God, or absolute wisdom, should be able
to reconcile the existence of an evil with
His own Sovereignty. However, this chapter
is not concerned with the realities of religion,
or the true principles of philosophy.
As human conceptions, they have been noted
as in accord with the teachings of science;
to show that the human intellect responds
intuitively to what are subsequently known
as the laws of nature.</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span></p>
<h2 id="Legislative_Exorcism">Legislative Exorcism;<br />
<span class="smaller">or,</span><br />
<span class="subhead">The Belief in Word-Magic.</span></h2>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span></p>
<div id="ip_141" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;">
<img src="images/i_p141.jpg" width="651" height="155" alt="" /></div>
<p class="chaphead">CHAPTER IV.<br />
<span class="subhead">Legislative Exorcism; or, The Belief
in Word-Magic.</span></p>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap"><span class="smcap1">For</span> ages, mankind were believers in
magic. One of the phases was Exorcism,
or a pretended exercise of supernatural
power, through certain words of
magic import. “Healing words,” says Van
Helmont, “were used against the devil and
all diseases.” And it is asserted by the
Zendavesta that “many cures are performed
by words.” That the magic power of words
was a belief of the Greeks and Romans, is
evident from their literature. Thus it is
said of Plotin, that while in Sicily he cured
Porphyrius of a fever, “by wonder-working
words.” We are told how Orpheus’ song<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
calmed the storm, and how Ulysses “stopped
the bleeding of wounds by the use of certain
words.” They also tell us, that with words,
Cato cured sprains; Marcus Varrus removed
tumors; and Servilius Novianno restored
sight to the eyes. It is gravely stated by
Pliny that Cato did not alone use the words,
“motas, daries, dardaries, astaries,” but likewise
a green branch, four or five feet long,
which he split in two, and caused to be held
over the injured limb. A similar power was
ascribed to the philosopher, Pythagoras.
And if “ye olden chronicle” is to be credited,
the curses of Peter of Amiens and Bernard
of Clairvaux, “produced fearful spasms and
sufferings, whilst their blessings restored
speech to the dumb and health to the sick.”</p>
<p>The belief in magic is not general in our
age of the world. It has gradually retired
before the march of reason and the light of
scientific truth. That all nature, organic and
inorganic, animate and inanimate, is subject
to a universal law of cause and effect, is now<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
a truism to every educated person. Science
has forever destroyed the curative influence
of phrases. Reason sternly excludes verbal
formulæ from the realm of physical causation.
That any mere words may be used against
disease or injury is now denied by enlightened
opinion the world over. In medicine,
therefore, Exorcism is a thing of the past.</p>
<p>One aspect of the superstition still remains,
as an obstacle to the progress of
humanity; the possibility of legislating morality
into men. Law-givers still cling to
the power of “exorcism” by statute. Their
blind creed is: “beatification and education
by law.” “To them, laws are the cows, whose
teats mankind should suck. To them, men
are as dough, which their wisdom would
knead.” This adoration of the law and
legislators was systematically inculcated by
the 18th century publicists: Montesquieu,
Robespierre, Rousseau, and St. Just. They
seem to teach that “the law cannot come out
of us, but must be poured into us.” But, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
Erlanger has said with truth, he who undertakes
to give institutions to a people must
feel within himself the capacity to change
human nature, to metamorphose every man,
to transmute the constitution of each individual,
to strengthen them; in one word,
“he must take from mankind their own
powers, and impart to them a foreign
power.”</p>
<p>Statesmen should recognize with Carpenter,
that “society is the gigantic growth
of centuries, moving on in a resistless and
orderly march, with the precision and fatality
of an astronomic orb.” The huge being
marches on with elephantine tread. The
liberal sits on its front and the conservative
on its rear; but both are swept along, whether
they will or not, and both are shaken off ere
long, inevitably, into the dust. One reformer
shouts “this way,” and another cries “that,”
but down comes the great foot and crushes
both, indifferently; the man who thought he
was right, and the man who found he was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
wrong; crushing, alike, him who would facilitate,
and him who would impede its progress.
At least, it should be kept in mind, “that
laws are made by the people, and not the
people by the laws.” Modern society is so
burdened by an enormous and complex overgrowth
of law, that the necessity for its existence
is now a prevailing notion, to the
end that men may be kept in order: that,
without the oppressive institution, people
would not follow a systematic life. On the
other hand, all observation of civilized races
discovers the directly opposite. The instinct
of man is to regularity of life, and law is
but a result or expression of this. “As well
attribute the organization of a crab to the
influence of its shell, as ascribe the orderly
life of a nation to the action of its laws.”
The law may have a purpose, but to believe
it will preserve order is illusive. This it
certainly does not effect, even with all its
machinery of police, courts and prisons.
Fichte said: “The object of all government<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
is to render government superfluous.” The
same idea has been expressed by Whitman
and Paine. Moreover, “if external authority,
of any kind, has a final purpose, it must
be to establish and consolidate an internal
authority. When this process is complete,
government, in the ordinary sense, is already
rendered superfluous.”</p>
<p>The world has been slow (or loath) to
learn the only proper functions of government.
This must be clear to every reader
of Bruce Smith, Lieber and Dick. In the
governments of oriental antiquity, political
authority was clothed with a super-eminent
and absolute jurisdiction over the whole
life of its subjects; “the manners of their
subjects, their rank, their condition, mode
of life, and daily occupations, were all fixed
by the law.”</p>
<p>And, in the opinion of Grecian philosophers,
the state was everything, the individual
nothing. In their judgment, the government
should not permit any individual to waste<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
his power and energy, nor should he be
allowed to misdirect it. They insisted the
law must first devise the model of a perfect
citizen; and then, by a system of discipline,
mould, or rather distort, into agreement
therewith, the character of every citizen.
The powers of state, therefore, should embrace
individual life in its entirety; from
infancy to mature age, “in all conditions
and relations, whether domestic, religious,
social, industrial or political.”</p>
<p>Such teachings had their illustration in
the administration of Greek governments.
In Sparta, for example, under the reign of
Lycurgus, the citizen belonged to the state,
rather than to the family. The individual
Athenian did not have a right the Archons
were “bound to respect.” Draco punished
even laziness with death, and Solon prohibited
costly sacrifices at funerals. In
Greece, Lycurgus seems to have been the
first legislator against luxury. He enacted,
for example, that no Spartan should own a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
house, or household article, which had been
made with a finer implement than an axe or
a saw; and that no cook should use any
other spice than salt and vinegar. Our
authorities are Ephorus and Diogenes Laertius.
The sumptuary prohibitions of Solon,
according to Plutarch, were aimed at the
female passion for dress, as well as the pomp
of funerals. He likewise placed surveillance
over the luxury of banquets.</p>
<p>The Dorian races were disposed to
austere and rigid habits of life. A Laconian
could not lawfully attend a drinking
entertainment. In Lacedæmonia, frugality
and simplicity were the object of the
pheiditia. Gold and silver were interdicted,
and their legislation permitted the use of
iron money alone. In Magna Græcia, the
Pythagoreans encouraged the sumptuary
policy. Zaleucus, the Locrian legislator, enacted
that no woman should appear in public
wearing gold ornaments, or embroidered
apparel, unless her designs were unchaste.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
Roman statesmen were not wiser, in their
day, than those of Greece. From the time
of the Kings, they sought by law to regulate
luxurious tendencies. We find it in the law
of the Twelve Tables: “Do not carve the
wood which is to serve for a funeral pile.
Have no weeping women to tear their
cheeks; no gold, no coronets.” Certain
foreign articles of luxury were prohibited
about 189 <span class="smcap smaller">B. C.</span> An important part of the
legislation of Sulla, Cæsar, Crassus, Antony,
Augustus and Tiberius, related to the expenditures
for food, funerals and games of
chance. Says Plutarch: “The Romans
thought the liberty ought not to be left to
each private citizen to marry at will, to
choose his manner of life, to make feasts;
in short, to follow his desires and his tastes,
without being subject to the judgment and
supervision of anyone.” The Oppian Law
forbade matrons to have more than a half-ounce
of gold, to wear garments of diversified
color, or to use carriages in Rome.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
Following a revolt of the Women, in 195
<span class="smcap smaller">B. C.</span>, this law was abrogated. Inspired by
Cato, the Censor, fourteen years later, the
Orchian Law was promulgated. It limited
the table expenses, as did the Fannian Law
twenty years after. The Lex Orchia limited
the number of guests to be present at a
feast. The general cost of entertainment
was fixed by the Lex Fannia. A limit of
one hundred asses was established for some
festivals, and thirty asses for others. Ordinary
entertainments were restricted to ten
asses. The Didian Law extended to all
Italy.</p>
<p>In Greece, sumptuary laws were seldom
or never regarded by the people, who always
entered into a tacit and general conspiracy
against their enforcement. Notwithstanding
the Roman <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">notatio censoria</i>, luxury continued
to increase with the growth of wealth. No
law of senate or emperor could restrain the
tendency. “From first to last,” writes the
historian, “all were habitually transgressed.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
In the time of Tertullian they appear to
be of the past.</p>
<p>Instances of like legislation disfigure the
statute-books of every civilized country downward
from the fifth century, <span class="smcap smaller">A. D.</span> All sumptuary
laws, at Rome, were formally repealed
by the later emperors; but the folly thereafter
re-appeared when European society
began to rally and segregate under Charlemagne.
To illustrate, “in the latter middle
ages, knights were allowed to wear gold,
and esquires only silver; the former damask,
the latter satin of taffeta; when the esquires
used damask, velvet was reserved for the
knights.” The first legislation of this character,
in the modern world, was enacted by
Frederick II., in Italy; James I., in Aragon;
Philip IV., in France; Edward II. and Edward
III., in England. Commencing in
France with Charlemagne, it first became
extensive and flourished under Philip IV. and
Charles VI. From Edward III. until the
Reformation, it was in great favor in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
England. Great was the absurdity to which
legislators were carried by this vain policy.
In Scotland, for example, one parliament
forbade ladies to attend church with the
face muffled in a veil, and another fulminated
against superfluous banqueting and the
inordinate use of foreign spices; while a
Danish law provided that no servant girl
should wear her hair curled. The edicts of
Philip IV. related to extravagance at table
and in dress. An edict of Charles V. forbade
the use of long-pointed shoes. Charles
VI. allowed no one to exceed a soup and
two dishes at dinner. Later French kings
sought to restrict the use of gold, silver,
silks, embroidery, and fine linen. From
Blanqui we take a sample ordinance of the
character under consideration. “The said
Lord the King, being duly informed that
the great superfluity of meat at weddings,
feasts and banquets, brings about the high
price of fowls and game, wills and decrees
that the ordinance on this subject be renewed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
and kept; and for the continuance of the
same, that those who make such feasts, as
well as the stewards who prepare and conduct
them, and the cooks who serve them,
be punished with the penalties hereunto
affixed. That every sort of fowl and game
brought to the markets shall be seen and
visited by the poulterer-wardens, in the presence
of the officers of the police and bourgeois
clerks to the aforesaid, who shall be
present at the said markets, and shall cause
a report to be made to the police, by the
said wardens. The public shall be likewise
bound to live according to the ordinance of
the King, without exceeding the limit, under
penalty of such pecuniary fines as are herein
set forth against the inn-keeper, so that
neither by private understanding nor common
consent shall the ordinance be violated.”
During the same year, another ordinance
provided “that no bourgeois woman shall
have a chariot; no bourgeois man or woman
shall wear green, or grey, or ermine, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
they shall dispose of those they have, by a
year from Easter next. The dukes, counts
and barons of 6000 livres, in land, or more,
may have four robes a year, and no more,
and the women as many. A knight who
has 3000 livres, in land, may have three robes
a year and no more; and one of these three
robes shall be for summer. At the principal
meals of the day no one shall have but two
viands and a pork soup, and let him not deceive
about it. It is ordained that no prelate
or baron shall have a robe for body of more
than 25 Tournish sous, a Paris ell.” In
1294 it was decreed “that every manner
of people, who have not an income of 6000
Tournish livres, shall not use, and will not
be able to use, any gold or silver plate for
drinking, for eating, or for other use, and
that no person, under penalty of fine and
imprisonment, shall practice any fraud about
it.”</p>
<p>In France, laws of this character disappeared
near the end of the 16th century.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
Under Louis XV. all such laws were practically
a dead letter. “These ordinances are
the history of but yesterday,” says an able
and profound student of French legislation;
“but ideas and sentiments have gone far
in advance of facts. We have difficulty in
comprehending the interference of government
in the domestic affairs of families, and
in contracts which concern only private individuals.
Opinion has undergone an entire
revolution. Sumptuary laws can no longer
be proposed. We need not think the change
is due to our wisdom, to our pretended superiority
to the ancients; let us simply recognize
that the essential principle of society has
changed; the world moves on another basis....
In no century were these laws observed
to any great extent. Enactments of
this kind were never effectual in France.
Since the Revolution, no sumptuary laws
have been enacted, and yet the luxury of
attire which formerly distinguished the nobility
has disappeared. A duke dresses like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
anybody else, and he would be ridiculed if
he sought to distinguish himself by a manner
of dress different from others.”</p>
<p>It has been observed by one of the
great statesmen of England, that the broad
principles of freedom had been early recognized
in that country, and understood by
even the citizens of minimum intelligence;
for instance, freedom of locomotion, freedom
in the disposition of property, freedom of
opinion in politics and religion. But that
other important features of the same principle
were not so quickly and clearly understood.
“I refer,” he continues, “to such
matters as freedom of commercial intercourse
and exchange, freedom of contract in the
natural rise and fall of wages and in the
condition of labor; freedom of individual
taste and expenditure, in the more private
concerns of life. In many cases, these were
matters which affected the poor and rich
alike, but principally the poor, who, in their
meagre parliamentary representation, enjoyed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
few opportunities for effectual protest.
One can only account for the continuance
of those which materially affected the better
classes, who did enjoy representation, to
the fact that, not being familiar with the
fundamental economic laws, which are now
so widely understood, they were not prompted
to any practical resistance. It is highly
probable, too, that for want of this knowledge,
most people rested satisfied with the
vague idea that, in some way or other,
though not very clear, such restrictive legislation
produced some good to somebody.”
We pass over those legislative and executive
interferences, which present “every possible
contrivance for hampering the energies of
commerce.” Purely economic questions are
not germane to our discussion; such as the
numerous and ingenious restraints upon
foreign trade; the attempts to regulate the
rate of wages and the price of food.</p>
<p>Richard II., Henry IV., and Edward IV.
legislated against the liveried suits of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
nobility. This was also prohibited by Henry
VII.; and yet, even under James I., says
Hume, “we find ambassadors accompanied
by a suite of 500 or 300 noblemen.” During
the reign of Edward III. it was enacted that
no man should be allowed more than two
courses at dinner or supper, or more than
two kinds of food in each course. Three
courses were permitted on the festival days
of the year. Foreign cloth was allowed to
the royal family alone. Unless a man possessed
at least £100 per annum he was forbidden
furs, skins and silks. During the
same reign, another act divided the people
of England into classes, and prescribed the
apparel of each. In the social scale it did
not go higher than knights, and minutely
regulated the clothing of women and children.
It was repealed the following year.
In 1363 it was enacted that servants should
have only one meal a day of flesh or fish.
The statute of 1444 attempted to regulate
the price of clothing for each year: a bailiff,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
50<i>s.</i>; principal servant, 40<i>s.</i>; ordinary servant,
33<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> James I., of Scotland, forbade not
only “sumptuous clothing,” but the use of
pies and baked meats, to all under the rank
of baron. The Scottish sumptuary law of
1612 was the last in Great Britain. The
English laws were largely repealed during
the reign of James I. A few remained on the
statute book as late as 1856. Mr. Froude has
exposed the folly of their existence.</p>
<p>It has been said of the English laws they
“were at all times inspired by a desire to
arrest an irresistible movement, resulting
from the very force of things—from the
logical development of human activity.
They were, moreover, powerless, and always
evaded by a sort of tacit and general conspiracy
of all the citizens, without anyone
being able to find fault with the principle,
without anyone thinking of contesting the
power of the legislator on this point.”</p>
<p>Roscher remarks: “In Ireland the government
had endeavored for a long time to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
preserve that country from the ravages of
alcohol, by the imposition of the highest
taxes, and the severest penalties for smuggling.
Every workman in an illegal distillery
was transported for seven years, and every
town in which such a one was found was
subject to a heavy fine. All in vain. Only
numberless acts of violence were now added
to beastly drunkenness.”</p>
<p>In another place, Roscher continues thus:
“Where it has been attempted to suppress
the consumption of popular delicacies, the
impossibility of enforcing sumptuary laws
has been most strikingly observed. Thus,
in the 16th century, an effort was made as
regards brandy; in the 17th, as regards tobacco;
in the 18th, as regards coffee. The
Hessian law of 1530 provided that only
apothecaries should retail brandy. In 1624
Papal excommunication was fulminated
against all who took snuff in church, and
was repeated in 1690. According to a
Turkish law of 1610, all smokers should have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
their pipes broken against the nose. In 1634
a Russian law prohibited smoking under
penalty of death. In Switzerland, even in
the 17th century, no one could smoke except
in secret. In its native place even coffee
had a hard struggle. Prohibited in Turkey
in 1633 under pain of death; it was still
prohibited in Basel in 1769, and could be
sold by apothecaries only as medicine. In
Hanover the coffee trade was prohibited in
1780. When governments discovered the
fruitlessness of these efforts, they gave up
the prohibition of these luxuries, and instead
substituted taxes on them, thus aiming to
combine a moral and a fiscal end. Even
Cato took this course. His office of censor,
which united the highest moral superintendence
with the highest financial guidance,
must of itself have led him in this direction.”</p>
<p>Strange it is how slowly men learn by
experience. We know of the many oppressions
in England “for opinion’s sake.”
History tells us that the puritan fathers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
sought “freedom of conscience” in the wilds
of America. Yet, scarcely were the “pilgrims”
of New England wonted to a strange
and inhospitable land, than what they required
for themselves was denied to others.
In their fanaticism, the “soul liberty” of
Roger Williams was violated in every conceivable
way. Personal freedom was violated
to an extent that is now the detestation
of right-thinking persons. Execrable for
their tyrannical spirit, are some of the records
of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, New Haven
Colony and Connecticut. The following
extracts are taken from the records of the
General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts
Bay:</p>
<p>“1635: Whereas, complaints hath bene
made to this Courte that dyvers persons,
within this jurisdiction, doe usually absent
themselves from Church meetings upon the
Lord’s Day, power is therefore given to any
two assistants to heare and sensure, either
by fine or imprisonment, all misdemeanors<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
of that kind, committed by any inhabitant
within this jurisdiction, provided they exceede
not the fine of 15 shillings for any
one offense.”</p>
<p>“1669: Any person or persons that shalle
be found smoking tobacco on the Lord’s
Day, going to or coming from the meetings,
within two miles of the meeting house, shall
pay 12 pence for every such default to the
colonies’ use.”</p>
<p>“1692: All and every justices of the peace,
constables and tything men are required to
restrain all persons from swimming in the
water; unnecessary and unreasonable walking
in the streets or fields in the toun of
Boston, or other places; in the evening preceding
the Lord’s Day, or any other part
of the said day or the evening following.”</p>
<p>“1634: The court, taking into consideration
the greate, superfluous and unnecessary
expenses occassioned by some newe
and immodest fashions, as also the ordinary
wearing of golde, silver, silke, laces, girdles,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>
hat-bands, etc., hath, therefore, ordered that
noe person, either man or woman, shall hereafter
make or buy any apparell, either woolen,
silke or lynen, with any lace on it, silver,
golde, silke or thread, under the penalty of
the forfeiture of such clothes.”</p>
<p>“1782: Be it enacted that each person,
being able of body and mind, not otherwise
necessarily prevented, who shall, for the
space of one month together, absent himself
or herself from the public worship of God,
on the Lord’s Day, shall forfeit and pay
the sum of ten shillings.”</p>
<p>In old Connecticut we find legislation
similar in character. In 1647: “Forasmuch,
as it is observed that many abuses are crept
in and committed by the frequent taking of
tobacco, it is ordered by the authority of
this Court, that no person under the age of
20 years, nor any other that hath not accustomed
himself to the use thereof, shall take
any tobacco until he hath brought a certificate
under the hands of some who are approved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
for knowledge and skill in physic,
that it is useful to him and that he hath
received a license from the Court for the
same.”</p>
<p>“1643: Whoever shall prophane the Lord’s
Day, or any part of it, by unlawful sport,
recreation or otherwise, whether wilfully or
in careless neglect, shall be duly punished by
fine, imprisonment, or corporally, according
to the nature and measure of the sin and
offense.”</p>
<p>Here are some of the celebrated New
Haven “Blue Laws:”</p>
<p>“Whoever wears clothes trimmed with
golde, silver or bone lace, above two shillings
by the yard, shall be presented to the Grand
Jurors, and the selectmen shall tax the
offender at £300 estate.”</p>
<p>“No one shall read Common Prayer, keep
Xmas or Saint’s Days, make minced pies,
dance, play cards, or play on any instrument
of music, except the drum, trumpet and
jew’s-harp.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
“No one shall run on the Sabbath Day,
or walk in the Garden or elsewhere, except
reverently to and from meeting.”</p>
<p>“No one shall travel, cook victuals, make
beds, sweep house, cut hair or shave, on the
Sabbath Day.”</p>
<p>“No woman shall kiss her child on the
Sabbath or fasting day.”</p>
<p>“If any man shall kiss his wife, or any
wife her husband, on the Lord’s Day, the
party in fault shall be punished at the discretion
of the Court of Magistrates.”</p>
<p>“Every man and woman duly, twice a
day, upon the first tolling of the bell, repair
into the church to heare divine service upon
pain of losing his or her day’s allowance,
for the first omission; for the second to be
whipped, and for the third to be condemned
to the galleys for six months.”</p>
<p>“If any man, after legall conviction, shall
have or worship any other god but the Lord
God, hee shall bee put to death.”</p>
<p>“If any person turns Quaker, he shall<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
be banished and not suffered to return, upon
the pains of death.”</p>
<p>“No priest shall abide in this dominion,
he shall be banished and suffer death on
his return.”</p>
<p>“No man shall hold any office who is
not sound in the faith.”</p>
<p>“No food or lodging shall be afforded
to a Quaker, Adamite, or other heretic.”</p>
<p>“Every man shall have his hair cut round
according to a cap.”</p>
<p>Such are a few of the laws that disgrace
the beginning of our national life. Repealed
they never were, save by the scorn of time,
or the revolt of the human heart, as it
struggled into a wider and brighter existence.
They were only effective as the expression
of a spirit then prevalent. Forward marched
the soul, and behind is left the hideous husk.
Here and there, on the statute-books of
certain states, vestiges may remain of Sabbatarian
legislation, but they are a dead letter, to
enforce which is seldom or never attempted.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
Roscher observes, “That the puritanical
laws, which some of the states have passed
prohibiting all sales of spirituous liquors,
except for ecclesiastical, medical or chemical
purposes, have been found impossible of
enforcement.” Said Dr. Dio Lewis on this
subject: “A very striking illustration of the
weakness of law, when it comes in contact
with the instinct of liberty, is the result of
prohibition in Maine. I have taken pains
to learn the facts in that state. I traveled
it throughout and conversed with a large
number of its leading citizens, almost exclusively
temperance men, and became satisfied
(notwithstanding the prohibitory law),
that intemperance is the great overwhelming
curse of the Pine Tree State.” The Doctor
then found fully 300 grog shops in Bangor.
He says of Portland, also, the number of
arrests for drunkenness in 1874 was 2011.
He is authority for the statement that,
in 1873, the state prison inspectors of
Maine reported the enormous number of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
17,808 arrests for drunkenness during that
year.</p>
<p>Hon. James McGinnis, of the St. Louis
bar, several years ago, gave the prohibitory
legislation of the whole country (and its
practical workings) an exhaustive consideration
in all aspects. The results of his study,
published to the world, revealed the same
condition of affairs in Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Maryland,
Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, and
Kansas. On every hand, past and present,
he “beheld the impracticability of prohibition.”
“I now appeal,” he says, “to the
fair-minded reader to give his thoughtful
attention to the facts and figures which I
have truly and fairly presented, to show that
neither crime, pauperism, intemperance, nor
any of the ills which are popularly supposed
to grow out of intemperance, have been at
all lessened by prohibition.”</p>
<p>The political economists are practically<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
unanimous in their reprobation of these laws.
Adam Smith vigorously protests against their
impertinence and presumption. Of sumptuary
laws it has been said their enforcement
is exceedingly difficult, as it is always harder
to superintend consumption than production.
“The latter is conducted in definite localities.
The former is carried on in the secrecy of
a thousand homes. Besides, such laws have
very often the effect to make forbidden fruit
all the sweeter.” Spite of the penalties attached
to their violation, and of redoubled
measures of control, government after government
have been compelled to admit their
failure in this direction. Laws of this nature
always involve an abridgement of individual
“liberty,” and of the natural right of every
man to do what he “will” with his own.
They involve the assumption, also, that a
government, with the exercise of paternal
authority can judge better than the citizen
what will best subserve his or her welfare,
in the use of what they have. “But such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
action belongs more properly to the spiritual
than to the temporal power. In ancient
life, where there was a confusion of the two
powers in the state system, sumptuary legislation
was more natural than in the modern
world, where those powers have been generally,
though imperfectly, separated.”</p>
<p>“I have learned to doubt,” wrote Dr.
Dio Lewis, “whether law is very potent in
the cure of moral evil. Force is a good
agency in breaking rocks and subduing wild
beasts; but in curing immorality, in which
we strive to regulate the action and reaction
of the faculties and passions of the human
soul, force is about as well adapted to our
purpose as a sledge-hammer to regulating
a watch. Some people seem to have the
impression that society is restrained from
evil by law; that our wives and daughters
are virtuous because there is a law against
prostitution; that our exemplary citizens refrain
from profanity and excess in gaming
and drinking because they are forbidden by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
law; that somehow society is kept in order
by law.</p>
<p>“It is not denied that Massachusetts has
to-day upon her statute-books other laws involving
the same violation of personal liberty
as prohibition; but every law interfering with
personal habits and propensities has no practical
vitality.</p>
<p>“For example, prostitution is an enormous
evil; and we have a severe statute
against it; but, as a matter of fact, if a house
of prostitution be conducted in a quiet, unobtrusive
way, the authorities cannot break
it up. If any prohibitionist can devise a
method by which the authorities can break
up such a house, it would be easy to sell
his discovery to property holders of New
York City for a hundred million of dollars.</p>
<p>“Scattered throughout this city (Boston)
there are unnumbered rooms over stores,
and other places of business, and in private
houses, occupied by persons who are living
in the relation of husband and wife without<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
legal marriage. There are not two punishments
for every hundred thousand violations
of the statutes against such intimacies.</p>
<p>“Gambling is very common in our city.
There is a great number of rooms, or suites
of rooms, devoted to this practice. In club
houses and many hotels, gambling may be
found every night, and often lasting all night.
Not a fiftieth part of the gambling done in
this city takes place in gambling rooms.
Why does it never occur to anybody to
attempt to enforce the law against gambling
in our clubs and other private houses; should
they attempt it they would signally fail.”</p>
<p>Although this was said of New England,
it is representative of the United States and
the civilized world. A like picture might be
drawn of every city in our land and throughout
Europe. Every candid and intelligent
magistrate, or police official, in the country
will admit that the law never has, and never
can, prevent gaming, intemperance or prostitution.
This has been publicly acknowledged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>
by the most eminent men of affairs in Europe.
That it is impossible to suppress or exterminate
the “social evil” has been demonstrated
by Acton, Tait, Parent and Du Chatelet.
The latter avows that “licensed houses
are the most judicious and the most consistent
with good morals.” The police establishments
of the continent, finding it impossible
to prevent the existence of houses of ill-fame,
realized the necessity, not of authorizing,
but of licensing them. The vice is now
subject to police supervision in Paris, Toulon,
Lyons, Strasburg, Brest, Hamburg, Berlin,
Vienna, Naples, Brussels, Rheims, Bordeaux,
Marseilles, Copenhagen, Madrid,
Malta, Lisbon, Amsterdam and St. Petersburg.
A like policy obtains in Bombay,
Hong Kong, Japan, New South Wales and
Cape Colony.</p>
<p>On the contrary, England wages war
against prostitution. Is it with success?
No; in this respect her cities are the worst
in Europe. In that country 42,000 illegitimate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>
children were born in 1851. It was estimated
that within the five years preceding, 212,000
females had strayed from the paths of virtue,
and thus taken the first step in prostitution.
In 1832, London had a population of 1,000,000,
and her known prostitutes numbered 10,000.
Within her limits were then 3,300 brothels.
At that time, in Liverpool, there were 5,000
fallen women. Of houses of ill-fame Dublin
had 355; Edinburgh, 219; Glasgow, 204;
Liverpool, 770; Manchester, 308; Birmingham,
797; Hull, 175; Leeds, 179; Norwich,
194. In England, in 1865, there were 500,000
prostitutes. It has been computed that the
unfortunates number about 86,000 in the
London of to-day. It is not surprising, then,
that the constabulary of Great Britain are
in despair of their power for good over this
evil. “Sooner or later (they realize) the
principle of individual liberty must triumph,
and prostitution must become, under the
shadow of general principles, as unrestricted
as any other commerce, moral or immoral.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
In New York City, also, the law has
always attempted to repress the “social
evil,” but without avail. This has been
openly recognized by those in authority.
In 1875, 1876, and 1877 licensed prostitution
was recommended by a committee of the
State Legislature, the Grand Jury of the
City and County of New York, and the
Commissioner of Public Charities and Correction.
The committee assumed “that
houses of prostitution must exist;” and its
members, therefore, took it upon themselves
“to earnestly recommend to the Legislature
the regulating, or permitting,” or, as they
phrased it, “if the word be not deemed
offensive, the licensing of prostitution.” In
June, 1876, the Grand Jury of the Court of
General Sessions of the same county and
state, made an official presentment concerning
prostitution, in which they say “that
however abhorrent to the views of some,
any legislation may be, which appears to
legalize so great an evil, still the fact must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>
not be lost sight of that it is an evil impossible
to suppress, yet comparatively easy
to regulate and circumscribe.” They conclude
with a memorial to the Legislature,
“to adopt as early as practicable some system
of laws calculated to confine houses of prostitution,
in the large cities of this state, within
certain specified limits, and to subject them
at all times to a careful and vigilant supervision
of the Boards of Health and Police.”</p>
<p>Punitory laws never have, and never
will cure the evils to which society is liable.
“Life is sweet,” some one has said, and yet
even the death penalty does not prevent
murder. If the menace of death is not a
deterrent, what can be said for lesser penalties
like fines and imprisonment. That
capital punishment is not a preventive of
crime was (upon investigation) the conviction
of Bentham, Beccaria, George Clinton,
Lord Brougham, Judge J. W. Edmunds,
William H. Seward, Wendell Phillips, Douglas
Jerrold, Cassius M. Clay, Dr. Lushington,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
Edward Livingston, Theodore Parker, Vice-President
Dallas, DeWitt Clinton, Victor
Hugo, Mittermaier, John Howard, Sir Samuel
Romilly, Earl Russell, Lord Houghton, Lord
Osborne, John Bright, Lord Hobart, Lord
Kelly, Frederick Robertson, Prof. Fawcett,
Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, Canning,
Thomas Jefferson, and hundreds of other
able, thoughtful and conscientious men.
Their position was not only grounded on
observation, but fortified by the experience
of Tuscany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Bavaria,
Belgium, San Marino, Denmark, Norway,
Sweden, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island.
“There is no passion in the mind of man,”
said Lord Bacon, “so weak, but it mates and
masters the fear of death; and therefore
death is no such terrible enemy when a man
hath so many attendants about him that can
win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs
over death; love slights it; honor aspireth
to it; grief fleeth to it; fear occupieth it.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
And if “the fear of the great future,” writes
Bovee, “when painted with the horrors such
as only a Milton or a Pollok could depict,
produces no more marked effect on human
action; it is hardly reasonable to suppose
that the menace of death by human law,
will be very effective in the repression of
crime.”</p>
<p>The truth is clear to Rev. Octavius B.
Frothingham. He declares that neither
crime nor vice can be prevented, remedied,
or expelled by force of law. “Nature will
have her way, if not by one channel, then
by another. She will plunge underground,
and come up in unexpected spots. Cunning
comes to her assistance. She makes alliance
with subterfuge and deceit. She is sly, swift,
ubiquitous. Disappearing in New York, she
turns up in Philadelphia. Expelled from
the cities, she takes refuge in the towns;
banished from the towns, she finds coverts
in the cities; hiding in the dens and slums,
creeping into the lanes, mingling with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
crowd of harmless things, sheltering herself
behind law. She is a Proteus, able to take
on every possible shape of innocence. Refuse
her brandy, she will take opium, morphine,
ether, tobacco, strong coffee, in quantities
equivalent to the stimulant desired.
You fancy the community becoming temperate
in one respect, and find it becoming
intemperate in another. Opium eaters multiply
as dram-drinkers decrease. The propensity
is alive still, and perhaps provoked
to activity by the efforts made to suppress
it. The natural appetite being reinforced by
anger, spite, the spirit of resistance to persecution,
which grows dogged and stubborn,
fortifying the sense of injustice by the pride
of self-will.</p>
<p>“As if impatient at the slowness of the
converting process, weary of the task of planting
vice out, of choking the weeds of instinct
with the flowers of grace, the church undertook,
with violent hand, to pull up the weeds
by main force. Instead of abolishing the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
hydra by a beautiful law of evolution, which
should create a series of nobler growths; it
undertook to cut off the poisonous heads,
one by one. It took boys and girls, at the
tenderest age, out of the world, confined
them in religious houses, refused them the
joy of the flesh, and the joy of the eyes, and
the pride of life, barred the gates of every
terrestrial garden, mortified their desires,
kept them occupied with prayers and contemplations,
and so tried to starve nature to
death.</p>
<p>“Christianity, was as consistent, tried to
repress the disposition to unbelief, in its
opinion the most fruitful source of vice.
The disposition to unbelief was regarded as
the deadliest symptom of the natural, unconverted
heart. To counteract it by an opposite
disposition to belief was tedious and difficult,
and the method of repression was resorted
to. The civic power was enlisted in the
work of exterminating pernicious error.
Tribunals were created, laws were passed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
judges and executioners were appointed,
penalties were devised, heretical schools were
broken up, heretical books were burned,
heretical teachers were banished, silenced,
incarcerated, consigned to the flames. Whole
provinces were devastated, towns were destroyed,
populations turned adrift to perish;
the entire field of unorthodox thought was
ploughed over and sown with salt. And
what was the result of the method, carried
out on this vast scale, with full ecclesiastical
and civil powers—the sacred and the secular
authorities combining, the sympathy of the
Christian world aiding, no public opinion
opposing, the resources of wealth conspiring
with the resources of fanaticism, to make
the policy of suppression effective? The
issue is familiar to all who care to know the
truth, from the reports of historians, who
have made it their business to ascertain and
tell the facts. They certainly do not bear
out the conclusion that the method of suppression
is wise, or even practical. On the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>
contrary, they suggest the opinion that it
is impractical as it is unwise. The failure
of the method was so disastrous that it quite
defeated the ends.</p>
<p>“If one thing is demonstrated by human
history, it is this:—the attempt to suppress
human nature, under any form, so it be
nature that is suppressed, is futile. The
old proverbs, which say, ‘Drive nature out
at the door, and she comes in at the window;’
‘You cannot expel nature with a fork;’ hold
out a truth that is for all time....
Deeply rooted propensities, habits which
have become a second nature, cannot be
thus dealt with. No Hercules’ club will
avail to kill the vital principle that grows
venomous heads faster than they can be
bruised. The effort to suppress nature by
violent measures, is always followed, always
produces a reaction, that is exactly proportioned
in strength to the effort, and fairly balances
it. Healthy progress is slow, gradual,
measured, according to the sure conditions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
of cause and effect. It consists of a long
line of close sequences, knit together, not
mechanically, like a chain, but organically,
like a muscle or a nerve. Every inch of
growth implies a preceding inch of growth;
there is no such thing as jump or leap from
point to point. You do not make the elastic
band longer by stretching it; you but loosen
the cohesion of its parts; the strain being
relaxed, the band resumes its first condition;
the strain being continued, the band looses
its elasticity and breaks. There is no more
power than there is.”</p>
<p>M. Guizot, statesman and historian,
thought it a gross delusion to believe in
the sovereign power of political machinery.
Every day discloses a failure, every day
there reappears the belief that it needs but
an act of some legislative body and a corps
of officials to effect any purpose. The faith
of mankind is nowhere better seen. Disappointment
has been preached from the
first: “Put not thy trust in legislation.” Yet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
the trust in legislation seems scarcely diminished.
Is it not time to reject the law as
a social panacea? We should now realize
that measures are usually quite different in
effect from what has been expected. It
would be difficult to estimate the number
of legislative disappointments in English and
American history; “or the amount of harm
which has been inflicted on society by abortive
attempts at statesmanship.” History
demonstrates the incapacity of law-givers.
Says Mr. Jensen, “From the statute of
Merton (20 Henry III.) to the end of 1872,
there had been passed 18,110 public acts,
of which he estimated that four-fifths had
been partially or wholly repealed.” And
Herbert Spencer estimated a few years ago
that “in the last three sessions of the
English parliament, there have been totally
repealed 650 acts, belonging to the present
reign alone.”</p>
<p>Buckle said, in this connection, every
great reform has consisted “not in doing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
something new, but in undoing something
old. The most valuable additions made to
legislation have been enactments destructive
of preceding legislation, and the best
laws which have been passed have been
those by which some former laws were repealed....
We owe no thanks to law-givers
as a class; for, since the most valuable
improvements in legislation are those
which subvert preceding legislation, it is
clear that the balance of good cannot be
on their side. It is clear that the progress
of civilization cannot be due to those who,
on the most important subjects, have done
so much harm that their successors are considered
benefactors, simply because they
reverse their policy, and thus restored affairs
to the state in which they would have remained,
if politicians had allowed them to
run on in the course which the wants of
society required.”</p>
<p>In the name of “liberty and equality,” a
brave battle has been fought for individuality.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
Unjust and unwise interference by the state
has been ably resisted. It is demanded that
private judgment be released from the embrace
of authority. The truth is, one man
has no natural right to make laws for another.
True, he may repel another, when
his own rights are infringed, but he has no
right to govern him. The individual is
sovereign merely over himself, and not over
his fellow-man.</p>
<p>The greatest minds now insist an individual
will more freely act, not only for the
furtherance of personal interests, but also
for collective interests, without being constrained
thereto by an external power.
Whenever room is to be made, they say,
for the advance of society, public authority
must retire within its narrowest jurisdiction;
yielding, because of its impracticability, all
control over concerns purely personal. “Who
remembers having done anything, or having
refrained from doing anything, on account
of the statutes? If we could realize how<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
little civil law contributes to the good conduct
and well-being of society, our interest
in legislators would be greatly lessened. Of
the millions upon millions of acts of kindness
and justice which go to make up civilized
life, I take it that nine in ten would
not be performed at all, if they were required
by law.</p>
<p>John Stuart Mill has clearly defined the
limit of individual “sovereignty”—as it is
termed—and where the authority of society
should begin. “Each will receive its proper
share, if each has that which more particularly
concerns it. To individuality should
belong the part of life in which it is chiefly
the individual that is interested; to society,
the part which chiefly interests society.</p>
<p>“The acts of an individual may be hurtful
to others, or wanting in due consideration
for their welfare, without going the length
of violating their constituted rights. The
offender may then be justly punished by
opinion, though not by law. As soon as any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially
the interests of others, society has jurisdiction
over it, and the question whether
the general welfare will or will not be promoted
by interfering with it, becomes an
open one. But there is no room for entertaining
any such question, when a person’s
conduct affects the interest of no person
besides himself, or need not affect them unless
they like, all the persons concerned
being of full age, and with the ordinary
amount of understanding. In all such cases
there should be perfect freedom, legal and
social, to do the action and stand the consequences.”</p>
<p>Everybody agrees with this proposition, in
the abstract. At this period of time, nobody
would dispute “personal liberty,” as a “glittering
generality.” People are too smart
for that. It would be impolite and unfashionable.
They would agree with you, perhaps,
that “personal liberty” is the source of all
progress, the lever of all conquests, the inspiration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
of all achievements. “The great,
vital, pivotal fact of human life; all progress
and all happiness begin and end in personal
freedom.” O yes, they will readily agree
with the rhetoric involved. “The prize, the
precious jewel of the ages, is personal liberty.
It has no equivalents. Untold wealth, a
mine of diamonds, a palace, are baubles by
the side of personal liberty. We recognize
the supreme importance of this principle.
We are willing that all men should be free—if
they will only do what is best for them.
We rejoice in the utmost liberty of opinion
and action—if people will only do and say
what is right.”</p>
<p>Thus is “freedom” trespassed upon, under
pretence that is for the good of the man
or men whose rights are violated. Such
was probably the pretext for every tyrannical
invasion of popular rights known to history.
Thus was it quaintly put by Dio Lewis:
“The Inquisition believed in the perfect
liberty of all men to be Catholics, but if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
they caught a man with other notions about
salvation, they put a thumb-screw on him.
Our Puritan fathers believed in personal
freedom as no other men ever did. They left
their homes, crossed a stormy ocean, and
braved a thousand dangers, that they might
be free to think and say what they pleased.
And they were perfectly willing that all who
came along might think and say what they
pleased, unless, as sometimes unfortunately
happened, the other men said and thought
things which conflicted with the things which
the fathers thought and said. They sometimes
came across a Quaker, whose views did
not seem quite the thing, and they hung him.
Our New England fathers believed in ‘religious
liberty.’ Indeed, ‘religious liberty’ was
their constant boast; but if a man did not
believe in hell, they would not let him testify
in court.... But our fathers were
always very kind about it; they said he was
at liberty, perfect liberty, at any time to believe
in hell, and then he might swear a blue streak.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
What is really meant by this definition
of “personal liberty” is the absolute right
of every individual that every other individual
shall act, in every respect, exactly as he
ought; “that whosoever fails thereof, in the
smallest particular, violates my social right
and entitles me to demand of the legislature
the removal of the grievance.” “This doctrine,”
continued Mill, “ascribes to all mankind
a vested interest in each other’s moral,
intellectual, and physical perfection, to be
defined by each claimant, according to his
own standard.”</p>
<p>Of this class of men Dr. Lewis well said:
“They consider themselves born to control
other men. They are ever inquiring, ‘What
ought this man to do?’ and if that man
refuses to do it, ‘How can we compel him?’
They proceed thus: ‘Resolved, That the
righteous should govern the world. Resolved,
That we are the righteous.’”</p>
<p>In what language can I fitly designate
a principle of action so impertinent and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
presumptious? Who can deny the moral
“liberty” of his fellow creature, as an abstract
proposition? Is not the moral equality, or
independence of man one of his essential
rights? Neither one, nor any number of
persons, is warranted in saying to another
of mature years, what the latter shall, or
shall not do with his life for his own benefit.
“He is most deeply interested in his own
well-being; the interest which another person
can have in it is trifling, compared with that
which he himself has.” It is time for society
to distinguish, sharply, between the province
of morality and that of legislation. With
the same end in view, perhaps, yet they
should differ widely in extent. Admit that
morals and the law have the same center,
they have not the same circumference.
There may be a moral guide to the conduct
of an individual, through all the details of
life, through all the relationships of society;
but legislation cannot be this, and if it
could, it ought not to exercise a continued<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
and direct interference with the conduct of
men. There are many acts useful to the
community which the legislator ought never
to command; so are there many hurtful
acts, which he ought not to forbid. There is
certainly a broad distinction between moral
and legal rights. For instance, “a man has
no moral right to hate his wife, but he has
a perfect legal right to hate her. A man
has no moral right to foreclose a mortgage
on a sick widow’s home, and turn her and
her children out in the snow, but he has a
perfect legal right to do it. A man has no
moral right to make a glutton of himself,
destroy his usefulness, and thus throw his
wife and children on the town, but he has
a perfect legal right to do it.” A man has
no moral right to drink rum, but he has a
perfect legal right to do so. What actions,
then, may be legally punished as offenses?
“What a question,” I hear some one exclaim;
“are not all men agreed upon it? Do you
ask us to prove an acknowledged truth.”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>
I answer in words of the great Jeremy Bentham:
“Be it so. But on what is founded
that agreement? Demand of each his
reasons. You will find a strange diversity
of interest and principles. You will find it
not only among the people, but among philosophers....
The agreement which you
see is founded only on prejudices; and these
prejudices vary, according to the times and
places, according to opinions and customs....
People have always said that such
an action is an offense. Such is the guide
of the multitude, and even of the legislator.
But if usage has made innocent actions
crimes; if it makes venial offenses appear
heavy, and heavy offences light; if it has
varied everywhere, it is clear that we must
subject it to some rule.”</p>
<p>Vices are not rightly punishable by law.
They are amenable to education only. Should
A. assist B. to indulge in a vice, and A. uses
no fraud or coercion, and B. is <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">compos mentis</i>,
A. is not guilty of a crime, in the proper<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
sense. Suppose A. were a cook, who compounds
for B. rich and delicious dishes, and
of which B. partakes to such an extent that
he sickens and dies, A. is not guilty of a
crime. Neither is B.’s indulgence in the
strong food or strong drink a crime punishable
by law, only a vice amenable to discretion
and judgment.</p>
<p>Correctly considered, then, a crime is an
act which one man, with “malice prepense,”
commits upon the person or property of
another, without that other’s consent. Crime
may be subject to law. A vice, on the other
hand, is any act or passion in which a person
may indulge himself: malice, hypocrisy, pride,
envy, hatred, avarice, ambition, profanity,
falsehood, indolence, cowardice, drunkenness,
gluttony, tyranny, fanaticism, extravagance,
etc., etc. Unless this distinction be recognized
by the law, there can be no such thing as individual
right, liberty or property, “no such
thing as the right of one man to the control of
his own person and property, and the corresponding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>
and co-equal right of another man to
the control of his own person and property.”</p>
<p>An eminent and respected physician once
said to an enlightened audience: “Not a person
before me, but has suffered from vices; indeed,
that is what we mean by the imperfection
of human nature. When we depart from
perfection it is a vice. Everybody is guilty of
vices. The people before me, forty years old,
should not be so old at fifty or sixty. Their
teeth are decayed, and they have imperfect
digestion. They do not enjoy the full and
happy play of all their powers and faculties,
and the greater part of this waste comes
from vices. There are certain secret vices
which cannot be publicly named, which are
doing more to break down our vital force,
make us prematurely old, and fetter our
souls, than all the crimes committed in the
country, and the legislature can do nothing
to cure them.</p>
<p>“Without doubt, gluttony is the most
destructive of all our vices. It obtains<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
among all classes, all ages, and both sexes.
Eminent medical men, in England and
America, declare that strong food can count
ten victims, where strong drink counts one.</p>
<p>“Tobacco is doing more injury to the
minds and bodies of our nation than all
the murder, theft, burglary, and arson, and
yet the legislature can do nothing to cure
the tobacco curse.”</p>
<p>Dr. Lewis wisely continues: “It is not
often possible to say of those acts that are
called vices, that they are really vices except
in degree. That is, it is difficult to
say of any actions, or courses of action,
that are called vices, that they really would
have been vices, if they had stopped short
of a certain point. The question of vice
or virtue, therefore, in all such cases, is a
question of quantity and degree, and not
of the intrinsic character of any single act,
by itself. This fact adds to the difficulty,
not to say the impossibility, of any one’s—except
each individual for himself—drawing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
any accurate line, or anything like an
accurate line, between virtue and vice; that
is, of telling where virtue ends and vice
begins. And this is another reason why
this whole question of virtue and vice should
be left for each person to settle for himself.
Vices are usually pleasurable, at least
for the time being, and often do not disclose
themselves as vices, by their effects,
until they have been practiced for many
years, or perhaps for a life-time. To
many, perhaps most, of those who practice
them, they do not disclose themselves as
vices, at all during life. Virtues, on the
other hand, often appear so harsh and
rugged, they require the sacrifice of so
much present happiness, at least, and the
results which alone prove them to be virtues,
are so often distant and obscure, in
fact so absolutely invisible to the minds of
many, especially of the young, that, from
the very nature of things, there can be no
universal or even general knowledge that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
they are virtues. In truth, the studies of
profound philosophers have been expended—if
not wholly in vain, certainly with very
small results—in efforts to draw the lines
between virtues and vices.</p>
<p>“If then, it be so difficult, so nearly impossible,
in most cases, to determine what
is and what is not, vice; and especially if
it be so difficult in nearly all cases to determine
where virtue ends and where vice
begins; and if these questions, which no one
can really and truly determine for anybody
but himself, are not to be left open and
free for experiment by all, each person
is deprived of the highest of all his rights
as a human being; to wit: his right to inquire,
investigate, reason, try experiments, judge
and ascertain for himself, what is, to him,
virtue, and what is, to him, vice; in other
words, what, on the whole, conduces to his
happiness, and what, on the whole, tends to
his unhappiness. If this great right is not to
be left free and open to all, then each man’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
whole right as a reasoning human being,
to liberty and the pursuit of happiness is
denied him.” “It is now obvious, for the
reasons already given, that government
would be utterly impracticable, if it were to
take cognizance of vices and punish them
as crimes. Every human being has his, or
her, vices. Nearly all men have a great
many. And they are of all kinds: physiological,
mental, emotional, religious, social,
commercial, industrial, economical, etc. If
government is to take cognizance of any of
these vices, and punish them as crimes, then,
to be consistent, it must take cognizance of
all and punish all impartially. The consequences
would be, that everybody would
be in prison for his, or her, vices. There
would be no one left to lock the doors upon
those within. In fact, courts enough could
not be found to try the offenders, nor prisons
enough built to hold them. All human industry
in the acquisition of knowledge, and
even in acquiring the means of subsistence,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
would be arrested; we should be all under
constant trial or imprisonment for our vices.
But even if it were possible to imprison all
the vicious, our knowledge of human nature
tells us that, as a general rule, they would
be far more vicious in prison than they ever
have been out of it. A government that
shall punish all vices impartially, is so obviously
an impossibility, that nobody was ever
found, or ever will be found, foolish enough
to propose it. The most that any one proposes
is, that government shall punish some
one, or, at most a few, of what he esteems
the grossest of them.”</p>
<p>“But this discrimination is an utterly
absurd, illogical and tyrannical one. What
right has any body of men to say, ‘The
vices of other men we will punish, but our
own vices nobody shall punish? We will
restrain other men from seeking their own
happiness, according to their own notions
of it; but nobody shall restrain us from
seeking our own happiness, according to our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
notion of it. We will restrain other men
from acquiring any experimental knowledge
of what is conducive or necessary to their
own happiness; but nobody shall restrain
us from acquiring an experimental knowledge
of what is conducive or necessary to
our own happiness.’ Nobody but knaves
and blockheads ever think of any such
absurd assumptions as these. And yet,
evidently, it is only upon such assumptions
that anybody can claim the right to punish
the vices of others, and at the same
time claim exemption from punishment for
his own. The greatest of all crimes are
the wars that are carried on by governments
to plunder, destroy and enslave mankind.”</p>
<p>It has been asserted that gambling is
a vice. I deny that such is the case.
The proposition cannot be established, as
an absolute principle. If a man chooses to
risk his money, on a game of cards, he
has a perfect right to do so, in the abstract,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
and no man, or any body of men,
has a right to forbid him. “It is his money,
and he has a right to do what he chooses
with it. He has a legal right to put it in
a gun and shoot it away, or burn it up, or
risk it on a game of chance, or make any
other disposition of it, and no man, or body
of men, has a right to interfere.” For my
purpose, as a question of law, the real question
is whether a man may dispose of his
own as he chooses? If so, then he has a
right to wager it on a game of cards, or
at dice; and it is absurd to treat as criminal
another man who may join in with him in
gaming, as an antagonist. In other words,
“If John has at any time or in any place,
the right to wager his money on a game
of chance, then it is absurd to treat as
criminal the helping John to do what he
has a right to do. If one participant in a
transaction is guilty of crime, so is the other.
But if one participant is guiltless, then the
other is guiltless.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
The keepers of gambling resorts are denounced,
as though they were responsible
for the gambling propensity in mankind.
Now, resorts for gambling do not cause the
passion. It is a tendency to which all men
are prone, more or less. “The essential
fact is the existence of this passion. There
can never be any great difficulty in obtaining
the means for its gratification.” If not
one way, then in another. If at all, attack
the principle, in whatever guise or by
whomsoever practiced. If some methods
are denounced, then should all methods be
denounced. If those who furnish certain
“means to the end” are to be punished as
criminals, then should all persons who furnish
any “means to the end.” But to
punish any such person is erroneous and
very short sighted; for the primary cause
of the trouble, if such it be, is the desire
for gaming. It is impossible to prevent
its gratification. As wisely attempt “to
make one’s hair white or black” by virtue<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
of “the statute in such cases made and
provided.”</p>
<p>Suppose the law efficacious, with what
consistency does our jurisprudence make
gambling a crime? In general, at common
law, all games are lawful, unless fraud has
been practiced. Each of the parties must
have a right to the money or thing played
for. He must give his free and full consent,
and the play must be conducted
fairly. The mutual promises of the parties
to the wager are held a sufficient consideration.
A large number of such actions
have been sustained by the courts of England
and the United States.</p>
<p>For example, it was held that a wager
of fifty guineas by one of the litigants that
an appeal from a decree of Chancery
would be reversed by the House of Lords,
was not, of itself, void, there being no
charge of fraud. So, wagers as to the
time when a railroad would be completed;
or, as to the name of a person whom one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
of the parties had seen; or, as to the age
of one of the parties; or, upon the price
of an article of commerce; or, as to who
would die first, of two persons not privy
to the wager; or, as to whether A. would
hit a target; or, upon foot or horse races;
were held valid. Indeed, the tendency of
the courts to discourage wagers of every
nature is relatively of recent date. In
many of the United States, the doctrine
has been abrogated by statute. Texas,
Delaware, California, and some other states
still adhere to the English rule.</p>
<p>Some of the judgments in England were
rendered by the greatest of judicial minds:
Lord Mansfield, Lord Holt, Lord Hardwicke
and Lord Kenyon. In the language
of Lord Holt: “When considered in itself,
there is nothing in a wager, contrary to
natural equity, and the contract will be considered
as a reciprocal gift, which the parties
make of the thing played for, under certain
conditions.” Lord Mansfield laid it down,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
that wagers are actionable: “and that the
restraints imposed on certain species, by
acts of parliament, are exceptions to the
general rule, and prove it.” And Lord
Kenyon declared in Good vs. Elliott: “Being
bound by former decisions, not having
the power to alter the law, not finding
any one case against the legality of wagers
in general, and finding cases without number,
wherein wagers have been held to be
good, and that the payment of them may
be enforced, I adjudge the wager in the
present case good at common law.” It
was a wager that A. had purchased a certain
wagon of B.</p>
<p>The source of our jurisprudence is the
common law of England. Gambling was
not a crime under this system, and here it
would enforce the contract of wager. I
therefore denounce as incongruous and irrational
a statute which seeks to punish the
wagerer as a criminal.</p>
<p>Crime, at common law is something<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
essential, so, in its very nature; grounded
in the Mosaic decalogue and the reason
of things: murder, mayhem, adultery, robbery,
theft, arson. The wager is akin to
none of these, nor does it come within
their spirit. The common law branded as
a criminal him only whom God had thus
branded. The wagerer was not of the
number.</p>
<p>In a word, is gambling <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">malum in se</i>? In
answer, the common conviction of men has
never so regarded it. The common law
has ever recognized a boundary line which
separates the <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">mala in se</i> from the <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">mala
prohibita</i>. In law, a thing is <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">malum in se</i>
when absolutely evil in itself; “not, indeed,
in a philosophical sense,” says the eminent
lawyer, James C. Carter, “but absolutely,
according to the universal conviction, in
the political society which so views it; and
<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">mala prohibita</i> are those things, otherwise
innocent or indifferent, which the legislative
power, having control over the subject, may<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
declare to be offenses.” Although not <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">malum
in se</i>, gambling may be <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">malum prohibitum</i>.
If the latter, then it becomes merely a
question of public policy whether or not
the state shall license gambling, subject to
such conditions as the police power might
impose. At any rate, to the extent that
government is a moral entity, it cannot
rightfully punish gambling as being bad
in itself.</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span></p>
<h2 id="The_King_is_DeadLong">“The King is Dead—Long Live the King.”</h2>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span></p>
<div id="ip_213" class="figcenter" style="max-width: 41em;">
<img src="images/i_p213.jpg" width="652" height="147" alt="" /></div>
<p class="chaphead">CHAPTER V.<br />
<span class="subhead">“The King is Dead—Long Live the King.”</span></p>
</div>
<p class="drop-cap x"><span class="smcap1">Expressive</span> was the coronation ceremony
in the ancient Dukedom of
Carinthia. The ducal candidate, in a peasant’s
garb, and with head proudly erect,
walked towards the marble throne of his
ancestors. But upon it was already seated
a peasant, attended by the black bull and
the lean horse—those sad and severe symbols
of his class. Then was commenced
between them this rude dialogue:</p>
<p>Peasant:—“Who so proudly dares enter
here? Is he a just judge? Has he the
good of the country at heart?”</p>
<p>Duke:—“He is and he will.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
Peasant:—“I demand by what right he
will force me to quit this place?”</p>
<p>Duke:—“He will buy it of you for sixty
pennies, and the horse and the bull shall
be yours.”</p>
<p>Nowhere, in the past, was the sovereignty
of the people more haughtily declared, than
in this formality of the old Carinthians.
“It bears the seal of remote antiquity—of
an Homeric or Biblical simplicity.” That
the people were the only true source of
power, was admitted even in the archaic
periods of history. Of olden time, there
were many forms of popular government.
Aristotle made a study of their institutions.
Greece had her democracies and Italy a
great republic. In Asia, then, as now, the
assertion of political power was the sole
foundation for its maintenance.</p>
<p>With the development of Christianity,
in Europe, was inculcated the theoretic idea.
Kings were anointed and they ruled by
“divine right.” In the language of Mr.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
Tiedeman: “The king, who in theory obtained
his authority from God, acknowledged
no natural rights in the individual. Individual
activity, for its room, depended upon
the monarch’s will.” In time, however, came
the Reformation and political revolutions in
England, France, the Netherlands, Spain
and Italy. To-day, the “divine right” of
kings is generally repudiated. It has been
displaced by the ancient principle that all
power is derived from the people. “The
people were once subjects of the king. The
government is now subject to the people.”
“The king is dead,” but his functions yet
live in “the state,” or the people.</p>
<p>While many ancient statesmen and publicists
recognized the proper origin of power
in government, their opinions as to its nature
and extent were neither clear nor sound.
Wherever lodged, in their judgment, power
was limitless and irresponsible. Whether
exercised by king or emperor, by an aristocracy
or the people, it was absolute.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
Politically, in other words, the individual was
annihilated by the state. Government did
not permit the existence of any personal
right that it “was bound to respect.” This
is also true of later times, in continental
Europe. True, the “divine right” of kings
was repudiated, but not the doctrine of absolutism.
“<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Vox Populi, Vox Dei</i>,” became
the general answer to all complaints of the
individual against the encroachments of
popular government upon his rights and
liberty. In the name of the people, atrocious
crimes were perpetrated by revolutionary
governments.</p>
<p>In its proper sense, individual liberty is
a development of the Anglo-Saxon institutions.
This doctrine is fundamental to the
English Constitution. The principle is cardinal
and vital in the American system of
government. Individual rights are protected
by constitutional restrictions upon power,
federal and state. In the United States,
every individual is a king. This accords<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
with the so-called <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">laissez-faire</i> doctrine, of
modern development in England and the
United States, which confines the sphere of
government within the narrowest limits, and
denies to it the power to do more than
provide for public order and personal security,
by the prevention and punishment
of crimes and trespasses. Under the influence
of this wholesome principle, with us
and in Great Britain, for one hundred years,
the encroachments of government upon the
rights and liberties of the individual have
been comparatively few.</p>
<p>In other words, it has been generally admitted
by the wisest and broadest statesmanship,
that private rights and personal
liberty do not exist by the permission of
municipal law. They are natural and founded
upon the law of reason; that, therefore,
governmental restraint should “only go to
the limit necessary to a uniform and reasonable
conservation of private rights.” Municipal
law protects and develops, rather<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>
than creates private rights and personal
liberty.</p>
<p>In the United States this “limit” has
been generally fixed at the power to enforce
the common and civil law maxim, “<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">sic utere
tuo, ut alieum non lædas</i>.” The “police
power,” it is called, and extends, in its
broadest sense, to the preservation of peace
and good order to the protection of property
rights, “and of the lives, limbs, health and
comfort of all persons.” Any law which
goes beyond this, in the United States, at
least, and undertakes to abolish rights, the
exercise of which do not infringe upon the
rights of others; or limits the exercise of
rights beyond what is necessary for the
public welfare and general security, is not
properly within the police power.</p>
<p>The police power, then, is properly concerned
only with crimes and trespasses. It
cannot rightfully invade the realm of ethics,
as such. Crime is theoretically a direct injury
to the public, and trespass, a direct injury<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
to the individual. A vice, on the contrary,
is the inordinate gratification of one’s
desires and passions. The primary damage
is to one’s self. In contemplating the nature
of a vice, we are not conscious of a
trespass on the rights of others. Vice does
not fall within the police power. Expressed
in the language of Mr. Tiedeman, “the
object of police power, is the prevention
of crime—the protection of rights against
the assaults of others. The police power
of the government cannot properly be
brought into operation for the purpose of
exacting obedience to the rules of morality,
and banishing vice and sin from the world.
The moral laws can exact obedience only
in <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">foro conscientiæ</i>. The municipal law has
only to do with trespasses. It cannot be
called into play in order to save one from
the evil consequences of his own vices, for
the violation of a right, by the action of
another, must exist or be threatened, in
order to justify the interference of law.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
The people of this country are generally
convinced of this truth. So widespread is
the conviction that, where a law “does not
have for its object the prevention or punishment
of a trespass upon rights, it is
impossible to obtain for it an enthusiastic
and unanimous support.” Besides, it is true
of every community, when “public opinion
is aroused to an activity that will enforce
a law for the prevention of vice, the moral
force alone will be ample to suppress it.”
But it is sometimes urged that an otherwise
ineffectual statute may serve to direct
public opinion in the right direction. To
this I reply that one unerring truth is taught
by the history of legislation: “It is the
utter futility, in a corrective sense, of a law
whose enactment is not the unavoidable resultant
of the forces then in play in organized
society. Nothing so weakens the reverence
for law, and diminishes its effectiveness,
as still-born statutes.”</p>
<p>Certain matters are generally recognized<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
to be within the police power of the state.
For instance, the control of infectious and
contagious diseases, of the insane, of habitual
drunkards, spendthrifts, vagrants and
mendicants. And finally, by forced construction,
it has been extended to the
liquor traffic. The law, it is said, may prohibit
the sale of liquor to minors, lunatics,
persons intoxicated, confirmed inebriates,
and other persons with certain weaknesses
of character. Courts maintain that while
the liquor traffic is subject to the police
power, yet it may not be entirely forbidden
as necessarily injurious to the public in a
legal sense. To quote the Supreme Court
of Indiana, in Beabe vs. State: “Where
injury does result (from the use of beverages)
it is usually caused by the shortcomings
of the purchaser, without any participation
in the wrong of the seller. No
business can be prohibited altogether, unless
its prosecution is necessarily and essentially
injurious. It is the abuse and not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
the use of beverages that is hurtful. The
use of beverages is not necessarily destructive
to the community.... Fire-arms
and gunpowder are not manufactured to
shoot innocent persons, but are often so
misapplied. Axes and hatchets are not
made and sold to break heads with, but
are often used for that purpose. Yet who
has ever contended the manufacture and
sale of these articles should be prohibited
as a nuisance. We repeat, the manufacture
and sale of liquors are not necessarily hurtful,
and therefore may not be entirely prohibited.”</p>
<p>So much for the “police power,” generally
considered. But what of its relation to
gambling, if any? If the practice is neither
a crime nor a trespass, then it is not rightfully
subject to public regulation. I have demonstrated
to the candid judgment that, of itself,
gambling is not essentially wrong. I insist
that, at least, in the absence of fraud and
chicane, it is neither sinful, nor criminal.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
To gamble with another is not to assault
his person or property by main force. To
wager or bet upon the laws of chance, deceit
aside, is not to kill, maim, rob, or cheat
your fellow man; the players freely participate
in the hope of gain or for amusement.
Then wherein is the action either felonious
or tortious? Why should the police power
interfere? That it cannot properly do so,
under our institutions, is conceded by Mr.
Tiedeman. He is an able and accomplished
lawyer, and recognized by the profession as
an authority on the subject. But it may be
said, the effects are injurious, and for that
reason the state may forbid the practice.
That gambling is “necessarily and essentially”
injurious to society, I deny. As a
pastime, it is innocent, as a principle of
action it permeates the business world. If
an amusement, it may be abused to the detriment
of certain individuals, but the abuse
of a thing, innocent in itself, does not make
that thing a crime. When an occupation,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
it is but natural that the laws of chance
should operate unevenly: to the advantage
of some and to the disadvantage of others.
Uniformity of success in affairs is impossible.</p>
<p>Throughout the business world, in every
department of human activity, the losers
but bear a fixed proportion to the winners.
Some must fail that others may succeed.
Such is the law of existence, as society is
constituted to-day. We are not now concerned
with ideals. The realities suffice for
my purpose. Chance is at present the great
motive power of the world. It sustains hope,
and stimulates endeavor. Through its operation
men are enriched and nations aggrandized.
That some meet with disaster and
encounter misfortune does not prove that
appeals to chance are criminal in their
nature, nor that such appeals are “necessarily
and essentially” injurious to the state.
Consistently, therefore, gambling cannot be
forbidden because in its pursuit some persons
are fool-hardy and others unfortunate.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
I may be asked, “What do you suggest?”
I would license gambling, and place
it under such restrictions as would tend to
lessen its abuse. I am willing, for practical
purposes, to concede this much to the police
power. If this policy may be claimed for
the liquor traffic, why not for gambling
also? Is gambling more injurious than intemperance?
No, the victims of alcohol
outnumber the unfortunate gamblers a thousand
to one. The habitual use of intoxicants
is necessarily and uniformly injurious
to the individual. This is not true of
gambling, as a pastime. The player may
win. Some of the players must win. Whatever
can be said against the prohibition of
the liquor traffic, applies with greater force
to gambling. If there are reasons why
the sale of intoxicants may be licensed, by
the state and municipal authorities, such
reasons serve but to demand a like privilege
for gambling. Briefly, the rule laid down
by the Indiana Supreme Court as to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
liquor traffic, in Beabe vs. State, is clearly
applicable to games of chance as a business.
This is obvious from the whole tenor of
my discussion. If the state is not willing
to take this step, then leave the matter to
“local option.” Leave it to the municipal
authorities, whether gambling is to be permitted
or not, in a given locality. Let it
be a question of policy and toleration, if
you will. Regulations may be imposed, as
with the saloon. Recognize the existence
of gambling as a fixed fact, but interpose
a surveillance for the prevention of fraud.
As with the saloon, also, provide for the
protection of those weaklings who are ever
wards of the law: “minors, drunkards, lunatics
and spendthrifts.” This policy now
obtains generally on the continent of Europe,
and to a certain extent in several of the
United States: notably, Arkansas, Texas
and California.</p>
<p>“What! would you have gambling public?”
Yes, rather than private; and that is the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
alternative presented to the wise. The experience
of California, in this matter, is that
of every state in the Union, and all may
profit by her example. In the words of
Judge Murray of that state: “The Legislature,
finding a thirst for play universally
prevalent throughout the state, and despairing
of suppressing it entirely, attempted to
control it in certain bounds, by imposing
restrictions and burdens on this kind of
business. The license operated as a permission,
and removed, or did away with the
misdemeanor as it existed.” The issue for
practical men is: Shall gambling be in sight
and subject to control, or shall it be out of
sight and beyond control. The “situs” of
public gambling is known to the authorities,
and thus may its conduct be supervised and
regulated: its every operation may be hourly
inspected by the police, to the exclusion of
those whom the law may with propriety
protect from their own acts, and the prevention
of cheating by dishonorable methods<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
and devices. If gambling is public, in brief,
its abuses can be reduced to a minimum.
When repressed at known points, gambling
is not thereby discontinued. It is thus distributed
over a wider field, there, secretly
to thrive in its worst features. Then it is
that fraud and theft are triumphant: that
“brace” gamblers “wax fat” and their
conscienceless harpies pray in secret upon
the unwary and the inexperienced. Public
gambling is generally fair and honest. Secret
gambling is too often but another name
for a robbery that cannot be prevented
by either police or magistrates. Again,
the number of employees are few, comparatively,
in the public gambling club,
and it is without other allurements than
naked chance may offer. Not so the private
institution, the patrons of which may
freely partake of most seductive viands
and expensive liquors; rents are also
higher, and more employees are required.
The private club is costly in the extreme:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
an extravagant scale is necessary to its
very existence. This is a severe test to
the scruples of a proprietor. In some
way he must meet expenses and insure a
livelihood. For an honest gambler the
maintenance of a private club is seldom
possible.</p>
<p>“But public gambling would be a temptation
to the poor man. You admit that
poor men should not gamble?” I answer,
who is the “poor” man? When you have
found him, who is his keeper? Are you
the custodian of his judgment and inclinations?
I am of opinion he would
repudiate your guardianship with indignation.
“Consistency thou art,” indeed,
“a jewel.” The rich and well-to-do may
gamble, perhaps, but not the man of
small resources. I ask, who has the
right, for that reason, to say the latter nay?
Not you, rich gambler in stocks and farm
products; nor you, sir, who nightly gamble
in the parlor of a comfortable home,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
or at the private club you assist in maintaining
for that purpose. By what authority
were you constituted the keeper of a less
fortunate neighbor? All this aside, however,
the suppression of public gambling
will not deter any man from the pursuit,
whether “rich” or “poor.” A thousand
avenues are opened to him, despite the
law and the authorities. In this matter,
society must trust to the education of individual
character and the gradual amelioration
of mankind. Besides, if gambling
were subject to regulation, as other pursuits,
our laws could the better protect whomsoever
it might desire.</p>
<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote">
<h2 id="Transcribers_Notes" class="nobreak p1">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
consistent when a predominant preference was found
in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.</p>
<p>Simple typographical errors were corrected.</p>
<p>Unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the
change was obvious or the quotation was found
in other sources. The others remain unbalanced.</p>
<p>The illustration on the Title page is a decorative
floral; the other illustrations are decorative
headpieces.</p>
<p>Page <a href="#Page_109">109</a>: “the band of fate” was printed that way.</p>
<p>Page <a href="#Page_187">187</a>: Opening quotation mark has no matching
closing mark.</p>
</div></div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60005 ***</div>
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