“I think it is the meanest mode of gaining or losing money a man could find.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because he desires only to gain, and can gain only by his neighbor's loss. One of the two must be the worse for his transaction with the other. Each must wish ill to his neighbor!”
“But the risk was agreed upon between them.”
“True—but in what hope? Was it not, on the part of each, that he would be the gainer and the other the loser? There is no common cause, nothing but pure opposition of interest.”
“Are there not many things in which one must gain and the other lose?”
“There are many things in which one gains and the other loses; but if it is essential to any transaction that only one side shall gain, the thing is not of God.”
“What do you think of trading in stocks?”
“I do not know enough about it to have a right to speak.”
“You can give your impression!”