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. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” (Matt. 20:13, 14, 15.)
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 somewhere, 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.”
No intelligent gambler is a believer in “luck” as a personal quality. He recognizes the phenomena of chance. How they will 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.
But seriously, for what do these aspirants contend? A method of reasoning from the happening of an event to the probabilities 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 hypothesis presenting the necessity of one or another out of a certain number of consequences. In other words, given an event as having happened, and which might have been the consequence of either of several causes, or explicable by either of several hypotheses, the probabilities can be inferred.
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.
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 would not perform this feat. That gentleman threw seven nine times running.
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.
Another class of moralizers reject and 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.”
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. 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.”
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 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 essentially 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?