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.”
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 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 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.
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 calibre, the acquisitive faculty, and a clannish spirit.
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 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.”
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.”
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, 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 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.”
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 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 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 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.
Legislative Exorcism;
or,
The Belief in Word-Magic.
