Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers.
by Arthur Brisbane.
WHY ARE ALL MEN GAMBLERS?
The annual report of the gambling house at Monte Carlo shows a profit of about $5,000,000.
A large collection of human beings travel from all parts of the world to Monte Carlo for the sake of giving $5,000,000 to the gambling concern there.
Wherever you look on earth to-day or in the past you find human beings gambling, and you will find the gambling instinct stronger than any other--stronger than the love of drink, infinitely stronger than the love of normal, honest gain.
Christopher Columbus"s sailors gambled on the way over, and the Indians on this side were gambling while waiting to be discovered.
In an office overlooking Trinity graveyard, in New York City, an old man, past eighty, with a fortune of at least $50,000,000, gambles every day with all the excitement of youth. The fluctuations in his game bring to his sallow cheeks the color that no other human emotion could bring there.
On his way home this old man pa.s.ses crowds of children in the streets and looks down, concerned and sorrowful, to find that they, too, are gambling.
They are matching pennies or shaking dice.
Clergymen are startled and amazed to find that women are gambling heavily.
They have gambled heavily ever since civilization has progressed far enough to give them large sums to gamble with.
Marie Antoinette staked thousands of louis at a time at Versailles.
She was so wrapped up in gambling she could not see that her neck was in danger.
When the lava came down from Vesuvius it buried Pompeiians who were gambling.
The men who dig up the old monuments in Africa find gambling instruments crumbling away side by side with appliances for taking human life.
Nowhere in the lower forms of animal life, so far as we know, is there the slightest indication of the gambling instinct.
The monkey, the elephant, love whiskey, and easily become drunkards.
The pa.s.sion for alcohol seems innate in animal life; even the wise ant can be readily induced to disgrace himself if alcohol is put near him.
For all the human weaknesses and mainsprings--ambition, affection, vanity, drunkenness, ferocity, greediness, cunning--we can find beginnings among the lower animals.
But man appears to have evolved from within himself the gambling instinct for his own especial d.a.m.nation.
Where did the instinct come from? Why was it planted in us?
Like every other instinct with which intelligent nature endows us, it must have its good purpose, and it must not be judged merely in the corrupted form in which we study it at Monte Carlo or in Wall Street.
Perhaps the spirit of gambling is really only an atrophied, perverted form of the spirit of adventure.
Columbus staked his life and gambled, when he started across the water.
The leaders of the American Revolution expressly staked their lives, their fortunes and their "sacred honor" in signing the Declaration of Independence. They were n.o.ble gamblers, working for the welfare of their fellows.
Perhaps gambling is only a perverted form of intelligent ambition--we are all natural gamblers because we have within us the quality which makes us willing to risk our own comfort, security and present happiness for a result that seems better worth while.
The universality of the gambling instinct in human beings is certainly worthy of our study.
NO MAN UNDERSTANDS IRON HOW CAN WE HOPE TO UNDERSTAND G.o.d?
Is there laughter in heaven--or can nothing move the eternal heavenly calm?
If mirth exists among the perpetually blissful, how must the angels laugh when in idle moments they listen to our speculations concerning the Divinity? They peer down at us as we look at ants dragging home a fragment of dead caterpillar. They hear us say things like this:
If G.o.d exists, why does He not reveal himself to ME?
How could G.o.d exist before He created the world? Force cannot exist or demonstrate its existence without matter. How could a creator exist except with creation around him?
Where did He live before He made heaven?
If He is all-powerful, could He in five seconds make a six months" old calf? If He made it in five seconds it would not be six months old.
Nonsense more subtle comes from the educated, from those who know enough to be preposterous in a pretentious way.
Hear the wise man:
G.o.d does not exist, because I cannot prove His existence: I can prove everything else. With my law of gravitation I point to a speck in s.p.a.ce and say: "You"ll find a new planet there," and you find it. If a G.o.d existed could I not also point to Him? If I can trace a comet in its flight, could I not trace the comet"s maker?
Huxley says: "The cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends." That"s a philosopher"s way of saying something foolish. Lalande, the astronomer, remarked that he had swept the entire heavens with his telescope and found no G.o.d there. That"s funnier than any ant who should say: "I"ve searched this whole dead caterpillar and found no G.o.d, so THERE IS NO G.o.d." The corner of s.p.a.ce which our telescopes can "sweep" is smaller, compared to the universe, than a dead caterpillar compared with this earth.
Moleschott, an able physiologist, believed that phosphorus was essential to mental activity. Perhaps he did prove that. But he said: "No thought without phosphorus," and thought he had wiped the human soul out of existence. Philosophers do not laugh at Moleschott. But they would laugh at a savage who would say:
"I have discovered that there is a catgut in a fiddle. No fiddle without catgut--no music without cats. Don"t talk to me about soul or musical genius--it"s all catgut."
We peek out at this universe from our half-developed corner of it. We see faintly the millions of huge suns circling with their planet families billions of miles away. We see our own little sun rise and set; we ask ourselves a thousand foolish questions of cause and Ruler--and because we cannot answer, we decry faith.
Wise doubter, look at a small piece of iron. It looks solid.
You suppose that its various parts touch. But submit it to cold.
You make it smaller. Then the particles did not touch. Do they touch now? No; relatively they are farther apart than this planet from its nearest neighbor.
That piece of iron, apparently solid, consists of cl.u.s.ters of atoms wonderfully grouped, each cl.u.s.ter called a molecule. The molecular cl.u.s.ter is invisible, millions of cl.u.s.ters in the smallest visible fragment. The atom is accepted by science as the final particle of matter. Its name indicates that it is supposed to be indivisible. When science gets to the atom it calmly gives up and says: "That is so small that it can no longer be divided." A reasonable enough conclusion on the surface, considering that you might have millions of atoms of iron in one corner of your eye and not know it.