376 Insurance and Gambling. [CHAP. xv. 



of work arising not only from illness and old age, but from 

 any cause except wilful idleness. They do not, it is true, 

 pay the whole premium, but since they mostly bear some 

 portion of the burden of municipal and county taxation 

 they must certainly be considered as paying a part of 

 the premium. In some branches also of the public and 

 private services the system is adopted of deducting a per 

 centage from the wage or salary, for the purpose of a 

 semi-compulsory insurance against death, illness or super 

 annuation. 



6. Closely connected with Insurance, as an application 

 of Probability, though of course by contrast, stands Gambling. 

 Though we cannot, in strictness, term either of these prac 

 tices the converse of the other, it seems nevertheless correct 

 to say that they spring from opposite mental tendencies. 

 Some persons, as has been said, find life too monotonous for 

 their taste, or rather the region of what can be predicted 

 with certainty is too large and predominant in their estima 

 tion. They can easily adopt two courses for securing the 

 changes they desire. They may, for one thing, aggravate 

 and intensify the results of events which are comparatively 

 incapable of prevision, these events not being in themselves 

 of sufficient importance to excite any strong emotions. The 

 most obvious way of doing this is by betting upon them. 

 Or again, they may invent games or other pursuits, the 

 individual contingencies of which are entirely removed from 

 all possible human prevision, and then make heavy money 

 consequences depend upon these contingencies. This is 

 gambling proper, carried on mostly by means of cards and 

 dice and the roulette. 



The gambling spirit, as we have said, seeks for the ex 

 citement of uncertainty and variety. When therefore people 

 make a long continued practice of playing, especially if the 



