August 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNO^WLEDGE ♦ 



229 



would hardly reason (save the mark !) as this pirticular 

 fool is supposed to do. " I say that some, perhaps not all, of 

 these men will be lucky men. I can't prove it. You can't 

 disprove it. My belief and your demonstration are in 

 different planes, and don't touch each other." Mr. Dick 

 could hardly beat this " mystical order of thought," as my 

 critic very properly calls his nonsense. How can such a 

 matter be better dealt with, if mathematical reasoning is 

 rejected, than by actual trial ? The test Itas been applied 

 in multitudes of cases, and always with results confii-ming 

 the mathematical theory of the matter. Yet for the general 

 public there is, perhaps, no better answer to the Salu7-Jay 

 Eeviexrer's suggestion that there are not only men who have 

 been lucky (as I point out), but men whose luck is some- 

 thing which may be depended on (which is what I and all 

 mathematicians deny), than the well-known fact that not 

 one of the gambling and speculating herd who have been 

 noted as examples of long-continued luck has failed to come 

 to grief in the long run. I exclude, hieii enten'ht, those 

 who have been called lucky, but have in reality been simply 

 rascals. They often grasp their ill-gotten gains to the 

 bitter end. 



With characteristic impertinence the Saturday Beview, 

 in beginning to comment upon the morality of gambling, 

 speaks of that as ground into which, as it is not mine, I had 

 no business to venture. I should like to know why this 

 ground is not a-; much mine as it is any one else's 1 Can 

 those who glibly quote, " Xe sulortiltra crepidani" give any 

 reason for saying that one man has a better right than 

 another to deal with moral questions? — always excepting 

 criminals, and perhaps certain classes of critics. Questions 

 of morality are fair subjects for all honest men to deal with, 

 and I have yet to lexrn that the study of science is calcu- 

 lated to warp a man's moral nature so that he would be apt 

 to decide wrongly about moi-al questions. So far as my 

 critic's arguments are concerned, however, they may be dis- 

 posed of by the simple admission that they would be just 

 enough if I had maintained gambling to be criminal, 

 instead of merelj^ suggesting that it is immoral. The 

 reviewer does not seem to understand what is meant by 

 morality. (For example, it is immoral, but not criminal, 

 to pervert the truth.) That he sneers, however, at 'Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer, while he jeers at my views about the 

 morality of gambling, would tend considerably to console 

 me if I needed consolation, which, somehow, I scarcely seem 

 to do. 



My critic honestly thinks, I dare say, that he has me on 

 the horns of the whist dilemma he offers me. If betting 

 with superior knowledge is unfair, how about " Mr. 

 Proctor's fondness for whist? Ts not the superiorl}' 

 knowing whist-player fi-audulent ? " And if the whist- 

 player is honest who wins money through his superior skUl, 

 must not the bettor who offers or asks odds such as he knows 

 to be incorrect be honest, too ? I need not, so far as I am 

 personally concerned, select either horn of the dilemma. 

 For all my whist-playing for money, limited as it has 

 been, has been against equal skill or, in my salad days, 

 against skill superior to my own. When I ai-gued, as my 

 critic quotes, that " if inferior players choose to play on 

 equal terms, they do it at their own risk," I was considering 

 my own case when, rather than spoil a rubber, I have con- 

 sented to play for sixpenny or even (!) shilling points, in a 

 company unwilling to play for " love." Since I have 

 learnt something of the strategy of the game I have only 

 twice consented to play for even shilling points. On one 

 occasion I met three of the strongest players of the Man- 

 hattan Club, New York, and on the other three players of 

 the Xew Orleans, one of my opponents being Mr. Trist, the 

 inventor of the American leads, 80 much admired by 



"Cavendish." (It may interest readers to know that I 

 won about as much in one encounter as I lost in the other.) 

 The only club I have ever cared to join played threepenny 

 points and sixpence on the rubber, and I was present at 

 barely one of their weekly meetings in ten. In all my 

 journeys at sea, since I learnt .something of the game, I 

 have declined to play even for sixpenny points.* 



Dealing with my critic's remaining comments, I need 

 remark only that, while he does not think my book likely 

 to do much good, he asserts the unlikelihood, nay, almost 

 denies the possibility, that any book on chance can do much 

 good unless written " by one prepared to admit to the full 

 the existence of ' luck ' " — a novel idea indeed 1 



Summing up his criticism as an example of the average 

 Saturday Review style, I note that — 



First, this critic lightly ascrites " cocksurenefs " to me, 

 who have again and again expressed doubts about my own 

 views, or have modified them as occasion suggested, while 

 himself exhiliiting cocksureness in such amazing degi'ee as 

 to reject the verdict of " all the mathematicians " who have 

 ever dealt with the subject of probabiUties — though this is 

 a subject purely mathematical, and about which he himself 

 manifestly knows nothing 1 



Secondly, he attributes crudity of phrase to me, though 

 citing no instances ; but he shows the value of his opinion 

 on such points by using in short articles such crude phrases 

 as " cocksureness," " mathematical expostulator," " superiorly 

 knowing," " ex hypothesi uncircumventible," " aleatory 

 pleasure" (for love of dicing), "cocksureness," ttc, to say 

 nothing of such sheer blunders as " differing with " for 

 "differing from," "stark man" for "powerful rea.soner," 

 " valuable " for " effective," and the like. 



Thirdly, while pretending to regret that probably my 

 Iwok will not keep many from gambling or protect many 

 from dishonesty, the Saturday Review deliberately justifies 

 the gambling spirit, and even encourages that more obvious 

 immoi-ality, the practice of wagering, speculating, and gam- 

 bling generally, with superior knowledge of the probable 

 event. 



Fourthly, pretending to reason about right and wrong, my 

 critic does not hesitate to attribute to me ideas (such, for 

 instance, as my supposed wrong notions about the hopes 

 actuating gamblers who trust in luck) which he must well 

 know that I have not expressed, but the reverse. 



Such, on the average, is Saturday Review criticism, unless 

 a special aversion is to be wronged, as when Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer is attacked, or its great political bete noire is to be 

 insulted, or else some special friend is to be puffed, as when 

 certain capital books for boys are foisted on the public as 

 great works of imagination. 



As to the ideas I have advanced in " Chance and Luck," 



* I h?.ve taken considerable interest in watching the progress of 

 play with a very keen opponent— an excellent player of his own 

 hand — in order that I might recognise how far tlie effects of chance 

 (often very marked in an evening's or even in a week's play) are 

 corrected in the long run. My wife and I (she is the best player of 

 her sex I have ever known) have played since I began to keep a 

 record of results about 3,500 points against the opponent in ques- 

 tion, he taking three partners at different times, one of whom is 

 that trustworthy partner, Mr. Singte-dummy. Combining the 

 restUts, we are just over 400 points ahead, his best average being 

 obtained with Bingle-dnmmy as partner, where he is 15.5 points 

 behind on a total of 1,.547 made. It should be noticed that we play 

 for tricks only, not counting either honours or rubbers. This, of 

 course, gives a much greater advantage to combined play than when 

 honours, and the chances connected with the rubber tend to equalise 

 matters. Still, we should not be so far ahead on the Single-dummy 

 play were it not for an inveterate habit our opponent has of visibly 

 rejoicing over a good hand and as \T.sibly sorrowing over a bad one. 

 Nothing but such records as I have recently kept would have shown 

 me how very importantly such indications affect results. 



