The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-01-23
WHY MEN WILL
TAKE CHANCES
Gambling a Universal Pas
sion Among All Races
Throughout All Ages.

NEW YORK, Jan. 22.-The problem
of human impulses and their influence
on the action of people is made the
subject of discussion at length by
Clemens ]. France, a student of the
subject. Mr.. France has devoted many
years to the study of the subject of
human emotions and~their effect, and is
perhaps one of the best posted men
in the country in his line.
Gambling is a sort Of balance be-
tween faith in self and distrust in self"
is the proposition set forward by the
writer in a recent article in the Amer
lean Journal of Psychology. 1t is writ
ten in answer to the question: why
do men gambler"
Mr.. France has data showing the
growth and waning of the desire TO
gamble and take chances at different
ages and the variations shown between
the sexes.
Some interesting phases of the psy-
chology of uncertainty, on which his
hypothesis rests, Mr.. France deduces
from replies he received to a topical list
of questions. He finds that a curve
showing the disposition towards chance
follows closely in direction and height
a curve showing the changes in the
faith or fear as to personal safety.
Mr.. France continues:
This curve of gambling impulse
varies in direction and in intensity
according to age, physical condition,
previous experience and sex. Between
the ages of ten and seventeen years,
naturally a period of mental uncer-
tainty, the curve fiuctuates greatly be-
tween the sexes; later the prevailing
tendency toward risk is stronger among
men han among women, a sequence
which might be expected on biological
grounds, the male being the more icon
aclastic, exploiting the venturesome
element, n the woman the more
cautious AND conservative.
Both Of the moods are the result
Of natural selections. They are hered-
itary impulses and tempered in turn
by the experience Of the individual.
THE love of chance is merely n
expression of that peculiar force which
has. through previous ages, preserved
the species man. 1t is an inherent
activity Ct the human mind resulting
from a mans long struggle with a dan
gerous n uncertain environment. It
is what w. D. Thomas calls the con-
f1ict interest through which the prim-
tive man survived. It is a sign of con-
tinued animal health and instinct in
the race: born in all normal persons,
it is, as Thomas says, One expression
Of a powerful reflex, fixed far back in
the animal experience In itself right
and indispensable, it is, nevertheless,
sometimes wrong in it's application.
1T is through its environment of un-
certainty that the race has been evolv-
ed. Without his element in human
affairs man would stand today where
his remotest ~forefather stood, were
such a thing possible; for it is by
means of this condition that he has
developed alertness of the faculties;
out of it has grown reflex action, mus
cular coordination, memory, magma
ton and judgment. 1t is a tonic in
fuence and keeps the mind healthy.
when a prize is added to the condi-
ton of uncertainty, with it are added
the pleasurable emotion Of suspense,
all the mental states incident to a feel
ing Of poWer-hope and fear, joy and
sorrow, emulation, aggression, instinct
of domination, love of humiliating
ones opponent, pugnacity, jealousy
and my.
That gambling is generally regard
ed as something more than mere
chance is revealed by the particular
significance which has always been
given to the idea of luck. The primitive
maj employed the same implements
for gambling as for derivation, putting
them now to the former, now to the
latter use.
This suggests that luck IS asso-
ciated with the conception Of a per-
Sonal will which rules affairs, with the
attitude, favoring or adverse, of some
lowering. spirit-guardian angel or
evil genius
"a study of the history of luck re-
veals that it has lever been interpreted
as purely accidental; had it been so
regarded it would not have persisted in
the life of races and been handed down
in so many popular expressions. On
the contrary, it tells of the passion for
certainty enthroned in the human
mind. Revealing as it does a hunger
for the actual, the certain, it is akin
to the underlying principles of all re-
Igions, of philosophy, and Of all the
scientific eagerness for knowledge, all
of which aim to eliminate the element
Of uncertainty. This is confirmed by
the corresponding intensity in many
races of the gambling impulse and the
religious sentiment, and also by the
correspondence between this chance
impulse and the scientific spirit.
Gambling may be regarded as a
universal passion, indigenous among
all races OF man throughout all ages.
The older civilizations of the Egyp-
uanS, Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Per-
slams, Greeks and Romans, the Scy-
thians, the Huns, with their dice
throwing, as well as modern European
nations with their lottery systems and
their various speculaticns, political,
commercial and social, present in va
rying degrees this same phenomenon
Of mental activity. The impulse is.
however, strongest among savage and
barbarous races.
THE American Indian, for example,
Will stake upon dice or a horse race,
not only his possessions, but his wife
and children, and even his own per-
sonal liberty. Another evidence of the
| passion for gaming among the redmen,
take the Senacas' incorporation Of the
idea of chance in their scheme of the
ology, their anticipation Of a certain
gambling game as one of the delights
Of the future life Of the Great Spirit.
Likewise the Malays of Sumatra, the
~Javanese, the Sulus, indeed, people all
over the globe are infected by the
gambling fever.
Gambling, then, is an inherent ac-
tiyity of the human mind, and, as such,
it is not to be done away with by pure
ly prohibitive measures. If 1t is a
menace to social conditions it must be
ch~annelized into harmless courses"
A Mute inventor.
Eliza Cretzer, a deaf mute in Cincinnati.
Ohio, has invented an alarm clock so that
he may get up in time to go to work in
the morning. The dropping Of a pillow