paired organs. The removal of one ovary or one testis interferes in no way with the reproductive power of the individual. Certain ductless glands if removed entirely produce most terrible results on the patient. On the other hand, you can remove as much as four-fifths or five-sixths of the thyroids without perceptible consequences. That is to say, a thyroid gland possesses four or five times more tissue than is necessary for the maintenance of health and the continuance of life, and the same is practically true of the 'suprarenal capsules. One of the most important nerves of the body is the pneumogastric nerve, and if both right and left nerve be severed the animal dies. On the other hand, should only one be severed the animal manages to live.

In order to secure the life of the individual nature is very lavish. Nearly all the human organs-and the same is true of most vertebrates-are on the lavish side, and were their tissues to be very markedly decreased little difference would be made in the life of the individual. Although it is unusual for a woman to bear more than a very limited number of children, the ovary of a newly born female baby possesses between 100,000 and 400,000 eggs; and when the time of bearing arrives the ovary still contains very many times more ova than can possibly be ever used. There is even more prodigality in the spermatozoa or male cells. It has been calculated that each time a male and a female pair 226,000,000 spermatozoa or male cells are transferred from the male to the female; and yet only one or at the outside two or three can possibly be used. The same is true of the bee. The queen bee returns to her hive with no less than 200,000,000 spermatozoa, many times more than enough for even her indefatigable egg-laying. During the first year the queen at the height of the season may lay from 2000 to 3500 eggs every twenty-four hours. Without rest and without ceasing she is perpetually producing eggs. She is like a kind of animated recurring decimal, and in the course of her four or five years of life she may produce hundreds of thousands of fertile eggs.

A Regius Professor of Oxford University-in a book— tells us, ' And there you have the meaning of life focused to a point. Life, Mr Hooker, consists in facing risks.' And like other Regius Professors of Oxford he wasn't far wrong. A. E. SHIPLEY.

Art. 5. THE ETHICS OF GAMBLING.

Report from the Select Committee on Betting Duty (Blue
Book 139), 1924.

THE proposal to tax bets has started afresh the old
controversy as to the morality of betting and gambling.
Betting is so widespread a practice, and so many high-
minded people indulge in it as an occasional amusement,
that general opinion hesitates to pronounce it wrong in
itself, although the danger of acquiring the gambling
habit is obvious and is admitted. The Report of the
Select Committee, which was appointed in 1923 to
consider the practicability and desirability of imposing
a tax on betting, is incomplete, the dissolution of Parlia-
ment preventing a full consideration of the two draft
reports that were presented respectively by Mr Cautley
and Mr Foot. The Committee have agreed that a betting
duty is practicable, but by a majority they have declined
to say whether it is desirable or no. It would seem that,
while the Free Church witnesses pressed the view that
betting is immoral in itself, those who represented the
Church of England were not prepared to go so far, con-
fining themselves to pointing out the dangers which
attend the practice of betting. Probably a majority of
the Committee were inclined to the latter opinion, but
they have not expressed themselves definitely upon the
question of ethics that is involved. I propose in the
following pages to examine some of the ethical problems
which present themselves when we ask how and why
gambling is wrong, if it is wrong, for these problems
are more intricate than the Report of the Select Com-
mittee would suggest.

In his draft memorandum, Mr Cautley observes that a distinction is to be drawn between betting, properly so called, and the playing of roulette or the taking of lottery tickets. This is an important observation, and it may conveniently be expressed in a somewhat different form. We must distinguish sharply between betting on chance, and betting on skill or knowledge. There is a wide difference between backing a horse which we think we have reason for believing to be superior to his competitors, and betting that a coin will turn up 'heads'

when it is tossed. In the one case we are acting on knowledge and calculation-or we think we are-but in the other, losing or winning is a matter of pure chance.

Simple forms of betting on chance are to take a ticket in a lottery (always supposing that it is honestly conducted), or to put a sovereign into a sweep on the Derby. No element of skill or knowledge can help us here. We take the ticket, or draw the number that falls to us, and we can do no more. The most elementary method of betting of this kind is to toss a coin. If it fall 'heads,' I win; if it fall 'tails,' I lose. Or to match dice thrown out of a dice box with those thrown by another is, again, a competition the issue of which is pure chance. The question before us is whether there be anything wrong in betting that takes any of these forms. I am not considering, for the moment, the consequences that may result from the habit of betting extravagantly in such ways. To draw a Derby winner in a sweep may encourage a man or woman to continue to put money into sweeps far too often. The winner of a State Lottery may gain an enormous sum, but money got so easily may bring disaster at last. And so on. But that is not the point before us. To put it nakedly, it is this. Supposing that I am in enjoyment of an income of 5000l. a year, is there anything wrong in amusing myself by tossing for sovereigns with a friend? No doubt it may be said (and truly said) that I might lose 50%. in half an hour, and that such extravagant expenditure on amusement is wrong. But, put the stake lower, and limit the total loss. If it amuses me to toss for shillings in my hours of relaxation, why should I not do so?

No doubt, it may be replied that if I play any game of pure chance, like tossing shillings, with regularity for a considerable period, my gains and losses will counterbalance each other, and I shall have had my fun for nothing. This goes on the assumption that I have a large reserve of shillings, so that I can afford to lose heavily for several consecutive weeks, and also that I have complete self-control, so that I shall not be tempted to raise the stakes in the hope of recouping myself quickly. These are large assumptions not to be presupposed in every individual case. It is fair to say that

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I must be prepared in the pursuit of such games of chance to lose something annually.

Now, is there any unethical element in this way of dealing with money which is not present, for instance, when money is spent on luxuries of an unnecessary kind? Money is a trust, and to spend it carelessly, whether on betting or on extravagant amusement, is always wrong. But I am not now dealing with that aspect of the matter. What we are trying to discover is whether there is anything peculiarly wrong in betting on the fall of a coin, even if I am prudent enough to keep my losses within due bounds. When the case is so stated, it is plain that the unethical element in betting is that the man who bets is deliberately introducing chance into his life. If I pay, say 1s. an hour, for the pleasure of tossing coins, then I know what I am doing and how much my amusement is going to cost me. I am quite entitled to make such payments, having regard to other and prior claims on my income. But I am acting as no rational being ought to act, if the price of my amusement is not fixed at all, so that it may cost me 17. an hour, or, on the other hand, if I win, may gain me 11. an hour.

This is a consideration which is not always recognised. Dulce est desipere in loco, people say. Chance adds a peculiar zest to many forms of amusement. Its presence excites us, and it ministers agreeably to the distraction of our thoughts for a time from the serious business of life. Why should we not throw away insignificant sums of money on a harmless pleasure, such as an hour at the roulette table may bring? In other words, the plea that is urged is that it is not unethical at times to abandon the rational ordering of life, and to deliver ourselves up to chances over which we have no control. That is what a man does who takes a lottery ticket or stakes a sovereign at roulette. The defence that it amuses him is not a sound defence, although a very natural one in some cases. People who pass their lives in uninteresting routine, e.g. in factories, ought not to be severely blamed if they endeavour to escape from the intolerable monotony of their lives, by staking a shilling now and then on an issue of pure chance.

Mr Ramsay MacDonald once wrote an essay on

'Gambling and Citizenship'* in which he rightly laid stress on the indubitable fact that the bleakness and drudgery of working-class life in too many instances account for the attractiveness of gambling. When he proceeded, however (in his manner of twenty years ago), to suggest that the fault was really that of 'the worthless upper classes' who set the example to 'outcast plebeians,' he entered on a path where I am unable to follow him. The gambling craze is not a class disease; it grows out of the desire to escape from monotony, which is common to every class. And in every class, to use Mr MacDonald's words, the 'vice develops the selfregarding instincts into hideous and criminal proportions.' So, too, while it is true that 'the gambling spirit is a menace to any form of labour party' (words which the promoters of the Russian treaty might wisely have laid to heart), it is equally a menace to the success of any Government, of whatever political complexion, which does not look ahead before it leaps.

The plea, then, that to play games of hazard, or to bet on an issue wholly or mainly determined by chance is a legitimate way of escaping from the dullness of routine, is not sound. This line of escape is not only dangerous; it is wrong. It is not in keeping with the dignity of a rational being deliberately to introduce chance into his life. Kant's 'categorical imperative' is not a bad test to apply in a case of casuistry like this. Could we justify the universalising of the principle which lies behind betting on chance? The question answers itself. It is quite true that the presence of chance adds charm to many innocent amusements, but that is because, far from introducing it voluntarily, we are fighting against it and trying to eliminate its influence by the exercise of our keenest wits.

Every one has often to take chances, that is, to act without any certain prevision what the issue of our action may be. But it is not rational to act on chance when we can help it. If I am wandering in a strange country, it may be impossible for me to form any reasoned opinion as to which of two diverging paths will bring me to my destination, and then I have to

* In Betting and Gambling,' ed. by B. Seebohm Rowntree (1905).