We must remember that this, like so many other vices, is only a degraded and degrading form of expressing a natural human need. Indulgence in gambling is universal in primitive society, where it is closely associated with religion, and at no time is it absent from the larger and more absorbing transactions of civilised life. It is intimately connected with the dominating type of will and the unflinching determination of men to control. The gigantic strides which the United States have made in industry have been possible only because the Americans have not flinched in facing enormous hazards. This spirit finds apt expression in the verse of that romantic embodiment of the love of hazard, the Marquis of Montrose— He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who does not put it to the touch, Or gain or lose it all. In the evolution of the race an important part has no doubt been played by the men and the communities whose self-confidence was sufficiently strong to enable them to make large drafts upon the unknown. Abnormally and respectably—as in the form of genius—this spirit gives us “the man of destiny”; abnormally but not respectably—as in the form of burglary—this spirit gives us the high criminal. Normally, properly controlled and toned, it gives us the successful man of business, the leader and inspirer of men. This playing with the unknown in the faith that the fates are favourably disposed has undoubtedly been, and is still to be, a very important spur to energy, and one of the determining factors in national survivals in the future. Indeed, it is inseparable from human nature. Men will not tolerate a uniform drudgery, they will not live in a world which is nothing but a featureless expanse. And this intellectual appetite for risk, for projecting one’s self on to the silent stream of fate upon which the barque of life mysteriously floats, must be satisfied either legitimately or illegitimately, either in accordance with sound morals or in the teeth of sound morals. The latter will be the case if we condemn, as we do now, large sections of our population to conditions of life from which their intellectual nature can get no satisfaction. The appetites of that nature will not die away. Its functions will not atrophy and degenerate. It will simply accommodate itself to its circumstances. If it cannot command the food of the gods, it will fill its belly with the husks which the swine do eat, and find a troubled satisfaction in its degradation. “To be confined in the dark, or without occupation, is to be made the victim of subjective tedium,” says Bain.[7] We have confined our people in the dark, and they are gambling to break the tedium.