Man has been distinctively termed "a _cooking_ animal;" and Dr. Franklin has defined him to be "a _tool-making_ animal." He may also, with equal truth, be defined to be "a _gambling_ animal;" since to gamble, or venture, on chance, his own property, with the hope of winning the property of another, is as peculiar to him, in distinction from other animals, as his broiling a fish after he has caught it with his hands, or making for himself a stone hatchet to enable him to fell a tree. Whether this gambling peculiarity is to be ascribed to the superiority of his intellectual or of his physical constitution, others may determine for themselves. Other animals, in common with man, will fight for meat, drink, and lodging; and will do battle for love as fiercely as the ancient knights of chivalry, whose great incitements to heroic deeds--in plain English, killing and wounding--were ladye-love and the honour of the peacock. There is, however, no well-authenticated account of any of the lower orders of animals ever having been seen risking their property at "odd or even," or drawing lots for choice of pasturage. No shepherd has ever yet succeeded in teaching his sagacious colley to take a hand at cards with him on the hill side; the most knowing monkey has never been able to comprehend the mysteries of "tossing;" and even the learned pig, that tells people their fortune by the cards, is never able to learn what is trumps. Seeing, then, that to gamble is exclusively proper to man,--_secundum essentiam consecutive_,--and admitting that, "The proper study of mankind is man," it plainly follows, that as Playing Cards are the instruments of the most fascinating species of gambling that ever was devised by the ingenuity of man, their origin and history are a very proper subject for rational discussion. The cooking, tool-making, gambling animal displays its rationality, according to Dr. Franklin, by its knowing how to find or invent a plausible pretext for whatever it has an inclination to do.