For instance, a fortune-teller may inform you, having pocketed your
two guineas, that a rich uncle in Australia is going to leave you a
million pounds next year. She doesn't promise you the million pounds
herself; obviously that is coming to you anyhow, fortune-teller or no
fortune-teller. There is no suggestion on her part that she is
arranging your future for you. All that she promises to do for two
guineas is to give you a little advance information. She tells you
that you are coming into a million pounds next year, and if you
believe it, I should say that it was well worth the money. You have a
year's happiness (if that sort of thing makes you happy), a year in
which to tell yourself in every trouble, "Never mind, there's a good
time coming"; a year in which to make glorious plans for the future,
to build castles in the air, or (if your taste is not for castles)
country cottages and Mayfair flats. And all this for two guineas; it
is amazingly cheap.
And now consider what happens when the year is over. The
fortune-teller has done her part; she has given you a year's happiness
for two guineas. It is now your uncle's turn to step forward. He is
going to give you twenty years' happiness by leaving you a million
pounds. Probably he doesn't; he hasn't got a million pounds to leave;
he has, in fact, just written to you to ask you to lend him a fiver.
Well, surely it is the uncle who has let you down, not the
fortune-teller. Curse him by all means, cut him out of your will, but
don't blame the fortune-teller, who fulfilled her part of the
contract. The only reason why you went to her was to get your
happiness in advance. Well, you got it in advance; and seeing that it
was the only happiness you got, her claim on your gratitude shines out
the more clearly. You might decently send her another guinea.
This is the case if you honestly believe your fortune-teller. Now let
us suppose that you don't believe. It seems to me that in this case
you are entitled to the return of your money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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