Whether beneficed students on account of their studies are excused from reading their canonical hours. We will now consider in brief Briard's handling of the following question: 'Whether a prize of money won at Bruges or elsewhere by the hazard known as the game of the pot, or what is commonly called the lottery, may be retained with a clear conscience as a righteous acquisition?' 'For the decision of this question I premise: 1. Firstly, that gain is not to be considered unlawful because it comes by good fortune, and not by one's own labour. The truth of this preamble is shown thus: If gain coming by good fortune is unlawful, it follows that all gain arising from division by lot is unlawful. But this is false: therefore, &c. The consequent is proved by the fact that all such gain rests on good fortune. The falsity is shown by the opinions of almost all the doctors who write on this subject: St. Thomas, 2.2, question 95, article 8, shows that there is nothing wrong in dividing by lot, between friends who cannot otherwise decide. In this opinion agree Alexander of Hales, part 2 of his _Summa_, question 185, membrane 2; Angelus in his _Summa_ under the word _sors_, section 2, after the gloss in _Summa 26_, question 2; Antoninus, part 2, title 12, chapter 1, section 9. 2. Secondly, that gain is not to be considered unlawful because it comes without labour. This would exclude gifts. 3. Thirdly, that gain is not to be considered unlawful because it comes from cupidity, avarice, forbidden trade, or opus peccaminosum <e.g. working on a saint's day>, unless there is fraud, deception, or the like. See Petrus de Palude, book 4, distinction 15, question 3, conclusion 4, about the gain arising from acting. Also Angelus in his _Summa_ under _restitutio_, part 1, section 6. 4. Fourthly, that a work which brings public advantage, either spiritual or temporal, is not necessarily unlawful because some people are thereby provoked to sin. Otherwise it would be unlawful to manufacture arms or to make war. On these premises I base the following propositions: 1. The lottery is not in itself unlawful. Proof. It is not prohibited by any law, divine, human, or natural: divine, because it is not forbidden in Scripture; human, because there is no law against it as there is against hazard or dicing; natural, because it is not excluded as (_a_) coming by good fortune, (_b_) provoking others to sin, (_c_) vain and useless.