This being a general practice, which no body can be ignorant of, that has ever seen any play, there must be something in the make of man that is the occasion of it: but as the searching into this will seem very trifling to many, I desire the reader to skip this remark, unless he be in perfect good humour, and has nothing at all to do. That gamesters generally endeavour to conceal their gains before the losers, seems to me to proceed from a mixture of gratitude, pity, and self-preservation. All men are naturally grateful while they receive a benefit, and what they say or do, while it affects and feels warm about them, is real, and comes from the heart; but when that is over, the returns we make generally proceed from virtue, good manners, reason, and the thoughts of duty, but not from gratitude, which is a motive of the inclination. If we consider, how tyrannically the immoderate love we bear to ourselves, obliges us to esteem every body that with or without design acts in our favour, and how often we extend our affection to things inanimate, when we imagine them to contribute to our present advantage: if, I say, we consider this, it will not be difficult to find out which way our being pleased with those whose money we win is owing to a principle of gratitude. The next motive is our pity, which proceeds from our consciousness of the vexation there is in losing; and as we love the esteem of every body, we are afraid of forfeiting theirs by being the cause of their loss. Lastly, we apprehend their envy, and so self-preservation makes that we strive to extenuate first the obligation, then the reason why we ought to pity, in hopes that we shall have less of their ill-will and envy. When the passions show themselves in their full strength, they are known by every body: When a man in power gives a great place to one that did him a small kindness in his youth, we call it gratitude: When a woman howls and wrings her hands at the loss of her child, the prevalent passion is grief; and the uneasiness we feel at the sight of great misfortunes, as a man's breaking his legs, or dashing his brains out, is every where called pity. But the gentle strokes, the slight touches of the passions, are generally overlooked or mistaken.