them in two to make them suffer.”[444] All these circumstances combine to make gaming a fighting play not alone with men, but also with supernatural powers whose inscrutable decisions possess a peculiar power and whose favour lends to the fortunate player a special nimbus, while the vanquished does not suffer in his own esteem as if he had been conquered by a human foe. Finally, we should note that gaming has various mental connections with experimentation, since enjoyment of the excitation of hope and fear and the feeling of suspense as well as the shock of surprise is experimental in every case. With this is combined great activity of attention and imagination to whose agency the personification of which we have spoken must be ascribed; reason’s part in the process is displayed in the complex calculation of probabilities, and that of the will most conspicuously in the effort to appear outwardly calm while the wildest excitement reigns within, and hope and despair surge in alternate waves across the soul. It is difficult to say which of these stimuli ought to be placed at the head of the list, but two appear to me to be rather more important than the others. First, the combative impulse, whose influence is particularly strong here; and, second, pleasure in intense effects, as when the “gold fever” takes the form of longing for a supreme moment which shall fill the soul to the brim, something which will transcend all other transporting agents. Both find their satisfaction at the gaming table, owing to the suddenness and importance of its revelations. In concluding, it may be remarked that the extraordinary persistence of gamblers, who sometimes sit all night at the table, as if hypnotized, may be at least partly explained by the law of repetition taken in conjunction with the independent attractions of the game. The performance of the last part of a mechanically repeated action tends to lead to the production of the first part again. 5. _The Destructive Impulse_