12. COMMERCIAL SPECULATIONS are prolific of Dishonesty. Speculation is the risking of capital in enterprises greater than we can control, or in enterprises whose elements are not at all calculable. All calculations of the future are uncertain; but those which are based upon long experience approximate certainty, while those which are drawn by sagacity from probable events, are notoriously unsafe. Unless, however, some venture, we shall forever tread an old and dull path; therefore enterprise is allowed to pioneer new ways. The safe enterpriser explores cautiously, ventures at first a little, and increases the venture with the ratio of experience. A speculator looks out upon the new region, as upon a far-away landscape, whose features are softened to beauty by distance; upon a _hope_, he stakes that, which, if it wins, will make him; and if it loses, will ruin him. When the alternatives are victory, or utter destruction, a battle may, sometimes, still be necessary. But commerce has no such alternatives; only speculation proceeds upon them. If the capital is borrowed, it is as dishonest, upon such ventures, to risk, as to lose it. Should a man borrow a noble steed and ride among incitements which he knew would rouse up his fiery spirit to an uncontrollable height, and borne away with wild speed, be plunged over a precipice, his destruction might excite our pity, but could not alter our opinion of his dishonesty. He borrowed property, and endangered it where he knew that it would be uncontrollable. If the capital be one's own, it can scarcely be risked and lost, without the ruin of other men. No man could blow up his store in a compact street, and destroy only his own. Men of business are, like threads of a fabric, woven together, and subject, to a great extent, to a common fate of prosperity or adversity. I have no right to cut off my hand; I defraud myself, my family, the community, and God; for all these have an interest in that hand. Neither has a man the right to throw away his property. He defrauds himself, his family, the community in which he dwells; for all these have an interest in that property. If waste is dishonesty, then every risk, in proportion as it approaches it, is dishonest. To venture, without that foresight which experience gives, is wrong; and if we cannot foresee, then we must not venture.