Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers

Arthur Brisbane

Description

pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. The annual report of the gambling house at Monte Carlo shows a profit of about $5, 000, 000.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 27 septembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819928577
• Langue: English

Extrait

WHY ARE ALL MEN GAMBLERS?
The annual report of the gambling house at MonteCarlo shows a profit of about $5, 000, 000.
A large collection of human beings travel from allparts of the world to Monte Carlo for the sake of giving $5, 000,000 to the gambling concern there.
Wherever you look on earth to-day or in the past youfind human beings gambling, and you will find the gambling instinctstronger than any other— stronger than the love of drink,infinitely stronger than the love of normal, honest gain.
* * *
Christopher Columbus's sailors gambled on the wayover, and the Indians on this side were gambling while waiting tobe discovered.
In an office overlooking Trinity graveyard, in NewYork City, an old man, past eighty, with a fortune of at least $50,000, 000, gambles every day with all the excitement of youth. Thefluctuations in his game bring to his sallow cheeks the color thatno other human emotion could bring there.
On his way home this old man passes crowds ofchildren in the streets and looks down, concerned and sorrowful, tofind that they, too, are gambling.
They are matching pennies or shaking dice.
* * *
Clergymen are startled and amazed to find that womenare gambling heavily.
They have gambled heavily ever since civilizationhas progressed far enough to give them large sums to gamblewith.
Marie Antoinette staked thousands of louis at a timeat
Versailles.
She was so wrapped up in gambling she could not seethat her neck was in danger.
When the lava came down from Vesuvius it buriedPompeiians who were gambling.
The men who dig up the old monuments in Africa findgambling instruments crumbling away side by side with appliancesfor taking human life.
* * *
Nowhere in the lower forms of animal life, so far aswe know, is there the slightest indication of the gamblinginstinct.
The monkey, the elephant, love whiskey, and easilybecome drunkards.
The passion for alcohol seems innate in animal life;even the wise ant can be readily induced to disgrace himself ifalcohol is put near him.
For all the human weaknesses and mainsprings—ambition, affection, vanity, drunkenness, ferocity, greediness,cunning— we can find beginnings among the lower animals.
But man appears to have evolved from within himselfthe gambling instinct for his own especial damnation.
Where did the instinct come from? Why was it plantedin us?
Like every other instinct with which intelligentnature endows us, it must have its good purpose, and it must not bejudged merely in the corrupted form in which we study it at MonteCarlo or in Wall Street.
Perhaps the spirit of gambling is really only anatrophied, perverted form of the spirit of adventure.
Columbus staked his life and gambled, when hestarted across the water.
The leaders of the American Revolution expresslystaked their lives, their fortunes and their “sacred honor” insigning the Declaration of Independence. They were noble gamblers,working for the welfare of their fellows.
Perhaps gambling is only a perverted form ofintelligent ambition— we are all natural gamblers because we havewithin us the quality which makes us willing to risk our owncomfort, security and present happiness for a result that seemsbetter worth while.
The universality of the gambling instinct in humanbeings is certainly worthy of our study.
NO MAN UNDERSTANDS IRON HOW CAN WE HOPE TOUNDERSTAND GOD?
Is there laughter in heaven— or can nothing move theeternal heavenly calm?
If mirth exists among the perpetually blissful, howmust the angels laugh when in idle moments they listen to ourspeculations concerning the Divinity? They peer down at us as welook at ants dragging home a fragment of dead caterpillar. Theyhear us say things like this:
If God exists, why does He not reveal himself toME?
How could God exist before He created the world?Force cannot exist or demonstrate its existence without matter. Howcould a creator exist except with creation around him?
Where did He live before He made heaven?
If He is all-powerful, could He in five seconds makea six months' old calf? If He made it in five seconds it would notbe six months old.
Nonsense more subtle comes from the educated, fromthose who know enough to be preposterous in a pretentious way.
Hear the wise man:
God does not exist, because I cannot prove Hisexistence: I can prove everything else. With my law of gravitationI point to a speck in space and say: “You'll find a new planetthere, ” and you find it. If a God existed could I not also pointto Him? If I can trace a comet in its flight, could I not trace thecomet's maker?
Huxley says: “The cosmic process has no sort ofrelation to moral ends. ” That's a philosopher's way of sayingsomething foolish. Lalande, the astronomer, remarked that he hadswept the entire heavens with his telescope and found no God there.That's funnier than any ant who should say: “I've searched thiswhole dead caterpillar and found no God, so THERE IS NO GOD. ” Thecorner of space which our telescopes can “sweep” is smaller,compared to the universe, than a dead caterpillar compared withthis earth.
Moleschott, an able physiologist, believed thatphosphorus was essential to mental activity. Perhaps he did provethat. But he said: “No thought without phosphorus, ” and thought hehad wiped the human soul out of existence. Philosophers do notlaugh at Moleschott. But they would laugh at a savage who wouldsay:
“I have discovered that there is a catgut in afiddle. No fiddle without catgut— no music without cats. Don't talkto me about soul or musical genius— it's all catgut. ”
We peek out at this universe from our half-developedcorner of it. We see faintly the millions of huge suns circlingwith their planet families billions of miles away. We see our ownlittle sun rise and set; we ask ourselves a thousand foolishquestions of cause and Ruler— and because we cannot answer, wedecry faith.
Wise doubter, look at a small piece of iron. Itlooks solid.
You suppose that its various parts touch. But submitit to cold.
You make it smaller. Then the particles did nottouch. Do they touch now? No; relatively they are farther apartthan this planet from its nearest neighbor.
That piece of iron, apparently solid, consists ofclusters of atoms wonderfully grouped, each cluster called amolecule. The molecular cluster is invisible, millions of clustersin the smallest visible fragment. The atom is accepted by scienceas the final particle of matter. Its name indicates that it issupposed to be indivisible. When science gets to the atom it calmlygives up and says: “That is so small that it can no longer bedivided. ” A reasonable enough conclusion on the surface,considering that you might have millions of atoms of iron in onecorner of your eye and not know it.
But why should the atom be incapable of furtherdivision? If it is any size at all it can be thought of assplit.
Where does the divisibility of matter end, ifanywhere? What is there SOLID about iron? Nothing in reality,except that it seems to us solid. Already, with the X-ray, we canlook through it. Forces such as heat and electricity pass throughit more readily than through free air.
Science, which gradually finds things out, denyingas it goes along everything one step beyond, tells you truly thatthe clusters of atoms in iron float in a sea of ether, just as doour planets going round the sun. Heat the iron intensely. Whathappens? You get what you call white heat. The white heat and thewhite light come from the increase of wave motion in this ether,and this ether, absolutely imponderable, of a tenuityinconceivable, possesses elasticity greater and more powerful thanthat of coiled steel. — —
So much for one small piece of iron, such as youwould kick to one side in a junk heap. If it interests you, readpages 159 to 162 of John Fiske's admirable little book, “ThroughNature to God. ” You will finish the book the day you get it.
If you are surprised to learn how much you did notknow about iron— after living near bits of iron all your life— isit not just possible that your mind may be too feeble to conceiveof God?
For the fly buzzing about the edge of Niagara Falls,the falls do not exist. The fly's brain cannot grasp theirgrandeur. It can understand only the speck of spray that falls onits wing.
You live with God around you, hopelessly incapableof perceiving His existence save through that faint spark ofunconscious faith that was mercifully planted in you. Snuff thatout with dull efforts at reason, and you have nothing.
WE LONG FOR IMMORTAL IMPERFECTION— WE CAN'T HAVEIT.
All our longings for immortality, all our plans forimmortal life are based on the hope that Divine Providence willcondescend to let us live in another world as we live here.
Each of us wants to be himself in the future life,and to see his friends as he knew them.
We want to preserve individuality forever and ever,when the stars shall have faded away and the days of matterended.
But what is individuality except imperfection? Youare different from Smith, Smith is different from Jones. But it issimply a difference of imperfect construction. One is more foolishthan another, one is more irresponsibly moved to laughter or anger—that constitutes his personality.
Remove our imperfections and we should all be alike—smooth off all agglomerations of matter on all sides and everythingwould be spherical.
What would be the use of keeping so many of us if wewere all perfect, and therefore all alike? One talks through hisnose, one has a deep voice. But shall kind Providence provide twosets of wings for nose talkers and chest talkers? Why not make thetwo into one good talker and save one pair of wings?
Why not, in fact, keep just one perfect sample, andlet all the rest placidly drift back to nothingness? Or, better,why not take all the goodness that there is in all the men andwomen that ever were and melt it all down into one cosmic humanbeing? — —
The rain drops, the mist and the spray