would be for you, you would still
be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being
obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in
which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an
infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity
of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite
number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided;
where-ever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss
against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And
thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his
life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss
of nothingness.
For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is certain
that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the certainly of what
is staked and the uncertainty of what will be gained, equals the finite good
which is certainly staked against the uncertain infinite. It is not so, as
every player stakes a certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a
finite certainty to gain a finite uncertainty, without transgressing against
reason. There is not an infinite distance between the certainty staked and
the uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue. In truth, there is an infinity
between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss. But the uncertainty
of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of the stake according to the
proportion of the chances of gain and loss. Hence it comes that, if there
are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course is to play even;
and then the certainty of the stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain,
so far is it from fact that there is an infi
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