Whether beneficed students on account of their studies are
     excused from reading their canonical hours.

We will now consider in brief Briard’s handling of the following question:  ’Whether a prize of money won at Bruges or elsewhere by the hazard known as the game of the pot, or what is commonly called the lottery, may be retained with a clear conscience as a righteous acquisition?’

     ’For the decision of this question I premise: 

     1.  Firstly, that gain is not to be considered unlawful because
     it comes by good fortune, and not by one’s own labour.

     The truth of this preamble is shown thus:  If gain coming by
     good fortune is unlawful, it follows that all gain arising from
     division by lot is unlawful.  But this is false:  therefore, &c.

     The consequent is proved by the fact that all such gain rests
     on good fortune.  The falsity is shown by the opinions of almost
     all the doctors who write on this subject: 

     St. Thomas, 2.2, question 95, article 8, shows that there is
     nothing wrong in dividing by lot, between friends who cannot
     otherwise decide.

In this opinion agree Alexander of Hales, part 2 of his Summa, question 185, membrane 2; Angelus in his Summa under the word sors, section 2, after the gloss in Summa 26, question 2; Antoninus, part 2, title 12, chapter 1, section 9.

     2.  Secondly, that gain is not to be considered unlawful because
     it comes without labour.  This would exclude gifts.

3.  Thirdly, that gain is not to be considered unlawful because it comes from cupidity, avarice, forbidden trade, or opus peccaminosum e.g. working on a saint’s day, unless there is fraud, deception, or the like.

     See Petrus de Palude, book 4, distinction 15, question 3,
     conclusion 4, about the gain arising from acting.  Also Angelus
     in his Summa under restitutio, part 1, section 6.

     4.  Fourthly, that a work which brings public advantage, either
     spiritual or temporal, is not necessarily unlawful because some
     people are thereby provoked to sin.

     Otherwise it would be unlawful to manufacture arms or to make
     war.

     On these premises I base the following propositions: 

     1.  The lottery is not in itself unlawful.

Proof.  It is not prohibited by any law, divine, human, or natural:  divine, because it is not forbidden in Scripture; human, because there is no law against it as there is against hazard or dicing; natural, because it is not excluded as (a) coming by good fortune, (b) provoking others to sin, (c) vain and useless.

a and b are proved by premiss 1 and 4. c is proved because we