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; wherever 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 certainty 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 infinite distance between them.  And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain.  This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of any truths, this is one.

“I confess it, I admit it.  But, still, is there no means of seeing the faces of the cards?”—­Yes, Scripture and the rest, etc.  “Yes, but I have my hands tied and my mouth closed; I am forced to wager, and am not free.  I am not released, and am so made that I cannot believe.  What, then, would you have me do?”

True.  But at least learn your inability to believe, since reason brings you to this, and yet you cannot believe.  Endeavour then to convince yourself, not by increase of proofs of God, but by the abatement of your passions.  You would like to attain faith, and do not know the way; you would like to cure yourself of unbelief, and ask the remedy for it.  Learn of those who have been bound like you, and who now stake all their possessions.  These are people who know the way which you would follow, and who are cured of an ill of which you would be cured.  Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc.  Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness.—­“But this is what I am afraid of.”—­And why?  What have you to lose?

But to show you that this leads you there, it is this which will lessen the passions, which are your stumbling-blocks.