wo things to shun,
error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather
than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point
settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in
wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain,
you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without
hesitation that He is.--"That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may
perhaps wager too much."--Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of
gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you
might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have
to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be
imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain
three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there
is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were
an infinity of chances, of which one only 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; 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