w, and to reach an economic appreciation
of these facts, with as little as may be of the bias due to higher
interests extraneous to economic theory. In the discussion of the
sporting temperament, it has appeared that the sense of an animistic
propensity in material things and events is what affords the spiritual
basis of the sporting man's gambling habit. For the economic purpose,
this sense of propensity is substantially the same psychological element
as expresses itself, under a variety of forms, in animistic beliefs and
anthropomorphic creeds. So far as concerns those tangible psychological
features with which economic theory has to deal, the gambling spirit
which pervades the sporting element shades off by insensible gradations
into that frame of mind which finds gratification in devout observances.
As seen from the point of view of economic theory, the sporting
character shades off into the character of a religious devotee. Where
the betting man's animistic sense is helped out by a somewhat consistent
tradition, it has developed into a more or less articulate belief in
a preternatural or hyperphysical agency, with something of an
anthropomorphic content. And where this is the case, there is commonly
a perceptible inclination to make terms with the preternatural agency
by some approved method of approach and conciliation. This element of
propitiation and cajoling has much in common with the crasser forms
of worship--if not in historical derivation, at least in actual
psychological content. It obviously shades off in unbroken continuity
into what is recognized as superstitious practice and belief, and so
asserts its claim to kinship with the grosser anthropomorphic cults.

The sporting or gambling temperament, then, comprises some of the
substantial psychological elements that go to make a believer in creeds
and an observer of devout forms, the chief point of coincidence being
the belief in an inscrutable propensity or a preternatural interposition
in the sequence of events. For the purpose of the gambling practice the
belief in preternatural agency may be, and ordinarily is, less closely
formulated, especially as regards the habits of thought and the scheme
of life imputed to the preternatural agent; or, in other words, as
regards his moral character and his purposes in interfering in events.
With respect to the individuality or personality of the agency whose
presence as luck, or chance, or hoodoo, or mascot, etc.,