his knowledge he will attain success. At least, he will not be found
sitting down and whining that luck alone has been against him.

There remains a far more subtle argument in favour of the gambling
temperament which believes in luck. It is that certain men possess a
kind of sixth sense in the realm of speculative enterprise. These men,
it is said, know by inherent instinct, divorced from reasoned knowledge,
what enterprise will succeed or fail, or whether the market will rise or
fall. They are the children of fortune.

The real diagnosis of these cases is a very different one from that put
forward by the mystic apostles of the Golden Luck. Eminent men who are
closely in touch with the great affairs of politics or business often
act on what appears to be a mere instinct of this kind. But, in truth,
they have absorbed, through a careful and continuous study of events
both in the present and the past, so much knowledge, that their minds
reach a conclusion automatically, just as the heart beats without any
stimulus from the brain. Ask them for the reasons of their decision, and
they become inarticulate or unintelligible in their replies. Their
conscious mind cannot explain the long-hoarded experience of their
subconscious self. When they prove right in their forecast, the world
exclaims, "What luck!" Well, if luck of that kind is long enough
continued it will be best ascribed to judgment.

The real "lucky" speculator is of a very different character. He makes a
brilliant coup or so and then disappears in some overwhelming disaster.
He is as quick in losing his fortune as he is in making it. Nothing
except Judgment and Industry, backed by Health, will ensure real and
permanent success. The rest is sheer superstition.