I Couldn’t in Good Conscience…

The British poet Thomas Campbell, attending a horse race with some friends, bet one of them (Thomas Wilson) £50 that the horse Yellow Cap, would come in first place. After the race ended, Campbell, thinking his horse had lost the race, turned to his friend Wilson and said, “I owe you fifty pounds; but really, when I reflect that you are a professor of moral philosophy, and that betting is a sort of gambling only fit for blacklegs, I cannot bring my conscience to pay the bet.” “I very much approve of your principles,” replied Wilson, “and I mean to act upon them. In point of fact, Yellow Cap…