288 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book TI. 



•r 



Now, what name fhall we give to thofe things ? We cannot call 

 them natural things, or from nature — neither can we fay that they 

 are from human intention. 1 hey are, therefore, what we cdWJortiti- 

 tons events : And the caul- that produces them is what is called 

 chatice, But> it is evident that they all have a relpedl: to fome end 

 propoled by Nature or by man : So that nothing is more true than 

 what Ariilotle fays, that, if there were no end intended, there could be 

 no chance *. 



To begin w^ith the Intention of man— A man digs a piece of 

 ground, with an intention either to low or plant it ; but, in digging, 

 he finds a treafure. This is befide his intention, and thereh)re is iaid 

 to be chance. Again, a man goes to the market-place, to purchafe 

 " fomething that he wants, and he meets a friend whom he did not ex- 

 ped:to fee, a'^d believed tf) he at a great diftance : This, likewife, being 

 a thing different from the intcntif)n of the man, is called chance : 

 And it will not be the lefs chance^ that the man does, at the fame 

 tia.e, what he intended to do, viz. j^urch jfing what he wanted, aS 

 the man, in the other cyfe, digs the ground which he intended to dig; 

 for, all that is nec' flary to make ch nce^ is, ihat fomething fh;>uld 

 happen befides what is intended, whether what is intended happen 

 or not. 



This is chnnce. with refpe^l to man. What we call chance In Nature 

 depends entirely upon what we zaW final caiifcs. That there arc inch 

 in every cpetat on of nature, nobody who is not an Atheift, and 

 an Atlieifl: of the nmfl cbfurd kind, can doubt.- But thefe ends 

 are, to us, olten not known ; and, therefore, we may be often miila- 



ken 



• In the fifth chapter of the fecond book of his Phyfics, he tells us, that chance be- 

 longs to the things that are Ivir-x rev — Ea-rt h l^mx rev io-ce T« ctira ttxveitti tcv ^^»^Siiv[, *tti 



oirtc icirt (pvs-Eft;?, * What is done lor an end, proceeds either from underftanding or from 

 * Nature.' 



