LIGHTNING NEVER STRIKES TWICE IN SAME PLACE 187 



tion, for I am held a close prisoner in the house of a friend 

 because the whole region is coated with a sheet of ice over 

 which it would be impossible for an elderly person to 

 walk with safety. And all owing to the absence of fric- 

 tion between opposing surfaces. 



THAT LIGHTNING NEVER STRIKES TWICE IN 

 THE SAME PLACE 



YLOR, in his " Researches into the Early History 

 of Mankind," traces this proverb to the mythol- 

 ogy of India and notes a very curious connec- 

 tion between it and the old ceremonies of Easter 

 eve, when new fire was obtained from flint and hallowed 

 against all great dangers, and particularly against the 

 lightning stroke, for the new fire was supposed to be akin 

 to lightning, " which strikes no place twice." 



But in these days it undoubtedly owes its general ac- 

 ceptance to a feeling that the place where lightning strikes 

 is a matter of mere chance or at least as much a matter of 

 chance as would be the location of a bullet fired by a poor 

 shot at a large target from a considerable distance. 



In purely mechanical or physical operations there is no 

 such thing as chance. The poet very truly tells us: 



All nature is but Art unknown to thee; 



All Chance, Direction which thou canst not see. 



In the toss of a penny or the throw of a die the result 

 depends upon immutable laws; and if we could but know 

 the action of the various forces at work, that is to say the 

 direction, intensity, and the point of application of each. 



