On the Continuity of Chance 13 



1 2 10 30 52 



10 1 15 289 484 512 



9 10 49 47 5 



8 45 82 51 6 



7 120 119 48 7 



6 210 159 51 6 



5 252 186 52 8 



Still another illustration: a boy is struggling with the mul- 

 tiplication table. Over it and over it he goes, and yet, so far 

 as his teacher can see, it is quite a matter of chance what he 

 will name for any product. Nevertheless, by his teacher 

 merely telling him when he is right, when wrong, the corre- 

 spondence between factors and product begins to be formed, 

 and finally the naming of the proper numbers becomes almost 

 altogether a matter of law. Again blind chance has worked 

 against herself, giving him the proper correspondence. 



Does this seem a poor, blundering, hap-hazard way of teach- 

 ing ? All the better is it for our purpose. Blunderer though 

 he is, the teacher will now and again hit upon ways easier for 

 him and in time develop a habit of teaching, a law, which 

 whether bad or good, furnishes yet another illustration of how 

 by chance order is evolved out of chaos. 



Need I further multiply illustrations? Wherever choice of 

 change is possible — and where is it not ? — there chance is pos- 

 sible, and slowly but surely works to dififerentiate these changes 

 connecting each with its appropriate condition. To each pos- 

 sible happening there is given its chance till at last it find its 

 place in an orderly scheme. 



But was not the tendency to form a law itself a law? Per- 

 haps. Then go still further back to the tendency toward that 

 tendency. Go back forever. Continuity leads to less of tend- 

 ency, to less and less of law, to chaos undisturbed, to vacancy, 

 to chance; so infinite potentiality with zero actuality. A 



U3 



