COINCIDENCES, LUCK, CHANCE 



true instauce of magnanimity ; a spontaneous response by his higher 

 powers, to the appeal of outraged honor, on the part of a man who 

 would not maintain his rights in a vulgar squabble." 



Even such a believer in the occult, as Dr. Purdon 

 evidently is, incidentally says, that in cards, if you take 

 instances enough, the Laws of Probability will assert 

 themselves. So much is this so that to many of us to day 

 the marked feature of all games of pure chance is their 

 certainty, the sureness of the ultimate figures, the certaint3^ 

 of the definite income to the Bank, where the Bank is 

 honest, as at Monaco. The percentage is sure, the results 

 foreseen, so that the balance was never found to be on the 

 left side of the page by Monte Carlo's accountant. 



The rnodern trained mind recognizes Law in this, sees 

 that something re-occurs regularly, and that something \s 

 in "the game," is in the so-called chance; so that you 

 will observe without changing the word we have trans- 

 posed the main thought that the word "chance" now 

 connotes. This is another part of our barely recognized 

 mental outfit, decidedly separating us from our grand- 

 parents. For us, what was an erratic perchance, now 

 spells scientific certainty ; uniformity of result is seen 

 under a domino of lawlessness, and this is an item to be 

 remembered in our intellectual stock-taking. For, as Prof. 

 J. Venn (Cambridge Logician) says : 



" The clear and adequate appreciation of this kind of uniformity 

 may be regarded as the great logical achievement of modern times, 

 that is — ^our having a consciousness of average regularity — of 

 regularity in the long run, combined with absolute irregularity in 

 the details." 



I assume you all know the simpler proofs for this 

 belief, most easily seen by counting and tabulating the 

 results of the toss of a coin, the throwing of perfect dice, 

 and the turn-up of cards. In these easily grasped 

 experiments and illustrations the operation of the law can 

 be seen with the least qualifications the current least 

 influenced by cross flow ; but it is as certain in its action in 



