Testimonies of ancient Writers how generally this Opinion was received The Reader if he please may consult those quoted in the Margin for his farther Satisfaction * A Gell. L. vi c. 2. Diog. Laert. L. vii s 149. J. Lips de Constan L. i. c. 17. As I do â—ot intend to enlarge upon explainâ—ng the Opinion so neither do I â—pon the Arguments used either â—n Defence or in Prejudice of it The Whole of my Design is only â—o shew that They who attributed all things â—o such a Chain of Causes did not underâ—tand themselves nor had any Idea of what â—hey said in the Matter First then All they advanced concernâ—ng this Destiny was groundless and supposed â—nly and that too such a Notion as is of â—o service towards the clearing any one Diffiâ—ulty in the World For who ever told the Stoicks that every thing is necessarily and â—navoidably brought about in the Manner â—â—ve see it How did they know that Causes â—ct with such uncontroulable Power and that the Effects so inseparably follow them This was not sure revealed to them from Heaven They never pretended to such Divine Authority for it It was in truth a vulgar Opinion which They as well as many others espoused by Strength of Fancy There was not any inward Sentiment of their Mind reflecting upon the Fatality of their own Actions that had disposed them to it Let any Man examine his own Breast and say in good earnest whether he be throughly convinced that all the Resolutions he takes were such as he found himself necessarily determined to and that he could not possibly have resolved otherwise No Man I darâ— be consident who speaks sincerely is ablâ— to say this Can we then affirm that otheâ— Intelligent Beings which the Stoicks whâ— held an infinite Number of Gods of different Orders acknowledged to be in thâ— World have no Liberty neither but thaâ— They are dragg'd along in all they do by thâ— same Chain of Destiny It is evident no Maâ— can affirm this without saying what he neither does nor can know Now if such 〈◊〉 Spirit as our Humane Soul be free as we plainly find and feel it at least in abundance oâ— Instances and if there may be other Intelligent Substances free as well as this then it iâ— the vainest thing in the World to talk oâ— Fatality or Destiny when infinite Free Spirits do a thousand things which it was possible for them not to have done at all Buâ— without running the Matter so far this iâ— most certain that no Man can say that he assuredly knows that there are no free Agents or Causes in the World and consequently it must be allowed that Destiny is aâ— groundless Supposition and advanced without any Proof Nay it is the less defensible because of no use in Philosophy My meaning is that admitting the thing we are never the nearer giving an account of any one natural Effect than those who reject it Nay These indeed give a much more probable Account upon Their Principles than the former And if we make a Tryal now by applying this Notion to any common Case our own Experience will quickly demonstrate the Truth of what I say To keep close to my Subject I desire to know for instance whence it comes to pass that the Persons who had the greatest Benefits in the Lotteries lately drawn had those advantagious Lots and that a world of People who took out as many or more Tickets than They got nothing Will you think it an Answer to say This was brought about by a Chain of necessary Causes which disposed the Benefits and Blanks in such a certain Order Where are these necessary Causes which have produced this Effect It is ridiculous to assert such a thing as this without any Proof and to give a meer Supposition for a Reason of somewhat else and that too such a Supposition as it is impossible to give any probable appearance to Now if I on the other hand averr that this Combination of Tickets proceeds from the Motions given to them when they were mingled together without any knowledge or design of the Persons by whom they were so mingled this is what no Man can disprove me in If I proceed and say again that such a Motion is the Effect of a free Intelligent Substance who shakes the Boxes in which the Tickets lye more or less and who is guided more by Humour or Fancy than by Reason This again is what cannot be denied me Now then I will say such a one had the Great Lot because according to the Motion of the Tickets his Number came up against that Lot After which there is no reason for any farther enquiry For I ought not undertake nor is it possible for me to give the reason of that Motion and Order into which the Tickets were put without the Minglers knowing what effect it would produce nor why they shook the Boxes Ten times for instance rather than Nine or Eleven So that the Stoick's Fatality which some will have the Cause of good and bad Luck upon these Occasions is the fondest Imagination that can be But I have more against it still which is that They who use the words Fatality and Destiny have no Idea of what they say themselves and this is my Second Remark upon the particular Point now before us 'T is true they give several Definitions of these things which come at last to that already mentioned But they are such Definitions as do not shew that they have any clear and distinct or indeed any Idea at all of the thing they pretend to define This will soon be seen by examining Chrysippus his Definition in A. Gellius whose words in the Original are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is A Natural Connexion of all this Vniverse where from all Eternity one thing follows another constantly and regularly This Connexion he says afterwards is * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inviolable A. Gellius hath paraphrased it thus Sempiterna quaedam indeclinabilis series â—rerum Catena volvens semet ipsa sese implicans per aeternos Consequentiae ordines ex quibus apta connexaque est The rendring whereof strictly and literally as it is difficult so is it unnecessary because I have given the sense of it before Now in order to comprehend the Fallacy of these Terms we shall do well to observe that our Ideas may be reduced to Two sorts The First are of Things which have an actual existence without us The Other of such as our Mind forms to it self at pleasure and which have nothing in nature and reality which answers to our Ideas When I for example am looking upon a Tree and consider what it is that then presents it self to my thoughts this is an Idea of a thing really existing whether I think upon it or not But now when I form to my self an Idea of a Tree a Mile in heighth and bearing golden Apples this is a fanciful Idea and such
are commonly used at present Destiny they tell us is likewise taken for the particular Lot of each Person and for that Portion of Good or Evil ordinarily distributed to each Man One would think this Definition sufficiently clear and that all I have said upon this occasion might be abundantly confuted by having recourse to it And indeed did it import no more than barely the Events of Things without any regard to the Necessity of such Events or to some unknown Cause which determins and produces them the Difficulty would vanish But I assert that in using this word Men constantly imply in their Ideas of it this Cause and the Necessity of such Events The Academy have put this beyond dispute by the Examples they give as No Man can avoid his Destiny This is the Fate of Great Men or Great Common-wealths and the like The First of these makes manifestly for me For it is derived from the Pagan Idiom who constantly delivered their Minds after this manner Many Examples whereof Stobaeus hath left us in his eighth and ninth Chapters of the Collections of Natural Productions The two others upon enquiry will be found to confirm what I have said We commonly say 't is the Fate of Great Men to be more esteemed when dead than while yet living and we plainly mean by this not only that this very often happens but that their being so is the Effect of I know not what Fatality which entails Envy upon Virtue and Merit So again we say it is the Fate of Great Common-wealths to fall by their own Weight and to ruine themselves when they grow too Great By which is inferred that there is a certain Period and Measure of Greatness determined by Destiny to which when Common-wealths have once attained all beyond that tends to their decay and undoing Every Reader will easily recollect what he hath heard or read in Authors to this purpose Perhaps these Gentlemen thought Destiny and Fatality to be two distinct Things For they define the latter by calling it Vnavoidable Destiny which looks as if they had a Notion that there is a sort of Destiny which may be avoided They have likewise among their Examples put Fatal Destiny Now Fatal and Inevitable when applied to Destiny are mere Epithets and Expletives fit only for Poets when they want to make up a Verse but otherwise of no use at all M. Richelet seems to know no Destiny but that which is inevitable For his Definition of it is a Certain Disposition and Order of Providence which makes things infallibly come to pass This is in truth the Stoicks Notion put into Christian Language And thus Lipsius hath done in his Book of Constancy The Abbot Furetiere comes very near M. Richelet and defines Destiny thus A Disposition or Chain of Second Causes ordered by Providence which infers and produces a Necessity in the Event I shall not here contest these Definitions because my Eighth Chapter will oblige me to it where I propose to shew that God is not the Cause of what the World call Good Luck as is generally supposed But besides it is plain that They who use these words Destiny and Fatality think as little of Providence at that instant as if there were no such thing These Gentlemen indeed if we observe it strictly have defined what the word Destiny must signify if it signify any thing at all but by no means what the Generality of People intend by it when they speak it Now there is a vast difference between giving us a Definition of that which Men should mean by a Word and that which they generally do mean by it in common Discourse It is sufficient that from what hath gone before I may fairly conclude that Stoical Destiny or Fatality signifies nothing neither in the Books of the Ancient or Modern Writers nor in the Mouth of the Vulgar There is no real Being in Nature to which these Names properly belong and no thing is more loose and fantastical more confused and unintelligible than that arbitrary Idea which Men form of it in their own Minds A Man had much better say nothing than affirm that he Won or Lost in a Lottery because it was his Good or Ill Fate to do so I should think it much more excusable to declare I Won or Lost by Hocus pocus tempora bonus and think the Gibberish of common Jugglers the better Sense of the Two CHAP. IV. That the Terms Good or Ill Fortune frequently mean nothing no more than Chance What Sense this last Word is capable of THe second Cause usually assigned for Good or Ill Luck is Fortune or which is but another Name for the same thing Chance Now I think my self able to prove that these English words and those which answer to them in other Languages are as far from having any clear Significations as those treated of in the last Chapter But before I reprove the modern Use of these Words it will be proper to enquire what Notions the ancient Greeks and Romans had of them because from thence they are derived down to us If They were at a loss for their own Meaning in them it can hardly be expected that We should understand them better And we indeed are more to blame because Religion and Time ought to have enlightned our Understandings and taught us to speak more correctly than They did The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek and Fortuna in Latin signified formerly what Fortune does in English but withal some unknown Principle by which a thousand Things came to pass without any necessity of their being thus or thus This is the Difference between Fortune and Destiny that the One supposes a necessary Cause of the Effects produced by it and the other excludes it * Phys L. 2. c. 4 5 6. Aristotle whose natural Philosophy is generally founded upon the Expressions and Notions of the People condemns the Philosophers who had written before him of a great Absurdity for not defining 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fortune or Chance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because 't is clear he says beyond dispute that Fortune or Chance produce infinite Effects in Nature And though They had not thought so yet they ought to have spoken to them and so much the rather because they sometimes used these Words themselves For his own part he made no doubt but that there were such things as Fortune and Chance And this is his manner of Arguing upon them by which he discovers the Vulgar Forms of Speech to have oftentimes lain at the bottom of his Opinions In regard we see that some things come to pass always and others for the most part after the same manner this makes it plain that Fortune is not the Cause of any of these things That which is an Effect of Fortune cannot proceed from a necessary and regular Cause which always nor from such a one as generally Acts alike But now since some things there are besides these which
Word signifies Nothing The former of these is Lactantius who argues thus Fortune in it self is nothing we are not to suppose that the Word denotes any thing of real existence Inst Divin l. 3. c. 29. take it in what sense you please Fortune is no more than an Event which is sudden and unexpected But the Philosophers that they might not fail to mistake in every thing pretended to be very Wise in a trifling Matter Those I mean who change the Sex of Fortune and will needs have it a God and not a Goddess The same Deity they call sometimes Nature and sometimes Fortune because as Cicero observes it effects many things which we do not expect by reason of our Ignorance in the Causes that produce them And not knowing the Reasons why a thing happens Men must needs be ignorant what it is that brings it about The same Author in a very serious Tract where he gives his Son Rules drawn from Philosophy to govern him in his Behaviour Who says he does not know that the Power of Fortune is great which side soever she takes For when she opposes us we are certainly worsted Lactantius after some Reflections upon Cicero which are not much to the Matter now in hand proceeds in this manner Who does not know says he For my part I know no such thing Let him shew me if he can what that Power is what is the Favour of Fortune and what her Opposition to us It is by no means for the Reputation of a Man of Wit and Parts to lay down a thing for granted which if one deny he is not able to make out The other Author which I shall produce upon this Occasion is * De Cons Phil. L. 1. Pros i. Boethius whose Style in Beauty is equal to that of Lactantius and his Reasoning is much before His. If any one says Philosophy with whom Boethius is holding a Dialogue defines an accidental Event Casum and such as is not produced by any Connexion of Causes I assert that Chance is nothing in the World that it is an empty Word without any Sense or Signification at all For where can Chance find a place in things which God keeps in a regular Method There is no greater Truth than that nothing can come out of nothing Not one of the Ancients ever contradicted this Maxime tho' they understood it not of the Efficient but the Material Cause Now if a thing were produced without a Cause that thing would come out of nothing But if this cannot be then neither can there be such a thing as Chance according to our Definition of it Well but replies Boethius is there then nothing which we can properly call fortuitous or casual Or is there somewhat to which these Names belong tho' the Vulgar know it not Aristotle says Philosophy hath cleared this Difficulty in few words in his Book of Physicks and comes very near to the truth of the matter What I pray is his Resolution of the Case Says Boethius When any thing is done with a certain design replies Philosophy and some other thing different from that which was intended does for other causes happen this thing so besides the Intention of the Agent is what we call a fortuitous or casual Event As if a Man for instance in digging his Ground with a design to cultivate it should find a Pot of Gold hidden there We say this is casual but yet it had a real and proper Cause and the unforeseen and unexpected Concurrence of such Causes forms that which is termed a casual Event If He who cultivated his Ground had not digged it or if he who buried this Treasure had not laid it in that place the Gold had not been found as it was These then are the Causes of that accidental Gain which happened to the Man by this Concurrence of theirs altogether foreign from the Design which he proposed to himself in digging his Ground The Remainder of this Argument may be seen in the Original for I cannot agree with Boethius in every Branch of it But this proves that if the Ancients used the words of Fortune or Chance to denote any unknown Being which acts without any Rule and which is neither a Spiritual nor a Bodily Substance they knew not their own meaning And yet thus I have shewed that Aristotle used them whatever Boethius says here to bring him off Let us now consider the Thing in it self And in order to discern what Sense these words Fortune and Chance are capable of we must remember that there are only Two sorts of Beings which we know of that can contribute to any thing that befals us The First sort consists of Bodies which acting alone and without the interposition of any other Cause leave no room for Fortune or Chance Because they act by fix'd unalterable Rules of Mechanism as all who have the least knowledge of Mechanicks and Natural Philosophy are abundantly satisfied The Common People indeed say a Body falls of it self when no Man nor any sensible Cause that comes under our Observation threw it down As when Fruit falls from a Tree or a Tile from the Roof of a House without any pulling or blast of Wind to blow it down And it is a very usual thing to say such things fell of themselves or by Chance But it is by no means true that nothing interposed and that no external Cause contributed to that Fall The Air and the Weight of the Bodies not to mention several other Causes that might concur occasioned their Fall A Body would continue for ever in the same State did not some Cause from without make an Alteration This is an Axiom in Natural Philosophy which I need not here go about to prove The second sort of Beings are what we call Spirits who among several other Faculties belonging to them are endued with Liberty which they exercise upon infinite Occasions They can at any time do or not do what they do they can do it after this or that manner they determine themselves in doubtful or indifferent Cases or what they look upon to be such by Humour and Fancy Without any Other Reason but that they have a mind to act so or so and without the interposition of any thing that should necessarily engage their Judgment or their Will Without troubling my Readers with a long Lecture of Metaphysicks I appeal to every Man 's own Sense and Experience and am entirely perswaded that all who will speak truly what they feel within themselves in innumerable Instances of Humane Life will agree that what I have said is the very Truth of the Case In this respect it may be said that the free determination of a Spiritual Substance is an Effect of Chance because it does not proceed from any necessary Cause And in regard Spirits act much upon Bodies the intervening of these Operations produce somewhat casual in those Motions which otherwise would not be at all We will put the
case that a Box full of Tickets for the purpose lyes upon a Table Those Tickets will all remain in the same situation till they are moved and that which lyes uppermost will infallibly be drawn first Here is no Chance in all this But if a Man shakes this Box several times without knowing what Alteration this shaking makes in the Order of the Tickets by the Will of that Person intervening upon this occasion and that in a manner altogether free Here is somewhat of Chance It is in the Choice of that Person whether he will shake the Box at all or not whether he will shake it more or less and to turn it as many different ways as he pleases In shaking and turning it he is guided purely by his own Humour without knowing what Effect this will have after all which that Ticket which comes next to hand is taken out without knowing to what Person it belongs This is the usual Manner of Drawing in Lotteries and this we may call meer Chance which makes such a Man's Ticket come up against such a Lot By this you see that Chance in proper speaking is Nothing And that when we say Such a Hit is owing to Chance the true meaning of it is that this is not meerly the Mechanical Effect of the Motion of the Tickets but that some Intelligent Being contributed to it which gave its free Assistance in the thing without knowing what would be the Consequence or how that Change in the Tickets could be made So that the Word is rather of a Negative than an Affirmative Importance or the Name of a Negative rather than a Positive Idea It denotes only thus much that there was no Cause intervening which did necessarily produce a certain and determinate Effect or that made use of its Understanding to produce that particular Effect The Abbot Furetiere observes that Chance is sometimes spoken of as a Person and denotes an Imaginary Being to which we foolishly attribute those Effects of whose Causes we are ignorant I own that sometimes Chance may have those Effects attributed to it which have a determinate and necessary Cause But when Men express themselves thus it is from their Ignorance at least if they pretend to speak properly But thus much is certain however as I have shewn that it is an Imaginary Being a Creature of our own Brain and that nothing less than a Poetical License will justifie our mentioning Chance as a Person which yet is a Form of Speech so much countenanced by common use that there are very few Expressions more frequently to be met with From these Premises it evidently follows that good Luck which is a Consequence of this Chance is likewise in the common acceptation of the Word a pure Chimera People pretend that good Luck is confined and fixed to some certain Persons and at the same time that it is the Effect of Chance which is a manifest Contradiction The Nature of Chance consists in its dependence upon a free Cause determining it self by Humour and Fancy without Order or Design and yet they will needs have it that good Luck is so fixed that it shall happen to this or that particular Man Now what can be more palpably absurd than to assert that an Effect is and is not determined at the same time Thus Chance in it self is nothing and the good Luck which goes along with some certain Persons is if I may so say somewhat less than nothing The First expresses a negative Idea only the Second a contradictory Idea if it be allowable to call a Contradiction an Idea The Case is all one with the word Fortune which is sometimes represented as a Cause peremptorily resolved to oblige some and to persecute others Fortune was on Pompey's side before the Civil Wars but afterwards she forsook and fought against him Alexander had her at his beck till his last Sickness but then he is thought Unfortunate not to escape Poysoning In short Ancient and Modern Writers both abound with Expressions opposite to each other when they speak of the Constancy or Inconstancy of Fortune The only Account whereof is that This is a Phantome of their own forming and that their Imagination added to or took from it at pleasure and as they saw occasion We commonly say that Men are the Sport of Fortune that she plays with them for her Diversion but it were more proper to say that Fortune is our Play-thing since we give and take away from her just what we think fit The Gentlemen of the French Academy after having said that Fortune was a Goddess with the Heathens add that Now-a-days though we do not own Fortune to be any thing in it self yet most of the Expressions then in use are still continued but that they are to be understood in a figurative Sense If these Expressions signified nothing in the Mouths of Them who erected Altars to Fortune I vehemently suspect they do not signifie much more in the Writings of Those Authors who use them figuratively now For indeed they are only used by a Prosopopoeia Now in a Prosopopoeia we are allowed indeed to speak of what we conceive in the quality of a Person but I have never heard nor read that we might make a Person of a meer Nothing or rather of that which is less than Nothing of that which we are not able to form any no not so much as a negative Conception of I have never observed any thing of this kind done except a Poem entituled Nothing which is altogether founded upon an equivocal Construction of the Word which is not easie if possible to be rendred properly Others as the Abbot Furetiere in particular pretend that by Fortune at present we are to understand Providence These are his Words in his Dictionary This was formerly a Heathen Goddess and thought to be the Cause of all surprising and extraordinary Events whereas in truth it is the Divine Providence acting by Methods unknown and far above Humane Wisdom It is confest that the Word Fortune ought many times to be thus understood if we will allow it to signifie any thing in the Writings of many Men and even of some Authors whose Eloquence and Delicacy of Expression is admired by all the World But yet this was not the thing They meant by it as will quickly appear if we take out the Word Fortune and substitute that of Providence in its stead I will produce some Instances to save my Reader the trouble of Search and Recollection such as will shew that there is no Figure in them which admits of any rational Meaning whether they would interpret it as personating a thing that is not or whether they would put upon Providence the vile and scandalous Disguise of Fortune These shall be taken out of M. Rochefoucaut's Maxims which must be acknowledged a Master-piece in their kind Observe how he expresses himself in his 60th Reflection They that think themselves Men of Merit esteem it a Happiness to
happen so that all the World declare them to be the Effect of Fortune we may plainly see that there are such things as Fortune and Chance For we know very well both that the things of this Nature are the Work of Fortune and that what Fortune does is always of this Nature This manner of Argument supposes the common Forms of Speaking to be the Rule of True and False and that a Man may conclude from Words to Things which in a Philosopher is a most ridiculous Imagination For what is more common than for the People to entertain false Notions of Things and for the ways of expressing themselves suited to their Notions to be very improper and distant from the Truth Afterwards he says that when any thing of Advantage happens to a Man by Accident This is such a thing as we call the Effect of Fortune or Chance For Example A Man goes to a Place whither he does not use to go and where he should receive Money though at that time he went not thither with any such design if he receive Money there we say that he went thither and received it by Chance He pretends again that Herein Fortune and Chance differ Fortune is not properly concerned except in the Actions of such Beings as act upon a Principle of Choice whereas Chance takes place in the Effects of Causes which do not act by Choice I know not whether this Difference were constantly observed in common Speech but it is certain that those Bodies were called Automata which were thought to move of themselves Thus this Philosopher imagined he had defined the Nature of a Cause in Physicks while he only defined the Words by which People used to express themselves for he pretends that Chance had a great hand in Forming the Universe which is a most absurd Fancy and more becoming a Clown or an Ideot than a Philosopher as we shall see by and by The Latins who put no such distinction between Fortuna and Casus define them thus Lot Chance Fortune Event what else is all this but a thing 's falling out after one particular manner when it might either not have happened at all or have happened after quite another manner than it hath done Quid est aliud Sors quid Fortuna quid Casus quid Eventus nisi cum sic aliquid accidit sic evênit De Div. Nat. L. 2. c. 6. ut vel non cadere atque evenire vel aliter cadere atque evenire potuerit A Man that reads these Definitions of Fortune would be apt to think by some part of them that the Ancients did mean something by it and yet on the other hand to suspect that they had no Notion at all of the matter Aristotle is express that the common Way of Speaking proves Fortune and Chance to be something 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But if they be something what sort of Things are they Are they Spirits Are they Bodies Are they of some different Nature Aristotle in his Sixth Chapter of the Second Book of Physicks distinguishes them plainly from Spirit and * i. e. Body Nature for these he says are the Causes of all things Essentially and per se These two last Causes he owns did at first produce the Heaven and all the material World but yet he says that when all this was done a thousand Things were effected by Chance afterwards But still he does not inform us what this pretended Cause is considered in it self For in truth he knew not what he meant by it himself And one may see he did not by his quoting the common Form of Speech explaining the Word by the Use of it but never giving any Definition of Fortune He does indeed disallow that Notion of some who made Fortune a real Cause but such as the Mind of Man knew nothing of because too divine a thing for Man to comprehend it But all that he does is only telling us the Occasion how this Word grew so generally into Use In the mean while not to mention the Poets and their Modes of Speech which might be accused of too great liberty in Fiction the Temples which in several places were dedicated to Good or Ill Fortune seem to say that This was generally reputed a Deity For certainly Men must be mad to the last Degree who shall go about to build Temples address their Prayers and Praises and offer Sacrifices to any but Gods that is such as they believe to have a divine and much more an actual Existence Now This Reasoning were certainly conclusive did Men always speak and act consistently but as it is they often speak Words which they do not understand and do many Things when they know not what they do Tullus Hostilius built a Temple to Fear and Paleness Others erected Temples to the Mind to Vertue Pallori Pavori Liv. l. 1. c. 27. Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. 2. Lactan. l. 1. to Honour to Piety to Fidelity to Hope to Chastity to Concord to Peace to Rest to Safety to Fortune to Liberty c. Others again were consecrated to to the Feaver to the Year the Month to Art to Poverty to Old Age to Death Now I can by no means perswade my self that the Ancients believed all these things to be things actually Existing but they knew not what they did when they built such Temples and therefore the Actions of Men will give us no surer ground of arguing from them than their Words and common Talk will Nay Some among them were well aware that when Men talked of Fortune they talked of a thing they did not understand Democritus says Men formed to themselves a Phantome of Fortune Euseb Praep. Ev. l. xiv 27. only for a Cover to their Ignorance This Passage is likewise quoted from a Comedy of Philemon There is no such Deity as Men call Fortune no no such matter all things happen by Chance and that which the World calls Fortune is any thing that happens to Men without being able to give a Reason why it should do so So again Tully The Causes under the Governance of Fortune are secret for every thing must have its Cause Cic. Top. c. 17. but whatever is effected by a hidden Cause and by a Method which we cannot account for this is properly an Effect of Fortune And Juvenal tells us Sat. x. that Fortune is only a Goddess in Fiction and of Mens making Nullum Numen abest si sit Prudentia sed Te Nos facimus Fortuna Deam caeloque locamus Fortune was never Worshipp'd by the Wise But set aloft by Fools usurps the Skies Thus you see by the Testimony of these Heathen Writers that the Word Fortune signifies nothing at all though some pretended that it imports a real Existence I shall clear this Point by enquiring into the thing it self when I have first produced two Passages of Christian Authors who expose and confute the Worshippers of Fortune and were of my Opinion that this
as no Tree actually existing ever resembled Now when these two sorts of Ideas are to be defined we must proceed very differently with respect to each of them When an imaginary Idea is to be defined you are at your own liberty Say but what you will have it and the Definition is just and good But when a thing which actually exists is to be defined by the Idea we conceive of it we are not then at liberty to make this Definition what we please because the existence of the thing is independent upon us and to make this a good Definition it must shew what the thing defined hath in common with the rest of the same Species and what it hath peculiar to it self whereby it is distinguished from them So that after having heard and understood this we can conceive the thing before us clearly without confounding it with any other thing whatsoever Great care must be taken not to confound the Definition of an abstracted Idea with that which describes an Idea of a thing which really exists For else it is evident we shall not only attribute to things existing somewhat which in truth they have not but we shall also mistake abstracted and arbitrary Ideas for the Images of things which have an actual existence And this is directly the Errour of the Stoicks in the Matter now under consideration They saw not any thing in Nature which could oblige them to think that there is an unavoidable Destiny in all Events The Idea they have been pleased to form to themselves of this Matter cannot be said to be copied after Nature as that of a Tree is from something seen by us It is an Idea purely notional and abstracted such as they have tryed to frame as they could and in which these two things are observable First They take it for granted without any Proof that there is in reality such a Destiny as they had formed in their own imagination They confound an Idea framed at pleasure with an Idea of somewhat actually existing and this shews that they did not rightly understand themselves Secondly Setting aside the thing it self considered as somewhat existing otherwise than in our own imagination yet if we examine the Idea which answers to the Words I have now quoted even thus we shall find it loose and altogether indistinct Those Words A Connexion of all things in the Vniverse with each other signifie nothing particular and express upon this occasion and the rest of the Definition which follow one another from all Eternity are every whit as dark and confused as the former This is a blind Description of a chimerical Je ne scay quoy which hath some affinity and relation to the loose Ideas of Disposition Connexion and Consequence It is a Picture of an unknown Entity of which no Man hath a particular Conception and by vertue whereof according to the Principles of the Stoick Philosophy every thing is necessarily brought to pass Plutarch who frequently falls foul upon these Philosophers though he seem in part to concur with their Opinion of Destiny will furnish us with sundry and sensible Instances of Expressions which have no determinate signification In his Book how Men ought to study the Poets he tells us that several things attributed to the Gods are not to be understood of the Gods themselves but of Destiny or Fortune When Hesiod for the purpose forbids us to reproach any Man with his Poverty because this is the Disposal and Gift of the * i.e. the Gods Blessed that exist eternally Plutarch hath this Remark The Poet calls that the Gift of the Gods which depends upon Fortune He tells us we ought not to blame those whom Fortune hath made poor but that Poverty is then blamable and reproachful when attended with Idleness Meanness of Spirit Effeminacy and Prodigality in the Person labouring under it For the Name of Fortune being not yet commonly used and Men being sensible that their utmost Prudence could not obstruct the sovereign Power of a Cause acting without Rule or Method they described this Cause by attributing it to the Gods And afterwards having cited some Verses of Homer which seem to make Jupiter the Author of Evil he adds that by Jupiter we are to understand Destiny or Fortune which are Causes which we cannot comprehend and such as have no dependence at all upon our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These Words shew plainly that those Expressions are Names for two very dark Ideas and which are little if at all different from Nothing Now though this Observation be most true yet men are so used to talk what they do not understand and at the same time to fancy they understand what they say perfectly well that the same Expressions continue still in use To say nothing at present of Fortune which will come under our Consideration by and by we every Day hear Men expressing themselves after this manner that such a one was brought to such a place by his Good or Ill Fate that his Good Fate put him upon venturing in such a Lottery where he got a good Benefit That his Ill Destiny ordained he should put in a greater Sum than he could afford in a Lottery where he drew nothing but Blanks That his Good Destiny brought him a good Lot That his Ill Destiny kept him from winning and a world of other such like Forms of Speech in common Conversation If the much greater part of Men who talk thus were called upon to explain their own meaning they would find themselves wretchedly at a loss For most People in speaking are governed more by Custom than by Knowledge and Consideration They use this Word upon some Occasions which they find it applied to before by others without attending to any Sense of it I have often made the Experiment and found that Men who had their good and ill Fate constantly in their Mouths have not been able to answer me when I asked what they meant by it They were surprised at my enquiring what they intended by so common an Expression but yet they were not able to make me understand what they would be at when they used it If we consult the Gentlemen of the French Academy they tell us in their Dictionary that the Philosophers gave this Name to a necessary Chain of Causes subordinate to each other which never fail of producing their Effect and that the Poets understood by it a Power to which the Gods themselves are subject This Definition is much the same with the former only not altogether so exact And besides these Gentlemen had no reason to make a difference between the Poets and the Philosophers for both agreed in thinking the Gods subject to Destiny as I could easily shew were it necessary to my purpose I need not insist longer upon this Definition after what hath been said to That of the Stoicks But they have given us another whereby they seem to intend an Explication of Fate and Destiny as they
be Vnfortunate that so They and Others may look upon them as Persons considerable enough to be set as a Mark for Fortune I can hardly think M. Furetiere would have ventur'd to say a Mark for Providence in the same sense or that the Author of the Maxims entertained any thing like so impious a Thought when he wrote thus The 64th begins thus The Contempt of Riches was in some ancient Philosophers a secret Desire of doing Right to their Merit and revenging themselves upon the Injustice of Fortune by despising the same Advantages which she would not suffer them to enjoy Certainly no Man would talk of the Injustice of Providence or of taking a Revenge upon That The 458th observes that Fortune never appears so blind as to Those whom she does no good to Now this is not only downright Paganism in the Expression but even in the Idea or that which is pretended to answer to those Expressions And yet thus much Right ought to be done M. Furetiere to acknowledge that in many Passages where the Word Fortune is to be met with that of Providence may very properly be exchanged for it An Instance whereof the 70th Reflection gives us Fortune turns every thing to the advantage of those she loves Providence will stand very well there and so make this Maxim in sense almost the same with that of St. Paul Rom. 8.20 That all things work together for Good to them that love God Though 't is probable M. Rochefoucaut might not have this in his thoughts neither But notwithstanding this Agreement of Sense upon some Occasions we cannot reasonably allow that one and the same Word should be used for so many different Purposes as sometimes to signifie a Pagan Goddess sometimes a meer Notion and Chimera of Mens own Brain and at others the Wife and Good Providence of God and that those should consequently be brought in at all turns to share the Government of the Universe with that Providence I meddle not at present with the Absurdity of This upon a Religious Account but am content to observe that that Spirit of Exactness and Justness of Expression which ought to govern all our Discourse should by all means keep us from such dark such ambiguous such insignificant Forms of Speech Some indeed have perceived the Necessity of Reforming our Modern Idioms in this respect The Author of the Penseés diverses Pens 48. which are sometimes annexed to M. Rochesfoucaut's Maxims is one of These One Instance we have in these words Fortune gives out the Parts which each Person plays upon this Theatre of the World blindly and humoursomely And hence there are so many ill Actors because so few People and fitted for their Characters After which he adds by way of Correction Now to speak in Terms more becoming Christians Fortune here is nothing else but the Providence of God which for Reasons unknown to Vs permits this Disorder and Irregular Proceeding Now in this case the Emendation ought to have gone rather upon this foot that instead of Fortune does such things blindly he should have said Providence permits such things to be done For it is plain as the words lye we can by no means understand Providence by Fortune in that Passage What hath been said of Chance and Fortune may be as well applied to Lot Sors which signifies the same thing only Sors is a word more familiar in Poetry than Prose All These amount to no more than Negative Terms as I observed before and all they do is to make us comprehend that the Effect then spoken of is not the Result of a Cause which acts necessarily and is expresly determined to produce it CHAP. V. The Objections drawn from Lotteries and all Games that depend upon Chance answered and shewed insufficient to denominate Men Fortunate or that any Persons have Good Luck constantly going along with them I Am perfectly satisfied that what hath been said of that Luck which is pretended to be the Effect of Destiny or Chance will not admit of any substantial Reply And am apt to promise my self that all who read the two last Chapters heedfully will be of my mind But yet I am as verily perswaded that great Numbers of People who are not able either to disprove me or to establish any Notions of their own upon clear and rational Grounds will not be one whit moved but stiffly maintain it still that let all the World say what they please there is such a thing as good and ill Luck in Matters depending upon Chance They will think as long as they have a Day to live that some certain Persons are fortunate and unfortunate at Games where Chance is thought to govern They will perhaps confess that they do not know indeed how to give any distinct Account of this good or ill Luck what it is or whence it proceeds But long Experience hath taught them that such things are but too real and certain They will agree that they have not Skill enough to overthrow my Reasons sons to the contrary but nothing shall perswade them out of their own Senses and the Prejudices they have entertained have to Them all the force of a Demonstration These are a sort of Men who never troubling themselves to argue upon any Matter go through stitch in all their Opinions and never take them up but with a secret Resolution never to quit them more though for others infinitely better There is no informing or enlightning of them and when you have reasoned with them never so justly all the answer you are to expect is that of the Country-Fellow to his Priest You may Silence me but you shall never Convert me I would not be thought to do so weak a thing as to write this Tract in hopes of gaining these Men over But there are Others content to hear Reason and such as will be satisfied why they think thus rather than otherwise and yet even They find it hard to deliver themselves from the Difficulties objected to them from Instances of Persons who almost always win at Play where all the Skill in the World is not able to make its Party good against their Luck And Others again have so ill a Run that they eternally lose whatever they play for Almost every Body fancies he knows Instances of these lucky or unlucky Hands and yet I am now taking upon me to prove that this Objection hath nothing of true weight in it when rightly considered I do not deny but a Gamester may win at Dice Cards or other Games which either turn all upon Chance or have a mixture of Skill required for an Hour or two nay a whole Afternoon or Night together I agree in like manner that there are Some who with a very few Tickets have got more Prizes in our late Lotteries than Others who have put in ten times as much And lastly I am perfectly satisfied that a great many on the other sido are as unaccountable Losers in the
these things but only that we acknowledge every thing that happens to us to be an Effect of his Direction and Governance of the World And in this respect God is truly said to be the Cause of every thing excepting only the Evil of Sin which proceeds from the voluntary depravation of the Humane Nature Thus we may and ought to ascribe to God any Good Fortune that happens to us whether by matters depending upon Chance or any other way whatsoever though we do not think that he interposes after any particular or extraordinary manner for the determining of them Secondly This Proposition imports that God knowing before-hand all that happens in every kind and having it in his Power to hinder any part of it would not however put a stop to or divert the Course of Natural Causes to hinder the good Luck thus about to happen to any Person and that for special Reasons Tho' we cannot positively affirm that God had no such Reasons in his Eye because this is what we know nothing of Nor can we affirm that he had at least except God should please to reveal them to us or that we could fairly infer this by the Consequences of those Effects For the purpose The Great Lots lately drawn in England and Scotland are the Effects of Chance in the disposal whereof it is possible God might have some particular Reasons inducing him to give them to Those particular Men but it is possible too that he might not act upon any such particular Reasons He hath not revealed to us any thing of the Matter And the Consequences of that Advantage which some Persons gained have not produced Effects considerable enough to incline us to think that God had any particular Reasons for ordering those Benefits to those that enjoy them Thirdly This Proposition may signifie that God does interpose in casual Events after so particular a manner that he acts by an immediate Power and Providence in the Production of them And this is the usual Acceptation of the Words for otherwise Men have no reason to say that God presides over Lots and casual Events in any more particular manner than he does over all natural Effects whatsoever Now I am so far from denying that God can that I am well content to allow that he does upon several Occasions interpose after so extraordinary a manner as to make the Lot fall upon some certain Persons upon whom possibly it would not have fallen without such Interposition I shall explain my self by some Examples of this kind by and by But the thing I contend for is that generally speaking we cannot make God the immediate Author of good and ill Luck so as that he should bring this about by any supernatural and extraordinary Operation I am aware of one Passage in the Old Testament usually produced for Proof of the contrary Opinion But I hope to make it clear that it does not at all answer that purpose when I have first laid down the Reasons which induce me to believe that generally speaking God does not direct or concern himself with the Events of this kind more particularly than he does with those of any other kind whatsoever First I averr this Opinion to be A Supposition taken up without any Ground For I shall shew presently that there is nothing in Scripture to support it So that they who hold it have no other Refuge left than to prove it by the Consequences of such Events Now these Consequences as I said before are not of such Importance that the Finger of God should commonly be thought visible in them If the General Good of a Nation or Kingdom or of some Persons eminently serviceable to the Publick were the Result of such Events we then might probably conclude that God was more than ordinarily concerned to promote such good Effects But nothing of this kind yet appears nay we see quite contrary that several upon whom these Benefits have fallen make no other use of them than to be more profuse and vain in their Expences and make them either minister to their Pride or increase their Avarice And can any Man of common Sense suppose that God hath gone out of his Way as it were and wrought Miracles for the Advantage of the Vain and the Covetous Secondly If God act after a particular manner in Casual Events he either does it in All or in Some such only If in Some only let them be specified and let it be proved that such an Immediate Operation does not extend to the rest Now this is a Point never to be decided but by express Revelation or at least by Arguments drawn from Effects worthy of so particular a Providence Without one of these Proofs it is to no purpose to advance any such Distinction Now if God preside thus over all such Events and direct them by a positive and particular Act of his Will it will follow from hence that God works Miracles every Day for the sake of Men who it is but too plain are not worthy of them and in Places where we could hardly suspect that God should take any delight in exhibiting his Presence after an extraordinary manner They that play at Cards and Dice would at this rate engage God to declare for them by perpetual Wonders and the Groom-porters and Gaming-houses would have infinitely more Miracles wrought in them than ever the Temple it self or any other place had though we should take in all that stand upon Record or were ever done under the Old and New Testament I cannot tell whether such Consequences as these will go down with Others but for my own part I declare freely that there are very few things which I find my self less disposed to believe than that God works Miracles of this kind every Day for Gamesters Lotteries indeed are nothing near so frequent as Games but it is every whit as improbable that God should particularly interest himself in These as in Those For if the Placing of the Tickets be not the Effect of Chance but of a particular Providence then every Ticket drawn presents us with a fresh Miracle And as oft as Men shall take a fancy to set up new Lotteries God will be obliged if I may have leave to say so to come down from Heaven and regulate the Order of the Tickets He by his positive Assignment will dispense the Money to some and not to others without any visible reason of this difference whether we regard the Qualifications of the Persons or the Use they make of it Will those that have drawn the most considerable Benefits have the Confidence to say that their Merit was so much Superiour to Theirs who had only Blanks as to give them a better Title to the Favour of Heaven or have we any reasonable Assurance that this Success will dispose them to be more beneficent and charitable for the future This is an Enquiry which I charge upon their own Conscience to answer and what Time must inform