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
magnas bene gerendas divinitùs Adjuncta Fortuna De hujus autem hominis felicitate quo de nunc Agimus hac utar Moderatione dicendi non ut in illius potestate positam esse Fortunam sed ut praeterita meminisse reliqua sperare videamur It were easie to produce other Testimonies concerning Pompey's Good Fortune but there is no occasion at all for them It will be more agreeable to my present Design to Reflect alittle upon the Ill Fortune which befell him in the Civil War First of all when Caesar began to oppose him he was utterly unprovided of any Means to Resist him and under a necessity of quitting Rome and Italy to his Rival in an ignominious manner His Army in Spain under the Command of Afranius and Petreius was routed by Caesar without so much as one formal Battle He could not hinder him from passing out of Italy into Epirus tho' Caesar had no Fleet to withstand His. Caesar's Troops passed twice without Opposition He lost an Opportunity which was put into his Hands of defeating his Army which might all have been cut to pieces had he pursued the Advantage gained upon them in Epirus And in the Fight at Pharsalia where there was all the likelihood in the World of his beating Caesar he was so Vnfortunate that the very thing which in Appearance must have secured his Conquest was the very Occasion of his Ruine After this Defeat instead of retreating into Mauritania to King Juba who would most gladly have received and assisted him with all his Forces he unluckily threw himself into Egypt and was there Assassinated and Murdered just as he was going ashore Caesar on the Contrary had nothing but â—ood Fortune as we plainly see by his own commentaries and even the rashest and â—ost hazardous Undertakings prospered in his Hand His History is universally known and I need not insist upon Particulars I will therefore only detain the Reader with one single Passage taken out of Plutarch's Book Of the Fortune of the Romans Vpon leaving Brundusium says he the fourth of January he crossed the Sea successfully his Fortune getting the better of the Weather and the Season When he had found Pompey who was then in Epirus with his whole Army and Master both of the Field and the Sea though but a handful of his own Forces were with him those under Antonius and Sabinus being not yet come up to joyn him he boldly embarked in a small Vessel and set Sail without letting the Pilot know who he was and passing in the Disguise of a Servant A violent Storm springing up the Pilot began to tack and then discovering himself he said Go on my Lad and fear not spread all thy Sails to Fortune and take in all the Wind thou canst for thou hast Caesar and his Fortune on board thee Thus He was confident that this Good Fortune sailed and travelled with him that it encamped with him in the Army that it fought with him in his Battles in short that it never left him This made the Sea calm in the roughest Tempest this made Winter to him become as Summer this made Delay and Speed equally successful in the Event and inspired Cowards with Courage Nay which is yet more amazing this made Pompey flee and Ptolomy Murder his Friend that so Pompey might fall without Caesar having the Guilt of shedding his Son-in-law's Blood They who read this Book of Plutarch will find that he endeavours to represent the Greatness of the Roman Empire as an Effect of Good Fortune no less than of Conduct or Courage By these Examples it is plain and by infinite others it might be made appear that it is no new thing for Men to use those Words which in other Languages answer to Good and Ill Fortune in a sense denoting somewhat peculiar to this or that Person at least accompanying him for some Time and upon some Occasions which succeeds or defeats what he undertakes so as that his Prosperous or Disastrous Events cannot be charged upon his own Prudence or the Want of it Though Europe be at this Day Christian yet the Pagan Modes of Expression continue still in use and many Words are taken into common Speech which have scarce any Signification For after all what is this Je ne scay quoy which denominates Men Fortunate or Vnfortunate It can only be One of these Four things Either First Destiny which some heretofore and many even in our Days look â—pon as the Cause of all that happens in the World Or Secondly Fortune which is but another Name for Chance Or Thirdly what the Heathen called a Man 's Good or Evil Genius and some Christians still term his Good or Evil Angel Or else Lastly God himself Now I am positive that no Man without express Revelation can be assured that God or the Angels produce those Events for which we can assign no natural Cause and that Fortune and Destiny are merely imaginary things so that this pretended Principle of Good Luck is in effect nothing at all If a Man were with any Skill to examine those who think they understand themselves perfectly well when they talk of this Matter He would soon find them at a loss to make out their own Meaning If Socrates were alive again who had the knack of confounding Errours by driving Men to Absurdities with plain Questions he would quickly gravel the greatest part of those who talk of Good and Ill Luck by shewing them that they do not know what it is they would be at But it may perhaps be vain to expect that any Man should be found in this Art of Reasoning equal to that incomparable Philosopher And therefore we must content our selves with another Method of Disabusing Mankind by proving particularly that never a one of these Four things just now mentioned is the real Cause of Mens Good or Ill Luck either in Lotteries or in any other Matters which have no necessary Dependence upon the Skill anâ— Prudence of the Persons who engage iâ— them CHAP. III. That Destiny is not the Cause of Good Luck Ill Luck SEveral of the ancient Heathens and particularly the Sect of the Stoicks though every thing that happened to be the unavoidable Effect of Destiny And many no doubâ— at this Day tread in Their Steps from whence it is that we are so frequently told that No Man can avoid his Destiny and thaâ— so many Events are charged upon I know noâ— what Fatality which necessarily brings them to pass When the Stoicks heretofore were asked What they meant by Destiny they readily gave this Answer A certain Framâ— or Disposition of all things mutually linked together A Gell. L. vi c. 2. and moving it self by eternal Successions of Causes and Effects in such a Manner that nothing can break the Chain or divert its Course so that according to their Principles whatever at any time came to pass could not possibly but come to pass It were easie to shew from express
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
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
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
long a Digression upon Liberality it is sit we come back to Lotteries once more before we take our leave These give a hint to one Reffection which is perhaps of at least as great Concern and as seasonable to some sort of Persons as all that hath been said of the true use that should be made of the Profits arising from thence and the true nature of Liberality The Scepticks and Unbelievers who blame none that put in to Lotteries and who often put in themselves would do well to proceed prudently and act thus too with regard to the Promises of another Life which Religion proposes to us Mr. Pascal hath managed this Argument very ingeniously Pensics Ch. vii and I cannot conclude my Book better than by giving you his Thoughts in his own words It is certain that either there is a God or there is None There can be no Medium But which side of the Disjunction shall we incline to Reason you pretend can determine nothing in the matter There is a great Gulf betwixt It is like a Play at an infinite distance where it will be either Cross or Pile What will you bett By Reason you say you can affirm neither by Reason too you can deny neither Do not then find fault with them for choosing wrong who have chosen their side already for you cannot be sure that they have chosen amiss No say you I do not blame them for choosing amiss but for choosing at all For he that takes Cross and he that takes Pile are both in fault the true way had been not to bett at all Nay but you must bett on some side you cannot help it You are drawn in and Not to bett that God is is in effect to bett that he is not Which side will you take now Let us compute the Gain and the Loss that can come by taking that side that God is If you win you win all but if you lose you lose nothing Lay then that He is and make no demur Well I must lay but perhaps I venture too much Let that be considered then Admitting it to be an equal Chance whether you win or lose though you could win no more than two Lives for one it were certainly prudence to lay But if you had a possibility of winning ten it were very unwise not to venture your Life where ten may be got for one and where you have as fair a Chance for Winning as for Losing But in this Case you may win an infinite number of Lives and those too infinitely Happy and you are as likely to win these as not And what you stake is so inconsiderable in Value and so short in duration that it is monstrously foolish not to venture it all upon this Occasion It is to no purpose to object that the Gain is uncertain but the Hazard you run certain and that the infinite distance which there is between the Certainty you venture and the Uncertainty of that which you may win is a Consideration equivalent to the finite Good which you certainly risque and the infinite Good which you are not certain of winning This Matter is far otherwise Every Man that plays ventures a Certainty which is his for an Uncertainly which only may be his And yet he ventures a certain Finite in hopes to win an uncertain Finite without being thought to act unreasonably So that here is not an infinite distance between the Certainty of the Venture and the Uncertainty of the Gain This is not rightly computed I allow indeed that there is an infinite distance between the Certainty of winning and the Certainty of loosing But the Uncertainty is proportionate to the Certainty of that which we stake according to the Proportion of the Chances for winning and losing So that if the number of Chances be equal on either side the Party plays Equal against Equal and then the Certainty of what he ventures is so far from being infinitely Disproportionate that it is exactly equal to the Uncertainty of the Gain Thus our Proposition is of infinite Force where a Man hath really a Finite to venture and an Infinite to win and all this at a Play where he stands every whit as fair for winning as losing This is plain Demonstration and if Men be capable of understanding any Truths they must needs comprehend this I own say you again that they who live in a good hope of Salvation are in a very comfortable State but then there is a terrible Counterbalance to damp this from the fear of Hell Very well But who I beseech you hath most cause to be afraid of Hell The Man that does not know or believe there is a Hall and is sure to be damned if there be one or he who lives in a certain Perswasion that there is a Hell and in hopes of Heaven and Salvation if there be any such thing That Man who had but a Week to live and should imagine that the Believers in this case were not the better side would have utterly lost all Sense and Judgment And yet if our Passions did not enslave and impose upon us One Week and a hundred Years would plainly appear to be the same thing to Men who must die at one time or other Besides what Inconvenience shall you sustain by taking this side of the Betts You will be a Man of exact Fidelity and Honesty Humility and Meekness Gratitude and Beneficence Sincerity and Truth T is true indeed you will not abandon your self to pestilent invenomed Pleasures to Vain-Glory or filthy Delights But will there be no other Satisfactions to make you amends Yes I do faithfully assure you that you will be a Gainer even in this Life and every step you advance in this way a new Prospect will open and discover to you so great a Certainty of winning hereafter and such Vanity and Worthlesness in the Stake you venture that you will be sensible at last that you have Betted for a certain and an infinite Prosit and that what you have parted with to obtain it is a very Nothing Now though M. Pascal do not indeed make use of the word Lottery in these Reflections yet the whole Passage manifestly turns upon the Supposition of some thing very like that And were the thing necessary the Thought throughout might with great ease be expressed in Terms which have a greater Affinity to Lotteries But I think it better to conclude all with this one Admonition to all those who are of Mr. Pascal's side already and make no doubt of Heaven and another World and who in this Perswasion venture and win in Lotteries viz. That Liberality and Charity are absolutely necessary to Entitle them to those blessed Mansions They who neglect these Duties do not only run a Risque but are infallibly certain of being excluded from the Regions of Bliss and they who make such use of their Advantages as they ought shall according to that Promise of the Gospel not sail to lay up for
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