Chance and Luck

To the student of science, accustomed to recognize the operation of law in all phenomena, even though the nature of the law and the manner of its operation may be unknown, there is something strange in the prevalent belief in luck. In the operations of nature and in the actions of men, in commercial transactions and in chance games, the great majority of men recognize the prevalence of something outside law -- the good fortune or the bad fortune of men or of nations, the luckiness or unluckiness of special times and seasons -- in fine (though they would hardly admit as much in words), the influence of something extra-natural if not supernatural. [For to the man of science, in his work as student of nature, the word 'natural' implies the action of law, and the occurrence of aught depending on what men mean by luck would be simply the occurrence of something supernatural.] This is true alike of great things and of small; of matters having a certain dignity, real or apparent, and of matters which seem utterly contemptible. Napoleon announcing that a certain star (as he supposed) seen in full daylight was his star and indicated at the moment the ascendancy of his fortune, or William the Conqueror proclaiming, as he rose with hands full of earth from his accidental fall on the Sussex shore, that he was destined by fate to seize England, may not seem comparable with a gambler who says that he shall win because he is in the vein, or with a player at whist who rejoices that the cards he and his partner use are of a particular color, or expects a change from bad to good luck because he has turned his chair round thrice; but one and all are alike absurd in the eyes of the student of science, who sees law, and not luck, in all things that happen. He knows that Napoleon's imagined star was the planet Venus, bound to be where Napoleon and his officers saw it by laws which it had followed for past millions of years, and will doubtless follow for millions of years to come. He knows that William fell (if by accident at all) because of certain natural conditions affecting him physiologically (probably he was excited and over anxious) and physically, not by any influence affecting him extra-naturally. But he sees equally well that the gambler's superstitions about 'the vein,' the 'maturity of the chances,' about luck and about change of luck, relate to matters which are not only subject to law, but may be dealt with by processes of calculation. He recognizes even in men's belief in luck the action of law, and in the use which clever men like Napoleon and William have made of this false faith of men in luck, a natural result of cerebral development, of inherited qualities, and of the system of training which such credulous folk have passed through. Let us consider, however, the general idea which most men have respecting what they call luck. We shall find that what they regard as affording clear evidence that there is such a thing as luck is in reality the result of law. Nay, they adopt such a combination of ideas about events which seem fortuitous that the kind of evidence they obtain must have been obtained, let events fall as they may.

Let us consider the ideas of men about luck in gambling, as typifying in small the ideas of nearly all men about luck in life.

In the first place, gamblers recognize some men as always lucky. I do not mean, of course, that they suppose some men always win, but that some men never have spells of bad luck. They are always 'in the vein,' to use the phraseology of gamblers like Steinmetz and others, who imagine that they have reduced their wild and wandering notions about luck into a science.