Chance and Luck

There is scarcely a superstition of the commoner sort which is not in like manner based, not on some remarkable coincidence, but on the occasional occurrence of quite common coincidences. It may be said, indeed, of the facts on which nearly all the vulgar superstitions have been based, that it would have amounted to little less than a miracle if such facts were not common in the experience of every person. Any other superstitions could be just as readily started, and be very quickly supported by as convincing evidence. If I were to announce tomorrow in all the papers and on every wall that misfortune is sure to follow when any person is ill-advised enough to pare a finger-nail between ten and eleven o'clock on any Friday morning, that announcement would be supported within a week by evidence of the most striking kind. In less than a month it would be an established superstition. If this appears absurd and incredible, let the reader consider merely the absurdity of ordinary superstitions. Take, for instance, fortune-telling by means of cards. If our police reports did not assure us that such vaticination is believed in by many, would it be credible that reasoning beings could hope to learn anything of the future from the order in which a few pieces of painted paper happened to fall when shuffled? Yet it is easy to see why this or any way of telling fortunes is believed in. Many persons believe in the predictions of fortune-tellers for the seemingly excellent reason that such predictions are repeatedly fulfilled. They do not notice that (setting apart happy guesses based on known facts) there would have been as many fulfillments if every prediction had been precisely reversed. It is the same with other common superstitions. Reverse them, and they are as trustworthy as before. Let the superstition be that to every one spilling salt at dinner some great piece of good luck will occur before the day is over; let seven years of good fortune be promised to the person who breaks a mirror; and so on: these new superstitions would be before long supported by as good evidence as those now in existence; and they would be worth as much -- since neither would be worth anything.