to my favourite proverb, "extremes meet,") the fool not seldom
obtains in as great perfection by his ignorance as the wise man by
the highest energies of thought and self-discipline. Luck has a real
existence in human affairs, from the infinite number of powers that
are in action at the same time, and from the co-existence of things
contingent and accidental (such as to US at least are accidental)
with the regular appearances and general laws of nature. A familiar
instance will make these words intelligible. The moon waxes and
wanes according to a necessary law. The clouds likewise, and all the
manifold appearances connected with them, are governed by certain
laws no less than the phases of the moon. But the laws which
determine the latter are known and calculable, while those of the
former are hidden from us. At all events, the number and variety of
their effects baffle our powers of calculation; and that the sky is
clear or obscured at any particular time, we speak of, in common
language, as a matter of accident. Well! at the time of the full
moon, but when the sky is completely covered with black clouds, I am
walking on in the dark, aware of no particular danger: a sudden gust
of wind rends the cloud for a moment, and the moon emerging discloses
to me a chasm or precipice, to the very brink of which I had advanced
my foot. This is what is meant by luck, and according to the more or
less serious mood or habit of our mind we exclaim, how lucky! or, how
providential! The co-presence of numberless phaenomena, which from
the complexity or subtlety of their determining causes are called
contingencies, and the co-existence of these with any regular or
necessary phaenomenon (as the clouds with the moon for instance),
occasion coincidences, which, when they are attended by any advantage
or injury, and are at the same time incapable of being calculated or
foreseen by human prudence, form good or ill luck. On a hot sunshiny
afternoon came on a sudden storm and spoilt the farmer's hay; and