y wide one--of
its baleful influence. Ought we unhesitatingly to fly from such men,
as Dr. Foissac advises? Yes, doubtless, if their misfortunes arise
from an imprudent and unduly hazardous spirit, a heedless, quarrelsome,
mischief-making, Utopian or clouded mind. Ill-luck is a contagious
disease; and one unconsciousness will often infect another. But if the
misfortunes be wholly unmerited, or fall upon those who are dear to us,
flight were unjust and shameful. In such a case the conscious side of
our being--which, though it know but little, is yet able to fashion
truths of a different order, truths that might almost be the first
flowers of a dawning world--is bound to resist the universal wisdom of
unconsciousness, bound to brave its warnings and involve it in its own
ruin, which may well be a victory upon an ideal plane that one day
perhaps shall appeal to the unconsciousness also.

15

We ask ourselves, therefore, whether unconsciousness, which we regard
as the source of our luck, is really incapable of change or
improvement. Have we not all of us noticed how strange are the ways of
chance? When we behold it active in a small town, or among a certain
number of men within the range of our own observation, the goddess
would seem to become as persistent as a gadfly, and no less fantastic.
Her very marked personality and character will vary in accordance with
the event or being whereon she may fasten. She has all kinds of
eccentricities, but pursues each one logically to the finish. Her
first gesture will tell us nothing; from her second we can predict all
that she means to do. Protean divinity that no image could completely
describe, here she leaps suddenly forth, like a fountain in the midst
of a desert, to disappear after having given birth to an ephemeral
oasis; there she returns at regular intervals, collecting and
scattering, like migratory birds that obey the rhythm of the seasons.
On our right she fells a man and concerns herself with him no further;
on our left she bears down another, and furiously worries her victim.
But, though she bring favour or ruin, she will almost always remain
astoundingly faithful to the character she has once and for all assumed
in a particular case. This man, for instance, who has been
unsuccessful in war, will continue to be unsuccessful; that other will
invariably win or lose at cards; a third will infallibly be deceived; a
fourth will find water, fire, or the dangers