ssing or bewildering passions, which (according
to my favorite 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 coexistence 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 clouds
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
copresence of numberless phenomena, which from the complexity or
subtlety of their determining causes are called contingencies, and the
coexistence of these with any regular or necessary phenomenon (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
spoiled the farmer's hay; and this is called ill luck. We will suppose
the same event to take place when meteorology shall have been
perfected into a science, provided with unerring instruments; but
which the farmer had neglected to examine. This is no longer ill luck,
but imprudence.

Now apply this to our proverb. Unforeseen coincidences may have
greatly helped a man, yet if they have done for him only what possibly
from his