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llions of persons now living, it could not but chance that the most remarkable combinations, sequences, alternations, and so forth, of events, lucky or unlucky, must have presented themselves in the careers of hundreds. Our illustrative case, artificial though it may seem, is in reality not merely an illustration of life and its chances, but may be regarded as legitimately demonstrating what must inevitably happen on the wider arena and amid the infinitely multiplied vicissitudes of life. But the belief in luck involves much more. The idea involved in it, if not openly expressed (usually expressed very freely), is that some men are lucky by nature, others unlucky, that such and such times and seasons are lucky or unlucky, that the progress of events may be modified by the lucky or unlucky influence of actions in no way relating to them; as, for instance, that success or failure at cards may be affected by the choice of a seat, or by turning round thrice in the seat. This form of belief in luck is not only akin to superstition, it is superstition. Like all superstition, it is mischievous. It is, indeed, the very essence of the gambling spirit, a spirit so demoralizing that it blinds men to the innate immorality of gambling. It is this belief in luck, as something which can be relied on, or propitiated, or influenced by such and such practices,
which is shown, by reasoning and experience alike, to be entirely inconsistent not only with facts but with possibility.
But oddly enough, the believers in luck show by the form which their belief takes that in reality they have no faith in luck any more than men really have faith in superstitions which yet they allow to influence their conduct. A superstition is an idle dread, or an equally idle hope, not a real faith; and in like manner is it with luck. A man will tell you that at cards, for instance, he always has such and such luck; but if you say, ' Let us have a few games to see whether you will have your usual luck,' you will usually and him unwilling to let you apply the test. If you try it, and the result is unfavorable, he argues that such peculiarities of luck never do show themselves when submitted to test. On the other hand, if it so chances
that on that particular occasion he has the kind of luck which he claims to have always, he expects you to accept the evidence as decisive. Yet the result means in reality only that certain events, the chances for and against which were probably pretty equally divided, have taken place.
So, if a gambler has the notion (which seems to the student of science to imply something little short of imbecility of mind) that turning round thrice in his chair will change the luck, he is by no means corrected of the superstition by finding the process fail on any particular occasion. But if the bad luck which has hitherto pursued him chances (which it is quite as
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