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' natural' implies the action of law, and the occurrence of taught depending on what men mean by luck would be simply the occurrence of something supernatural.] This is true alike of great things and of small; of matters having a certain dignity, real or apparent, and of matters which seem utterly con
temptible. Napoleon announcing that a certain star (as he supposed) seen in full daylight was his star and indicated at the moment the ascendancy of his fortune, or William the Conqueror proclaiming, as he rose with hands full of earth from his accidental fall on the Sussex shore, that he was destined by fate to seize England, may not seem comparable with a gambler who says that he shall win because he is in the vein, or with a player at whist who rejoices that the cards he and his partner use are of a particular color, or expects a change from bad to good luck because he has turned his chair round thrice; but one and all are alike absurd in the eyes of the student of science, who sees law, and not luck, in all things that happen. He knows that Napoleon's imagined star was the planet Venus, bound to be where Napoleon and his officers saw it by laws which it had followed for past millions of years, and will doubtless follow for millions of years to come. He knows that William fell (if by accident at all) because of certain natural conditions affecting him physiologically (pro. bably he was excited and over anxious) and physically, not by any influence affecting him extranaturally. But he sees equally well that the gambler's superstitions about ' the vein,' the ' maturity of the chances,' about luck and about change of luck, relate to matters which are not only subject to law, but may be dealt with by processes of calculation. He recognizes even in men's belief in luck the action of law, and in the use which clever men like Napoleon and William have made of this false faith of men in luck, a natural result of cerebral
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