Chance (intro-4)

In default of any information regarding Plutarch’s short essay on Chance, we can only guess that it may have been delivered as a lecture, although Hartman denies such a possibility. The arguing of such subjects has always had a certain attraction for mankind until comparatively recent times, but the development of a more exact knowledge regarding psychology has in later years checked such discussions. Yet a knowledge of psychology will not detract from the interest and enjoyment of anyone who will read this essay.

Man’s ways are chance and not sagacity.[*]

Is it true also that man’s ways are not justice either, or equality, or self-control, or decorum, but was it the result of chance and because of chance that Aristeides [*] persevered in his poverty when he could have made himself master of great wealth, and that Scipio, [*] having captured Carthage, neither took nor saw any of the spoil? Was it the result of chance and because of chance that Philocrates,[*] having received money from Philip, proceeded to spend it on trulls and trout, and was it due to chance that Lasthenes and Euthycrates lost Olynthus, measuring happiness by their bellies and the most shameless deeds? [*] Was it the result of chance that Alexander,[*] the son of Philip, forbore to touch the captive women himself and punished those who offered them insult, and, on the other hand, was it because the Alexander who was the son of Priam yielded to the dictates of an evil genius or of chance that he lay with the wife of his host, and by her abduction filled two of our three continents with war and woes? For if these things happen because of chance, what is to hinder our saying that cats, goats, and apes because of chance are given over to greediness, lustfulness, and mischievous tricks?

If self-control, justice, and bravery exist, how is it possible to reason that intelligence does not exist; and if intelligence exists, must not sagacity exist also? For self-control is a kind of intelligence, they say, and justice requires the presence of intelligence.[*] Or rather, that particular sagacity and intelligence which render men virtuous in the midst of pleasures we call continence and self-control, in perils and labours we call it perseverance and fortitude, in private dealings and in public life we call it equity and justice. Wherefore, if we impute the works of sagacity to chance, let the works of justice and of self-control be also ascribed to chance, and, by Heaven, let thieving, stealing purses, and licentious living all be ascribed to chance, and let us abandon all our reasoning processes and resign ourselves to chance, to be driven and carried, as dust or rubbish by a violent wind, hither and thither. If, then, sagacity does not exist, it is a fair inference that there can be no sagacious planning about what is to be done, and no consideration or searching for what is to the best advantage, but Sophocles [*] indulged in idle talk when he said:

Whatever is pursued May be achieved; neglected it escapes;

and so too in another place where he tries to distinguish different classes of actions:

What can be taught I learn; what can be found I seek; but God I ask to answer prayer.

[*] For what is there which can be found out or learned by mankind if the issue of all things is determined by chance? And what deliberative assembly of a State can there be which is not abolished, or advisory council of a king which is not dissolved, if all things are under the dominion of chance, which we reproach for being blind because we, like blind men, stumble against it?[*] How can we help doing so when we pluck out sagacity, as it were our own eyes, and take as our guide in life a blind leader?

Yet, suppose someone among us should say that the act of seeing is chance and not vision nor the use of light-bringing orbs, as Plato [*] calls the eyes, and that the act of hearing is chance and not a faculty apperceptive of a vibration in the air which is carried onward through ear and brain.[*] If such were the case, it were well for us, as it appears, to beware of trusting our senses! But, as a matter of fact, Nature has conferred upon us sight, hearing, taste, smell, and our other members and their faculties to be ministers of sagacity and intelligence, and

Mind has sight and mind has hearing; all the rest is deaf and blind. [*]

Precisely as would be our case if the sun did not exist, and we, for all the other stars, should be passing our life in a continual night, as Heracleitus [*] affirms, so man, for all his senses, had he not mind and reason, would not differ at all in his life from the brutes. But as it is, we excel them and have power over them, not from chance or accidentally, but the cause thereof is Prometheus, or, in other words, the power to think and reason,

Which gives the foal of horse and ass, and get Of bull, to serve us and assume our tasks,

as Aeschylus [*] puts it. Certainly, in so far as chance and nature’s endowment at birth are concerned, the great majority of brute animals are better off than man. For some are armed with horns, or teeth, or stings, and Empedocles says,

But as for hedgehogs Growing upon their backs sharp darts of spines stand bristling,[*]

and still others are shod and clad with scales or hair, with claws or horny hoofs. Man alone, as Plato [*] says, naked, unarmed, with feet unshod, and with no bed to lie in, has been abandoned by Nature.

Yet by one gift all this she mitigates,[*]

the gift of reasoning, diligence, and forethought.

Slight, of a truth, is the strength of man; and yet By his mind’s resourcefulness Doth he subjugate the monsters Of the deep, and the purposes Of the denizens of earth and air.[*]

Horses are the lightest and swiftest of foot, yet they run for man. The dog is pugnacious and spirited, yet it watches over man. Fish is most savoury, and the pig very fat, yet for man they are nourishing and appetizing food. What is bigger than an elephant or more terrible to behold ? But even this creature has been made the plaything of man, and a spectacle at public gatherings, and it learns to posture and dance and kneel.[*] Such presentations are not without their use; indeed, they serve a purpose in that we may learn to what heights man’s intelligence raises him, above what it places him, and how he is master of all things, and in every way superior.

No, we are not invincible either in boxing or wrestling, Nor are we swift in the race.[*]

Indeed, in all these matters we are not so fortunate as the animals; yet we make use of experience, memory, wisdom, and skill, as Anaxagoras [*] says, which are ours, and ours only, and we take their honey, and milk them, and carry and lead them at will, taking entire control over them. In all this, therefore, there is no element of chance at all, but solely and wholly sagacity and forethought.

Moreover, under the head of man’s ways [*] would fall, no doubt, the activities of carpenters, copper-smiths, builders, and statuaries, wherein we see nothing brought to a successful conclusion accidentally or as it chances. That chance may sometimes contribute slightly to their success, [*] but

that the arts through themselves bring to perfection the most and greatest of their works, is plainly suggested by this poet:

Into the highway come, all craftsmen folk, Who worship Labour, stern-eyed child of Zeus, With sacred baskets placed about.[*]

For the arts have Labour, that is Athena, and not Chance as their coadjutor. Of just one artist, [*] however, it is related that in painting a horse he had succeeded in nearly every respect in the drawing and colours, but the frothy appearance of the foam from champing the bit, and the rush of the foamflecked breath, he had tried again and again to paint, but without success, and each time had wiped it out, until finally, in a rage, he threw his sponge just as it was, full of pigments, at the canvas, and this, as it struck, transferred its contents in some amazing manner to the canvas, and effected the desired result. This is the only recorded instance of a technical achievement due to chance. Rulers, weights, measures, and numbers are everywhere in use, so that the random and haphazard may find no place in any production. Indeed, the arts are said to be minor forms of intelligence, or rather offshoots of intelligence, and detached fragments of it interspersed amid life’s common necessities, as it is said in the allegory regarding fire, that it was divided into portions by Prometheus and scattered some here and some there. For thus, when intelligence is finely broken and divided, small portions and fragments of it have gone to their several stations.