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Sometimes this meeting of serial lines is determined beforehand by 
the nature of things : it sometimes occurs that they happen to meet 
together. 
“ This kind of coincidence is what is called chance. Chance is not 
a cause, but it is the coincidence of causes.”—(Cournot. “Diet: des 
sciences philosophic]ues—Art: Hazard") 
“ It sometimes occurs—often even—that two series of phenomena 
happen to meet together, yet without our being able to say that they 
have any action upon each other; and it is even a pleasure to our 
mind to find out what will happen in this case. For instance, if, in 
the game of rouge-et-noir, I beg that the black will win, and it wins 
accordingly, it is clear that my desire and my word could not have 
had any influence on the winning of one colour or the other, and 
likewise that the arrangement of the cards, which I did not know, 
could not have had any influence on the choice I have made. In this 
case two series of facts, absolutely independent of each other, have 
happened to coincide with each other, and to harmonize without any 
mutual influence. This kind of coincidence is what is called Chance ; 
and it is upon the very uncertainty of this coincidence that the 
pleasure and, at the same time, the terrible temptation of games of 
hazard rests.”—(Paul Janet. Final Causes, pp. 18-19.) 
Now with regard to these three definitions, all are ready to 
admit there is no such thing as chance in the sense that 
there is any one event which has no cause, or that a single 
phenomenon can be produced without a cause. The reign 
of law is universal ; so far all are perfectly agreed with 
what Mr. Huxley says on that subject. 
“ But probably the best answer to those who talk of Darwinism 
meaning the reign of chance, is to ask them what they them 
selves understand by chance. Do they believe that anything in this 
universe happens without reason or without a cause ? Do they really 
conceive that any event has no cause, and could not have been 
predicted by anyone who had a sufficient insight into the order 
of nature? If they do, it is they who are the inheritors of antique 
superstition and ignorance, and whose minds have never been 
illumined by a ray of scientific thought. The one act of faith in the 
convert to science, is the confession of the universality of order and 
of the absolute validity, in all times and under all circumstances, 
of the law of causation. 
“This confession is an act of faith, because, by the nature of the 
case, the truth of such propositions is not susceptible of proof. But