Chapter CLXXX

THE DOCTOR'S IDEAS OF LUCK, CHANCE, ACCIDENT, FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE.—THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE'S DISTINCTION BETWEEN CHANCE AND FORTUNE WHEREIN NO-MEANING IS MISTAKEN FOR MEANING.—AGREEMENT IN OPINION BETWEEN THE PHILOSOPHER OF DONCASTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER OF NORWICH.—DISTINCTION BETWEEN UNFORTUNATELY UGLY, AND WICKEDLY UGLY.—DANGER OF PERSONAL CHARMS.

_Ἔστι γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐπίφθεγμα τὸ αὐτόματον, ἀνθρώπων ὡς ἔτυχε καὶ ἀλογίστως φρονούντων, καὶ τὸν μὲν λόγον αὐτῶν μὴ καταλαμβανόντων, διὰ δὲ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς καταλήψεως, αλόγως οἰομένων διατετάχθαι ταῦτα, ὧν τὸν λόγον ἐιπεῖν ὀυκ ἔχουσιν._

CONSTANT. ORAT. AD SANCT. CÆT. C. VII.

“Deformity is either natural, voluntary, or adventitious, being either caused by _God's unseen Providence_, (_by men nick-named, chance_,) or by men's cruelty.”

FULLER'S HOLY STATE, B. iii. c. 15.

It may readily be inferred from what has already been said of our Philosopher's way of thinking, that he was not likely to use the words luck, chance, accident, fortune or misfortune, with as little reflection as is ordinarily shown in applying them. The distinction which that fantastic—and yet most likeable person—Margaret Duchess of Newcastle, makes between Chance and Fortune was far from satisfying him. “Fortune,” says her Grace, (she might have been called her Beauty too) “is only various corporeal motions of several creatures—designed to one creature, or more creatures; either to _that_ creature, or _those_ creatures advantage, or disadvantage; if advantage, man names it Good Fortune; if disadvantage, man names it Ill Fortune. As for Chance, it is the visible effects of some hidden cause; and Fortune, a sufficient cause to produce such effects; for the conjunction of sufficient causes, doth produce such or such effects, which effects could not be produced—if any of those causes were wanting: so that Chances are but the effects of Fortune.”

The Duchess had just thought enough about this to fancy that she had a meaning, and if she had thought a little more she might have discovered that she had none.

The Doctor looked more accurately both to his meaning and his words; but keeping as he did, in my poor judgement, the golden mean between superstition and impiety, there was nothing in this that savoured of preciseness or weakness, nor of that scrupulosity which is a compound of both. He did not suppose that trifles and floccinaucities of which neither the causes nor consequences are of the slightest import, were predestined; as for example—whether he had beef or mutton for dinner, wore a blue coat or a brown—or took off his wig with his right hand or with his left. He knew that all things are under the direction of almighty and omniscient Goodness; but as he never was unmindful of that Providence in its dispensations of mercy and of justice, so he never disparaged it.

Herein the Philosopher of Doncaster agreed with the Philosopher of Norwich who saith, “let not fortune—which hath no name in Scripture, have any in thy divinity. Let providence, not chance, have the honour of thy acknowledgements, and be thy Œdipus on contingences. Mark well the paths and winding ways thereof; but be not too wise in the construction, or sudden in the application. The hand of Providence writes often by abbreviatures, hieroglyphics or short characters, which like the laconism on the wall, are not to be made out but by a hint or key from that spirit which indicted them.”[1]

[Footnote 1: The Readers of Jeremy Taylor will not fail to remember the passage following from his Great Exemplar.

“God's Judgments are like _the writing upon the wall_, which was a missive of anger from God upon Belshazzar. It came upon an errand of revenge, and yet was writ in so dark characters that none could read it but a prophet.”—DISC. xviii. _Of the Causes and Manner of the Divine Judgments_.]

Some ill, he thought, was produced in human affairs by applying the term unfortunate to circumstances which were brought about by imprudence. A man was unfortunate, if being thrown from his horse on a journey, he broke arm or leg, but not if he broke his neck in steeple-hunting, or when in full cry after a fox; if he were impoverished by the misconduct of others, not if he were ruined by his own folly and extravagance; if he suffered in any way by the villainy of another, not if he were transported, or hanged for his own.

Neither would he allow that either man or woman could with propriety be called, as we not unfrequently hear in common speech, _unfortunately_ ugly. _Wickedly_ ugly, he said, they might be, and too often were; and in such cases the greater their pretensions to beauty, the uglier they were. But goodness has a beauty of its own, which is not dependent upon form and features, and which makes itself felt and acknowledged however otherwise ill-favoured the face may be in which it is set. He might have said with Seneca, _errare mihi visus est qui dixit_

_Gratior est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus;_

_nullo enim honestamento eget; ipsa et magnum sui decus est, et corpus suum consecret._ None, he would say with great earnestness, appeared so ugly to his instinctive perception as some of those persons whom the world accounted handsome, but upon whom pride, or haughtiness or conceit had set its stamp, or who bore in their countenances what no countenance can conceal, the habitual expression of any reigning vice, whether it were sensuality and selfishness, or envy, hatred, malice and uncharitableness. Nor could he regard with any satisfaction a fine face which had no ill expression, if it wanted a good one: he had no pleasure in beholding mere formal and superficial beauty, that which lies no deeper than the skin, and depends wholly upon “a set of features and complexion.” He had more delight, he said in looking at one of the statues in Mr. Weddel's collection, than at a beautiful woman if he read in her face that she was as little susceptible of any virtuous emotion as the marble. While therefore he would not allow that any person could be unfortunately ugly, he thought that many were unfortunately handsome, and that no wise parent would wish his daughter to be eminently beautiful, lest what in her childhood was naturally and allowably the pride of his eye—should when she grew up become the grief of his heart. It requires no wide range of observation to discover that the woman who is married for her beauty has little better chance of happiness than she who is married for her fortune. “I have known very few women in my life,” said Mrs. Montagu, “whom extraordinary charms and accomplishments did not make unhappy.”