PART

III

LUCK A N D RELIGION
www.LuckLaws.com

"Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when

He did not want to sign"
ANATOLE FRANCE

E have seen that religion had its root in primitive

man's efforts to explain, and avert, the buffets of his
chaotic world. From stock and stone to fetish, ghost and demon,
the religious sense evolved, until at length the gods were born.
What was the relation of the luck-element to these superior beings? At first there was no difficulty. Chance being
recognized as a vital factor in life, luck was itself deified and
took its place as a god or goddess in the new pantheon. This
easy method persists to-day even among highly civilized
peoples. The Hindu Ganesha, god of good fortune, dwells
amicably with his divine brethren, while the Japanese have
their Seven Gods of Luck.
Early Greek Ideas About Luck
To other peoples, however, matters were not so simple. The
more they studied the world, the less chaotic did it appear.
The sun, moon, and stars did not rise and set haphazard;
the seasons recurred from year to year; life itself followed
a regular cycle which might be cut short but which could
not be notably altered. After all, then, the world was not a
41

mere chaos of blind chance; much of it was fixed and could

be confidently foretold. What power or powers established
these natural laws? And what were the relations of law to
luck?
The first people to grapple rationally with the problem
were the Greekspioneers in this, as in so many other fields.
The Greeks had their deity of chance. She was a goddess.
Her name was Tyche, and she had her temples and altars
before which men reverently bowed and made sacrifice. Her
attributes were precisely those of the nameless deity whom we
moderns tacitly acknowledge by cherishing a mascot or a
rabbit's foot. Tyche was fickle and inconstant, arbitrary in
her favors and her frowns; yet her votaries were bound to
her alike through fear and hope.
How did Tyche stand toward the other deities, especially
toward mighty Zeus, "Father of Gods and Men"? And
(probing still deeper) how did the notion of blind Chance
square with the idea of Fate or Destiny? For the Greeks
glimpsed such a forcean inscrutable power looming in the
background, which foreordained all things and to which
the gods themselves were subject.
Here we have some knotty problems. The Greeks had,
in fact, raised those bothersome contradictions between
Chance and Fate, Luck and Divine Providence, that have
perplexed reflective souls ever since.
The Greeks never came to any common agreement on
these matters. Some Greek philosophers deemed chance a
power so limitless and uncontrolled that it practically governed men and events. Other Greek thinkers dismissed the
problem with a sigh, as beyond human reason. Still others
conceived a division of powers: Tyche, the Goddess of Fortune, ruled over accidental events, and was the dispenser
alike of joys and sorrows; but when too lavish in her favors,
she was liable to incur the jealousy of Nemesis, the Goddess

of Divine Justice, who then took a hand in the game and

afflicted Fortune's spoiled darling with some form of retribution.
The Roman Luck-Cult of Fortuna
different was the Roman attitude toward chance and
luck. An unimaginative folk, the Romans were not given to
fine-spun theorizing. They were after power, wealth, and
wide dominion, and they welcomed any gods who might aid
them in their far-flung designs. So in Rome, the fickle goddess was supremely cherished. Never, before or since, has a
people worshiped so whole-heartedly at her shrine. The
Romans called her Fortuna, and her cult grew to extraordinary proportions. High and low, rich and poor;all (save
a few philosophers )were her votaries. Rome's grandeur was
publicly ascribed to Fortune, and the greatest of the Emperors
built her magnificent temples.
Indeed, as time passed and faith in the old gods decayed,
the Goddess threatened to swallow the whole pantheon.
Fortuna was literally all things to all men. Since luck touches
every phase of life, Fortuna tended to become in Roman eyes
the ruling power of the universethough her rule was without a plan. The Roman writer Pliny well analyzed the
amazing situation when he wrote: "In all places and at all
times, Fortune is the only god whom every one invokes;
she alone is spoken of; she alone is in our thoughts. . . . To
her are referred all our losses and our gains, and in casting
up the accounts of mortals she alone balances the pages.
We are so much in the power of chance, that chance itself
is considered as a god."
The emotional hold of this luck-cult is obvious. When
things went wrong, the devotee could lay his misfortune to
the insufficiency of his sacrifice, to some omission in his
ceremonial prayers, or to some other cause which had aroused
VERY

Fortuna's displeasure. Such a phrase as "out of luck" did not

occur in his vocabulary.
Mark Antony's "Jinx"
is a curious historical incident which reveals the Roman
attitude towards luck: When Mark Antony left Rome for the
East, he gave as reason for his action the fact that, no matter
what games he played with Octavian, he always got the
worst of it! It seems that both men were fond of gaming
and spent much of their time together, playing dice or matching fighting-cocks and quail. Yet in practically every instance
Mark Antony lost the throw and saw his birds beaten.
At length, one of his intimate friends took Antony to
task about this evil omen. "Look here," said the friend, "what
are you thinking of to stay around with this young man,
Octavian? You are the elder, you have more prestige, you
command more soldiers, you are the better general; but your
good genius fears his; your luck is inferior. Unless you put
a lot of distance between yourself and him, and do it right
speedily, Fortune will abandon you and go over utterly to
him."
That such an argument could have been publicly put
forward, even as a pretext for other motives, speaks volumes
for the typical Roman attitude of the period. And we may
add that Octavian (soon to become the Emperor Augustus)
was so much a devotee of Fortuna that he always carried a
little gold image of the goddess about his person.
Down to the last days of the Ancient World, Fortuna
reigned supreme. Philosophers might reprove the dominance
of the luck-cult; as when the Stoic Fronto, tutor to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, bemoaned the fact that, "We have
built a thousand temples to Fortune, and not one to Reason."
Yet pagan philosophy could offer as an alternative little
beyond stoic endurance of Fortune's whims.
HERE

The Church Declares War on Fortuna

in Rome's last days, Fortuna encountered a real
enemythe Christian Church. Then begins that antagonism
between the luck-element and organized religion which has
persisted (by and large) ever since. One o Christianity's
cardinal dogmas is belief in an omnipotent God, to Whom
all things are subject. With one voice, the Church Fathers
proclaimed that fate, chance, and fortune are nothing but
the Will, the Power, and the Providence of the Almighty.
From such a world, chance and luck are logically excluded.
What seem to be chance and luck are due merely to human
ignorance of the Divine scheme.
And the early Church Fathers dwelt insistently upon
this point, because they saw in the luck-cult the Church's
most dangerous rival. In Rome's latter days the pagan gods
were mostly old and decrepit; few persons outside the lower
classes took them seriously. But Fortuna remained ever
young and vigorous. Therefore against her the Church thundered unceasingly. Her altars were overthrown, and all recourse to her was forbidden under dire penalties. She was
to be abolished; annihilated.
Yet, somehow, the fickle goddess lived on! Despite the
Church's best efforts, men continued to court her favor.
Never were luck-superstitions more rampant than during the
Middle Ages. Chance and luck played too insistent a role
in human lives for people to ignore or neglect this mysterious
factor, whatever might be their formal confession of faith.
Indeed, so bothersome was this practical contradiction
between faith and fact that Mediaeval thinkers tried to work
out a philosophical compromise. This view of the matter
admitted that Fate, Chance, and Fortune did exist. They
were real powers; but powers created and appointed by God,
Who had assigned them certain spheres of action. The
changes and chances of human life, then, proceed from these
HOWEVER,

mysteriously hidden but actually existing causes: the good, by

God's benign appointment; the evil, by His inscrutable permission. Against them there is no earthly appeal. In this they
differed from the machinations of the Devil, against which
the Church had means of dealing. Such was the Mediaeval
theory. It is really a carrying on of a train of thought in
Ancient Greece which we have already noted.
"The Luck of Edenhall"
ONE of the most charming Mediaeval luck-legends is that
known as "The Luck of Edenhall." It has literally come down
to the present day; for The Luck still exists, religiously cherished by its proud possessors, the Musgraves, an ancient family
of Cumberlandshire in northern England.
The Luck is a beautiful example of Byzantine glass,
probably a thousand years old. It is a fragile cup, amber-tinted
and exquisitely ornamented in arabesque pattern with enamel
and gold. Elegant and well-proportioned in shape, it is kept
in a marvelously fine Mediaeval line-bronze case, elaborately
scrolled.
The family legend is briefly this: Long, long ago, one of
the family retainers went one night to fetch water from a
Holy Well. There he saw a glorious company of fairies dancing and holding high revel on the greensward. Disturbed and
confused by his approach, the fairies dispersed, leaving their
magic goblet by the well. Marveling at its beauty, the man
seized it. Enraged at his presumption, the "Little People,"
headed by their Queen, rallied, thronged about him, and
vainly tried to wrest it from his grasp. At length, the Fairy
Queen bade her followers desist. Raising her wand, she
uttered the ominous and prophetic words:
"Should the cup e'er break or fall,
Farewell the Luck of Edenhall!"

and in the twinkling of an eye, the fairy rout vanished,

leaving the moonlit sward silent and empty. Dazed with
wonder, the faithful retainer bore the magic goblet to his
master. The Fairy Queen's prophecy was taken to heart, and
the trophy has ever since been cared for with pious devotion.
This quaint legend has for centuries been a favorite
theme for poets and romancers, both in England and in other
lands. It has inspired a whole cycle of poems and ballads,
in which the original legend has been expanded to include
a great variety of adventures in which The Luck has usually
just been saved from destruction.
One thing is certain: the Musgraves have been a notably
fortunate family. Dating their line from the Norman Conquest, they trace their descent by heirsmale, unbroken, from
first to last. That is surely a "luck" which attends but few
families, and gives the Musgrave pedigree a proud preeminence over most noble houses, whatever their rank or historic importance.
Fortuna Smiles Again
So much for the Middle Ages. With the coming of the Renaissance, men reexamined the problem of chance, as they did
with so many other matters. In Italy occurred a curious revival of the luck-cult. Delighted by their discovery of the
Classic World of Greece and Rome, the romantic poets and
artists of the Renaissance paid open homage to Fortuna; and
the fickle goddess, casting aside her Mediaeval disguises,
stepped smilingly forth once more. Even Machiavelli, cynical
analyst of politics and statecraft, bowed to Fortuna and
acknowledged her as one of the arbiters of men and events.

the Renaissance came the Reformation, which brought

still other developments in the age-old problem. It is a note-

AFTER

worthy fact that Protestantism was from the first strongly

opposed to the luck-idea, its theologians inveighing against
luck and chance with an apostolic zeal worthy of the early
Church Fathers.
This was especially true of Calvinistic Protestantism. To
Calvinism, with its sternly fatalistic doctrine of predestination, the very words "chance" and "luck" were blasphemous.
The Puritan attitude toward life was that success is the sure
reward of industry, frugality, and the other orthodox virtues.
The bare admission that even a few lucky individuals might
be favorites of fortune was to the Puritan mind sinful in
theory and dangerously unsettling in its practical effects.
Nevertheless, the old ideas about chance and luck survived. Early in the Seventeenth Century, when Puritanism
was politically in the saddle, an English writer deplores the
rampant superstition of the time. "Many people in these days,"
he states, "cannot breake his shinnes, have his nose bleede,
lose a game at cards, heare a dogge howle or a cat wawle, but
instantly they run to the calculator." A century later, Oliver
Goldsmith, in "The Vicar of Wakefield," gives us some
interesting side-lights on practices then current. Speaking of
the Vicar's daughters, he says: "The girls had their omens
too; they felt strange kisses on their lips; they saw rings in
the candle; purses bounded from the fire; and true-love-knots
lurked at the bottom of every teacup."
Confronted with such perverse obstinacy, staunch Puritans could account for it only by ascribing it to the wicked
wiles of Satan. To them the Evil One was a very real power,
more formidable even than the Devil of the Middle Ages.
And the main reason why the Devil of Puritanism was so
much more terrible than the Mediaeval one is because he
was supposed to rule over the whole realm of hazard and
luck. Any one committing himself to chance fell at once
under Satan's dominion. Hence, the Puritan horror of games

of cards and dice, over and above the everyday experience

of the evils caused by gambling. Cards were called "the
Devil's books," and "beginner's luck" was deemed a snare
of Satan to lure fresh victims into his toils. Compare all this
with Catholic Italy, where popular feeling is very different.
There, for instance, favorite numbers for lottery tickets have
always been 33 and 63the years of Christ and the Madonna.
The idea is that Fortune, the joyful creature and minister of
God, will reverently incline herself before her Maker and
honor those numbers which He has associated with Himself!
Modern Opponents of Luck
IN modern times, the luck-idea has been vigorously combated by quite another set of opponentsphilosophers and
scientists. It is interesting to note how luck, like politics,
"make strange bedfellows." The skeptical freethinkers of the
Eighteenth Century (Voltaire and others) were strenuous
opponents of religious intolerance and dogmatic authority.
Yet, however hot their quarrel with the Church, they agreed
with churchmen on at least one pointhostility to notions of
chance and luck. The reason for this is obvious: As chance
was logically excluded from a world of pious believers in
Divine Providence, so it was equally excluded from a world
of unvarying natural law in which all happenings were inevitably linked together by an infinite chain of cause and
effect.
From one angle, this is a revival of an ancient train of
thought, as when the Stoic philosophers of old Rome deplored
the neglect of Reason and condemned the cult of the Goddess
Fortuna. Viewed in its broader aspect, it opens up vistas such
as the attitude of modern science toward chance and luck,
which we will consider in the next chapter.
Another current of opposition should be notedthe hostility of rulers to the luck-idea. Keen-witted monarchs, states-

men, and other persons in authority have often tended to

frown upon popular beliefs in luck for purely practical reasons. They considered it rather dangerous to have the common
man realize that he might achieve superiorities to which he
was not born, through a sheer stroke of good fortune.
This cynical "political" opposition to the luck-idea has
rarely been more than hinted at. For obvious reasons, it has
been kept discreetly in the background. Furthermore, we
should note that other clever rulers have favored luck-notions,
considering them to be useful safety-valves for popular discontent. Still, the whole matter throws an interesting sidelight on political and social problems, and should therefore
not be overlooked.
One of the most curious episodes in this connection is
the protest of a distinguished man of letters against the abolition of the French State Lotteries in the year 1837. He objected vigorously against what he termed "a hardship to the
poor," and went on to say: "For five sous [5 cents] the most
miserable of beings may purchase the chance of becoming a
millionaire. By suppressing this chance, you take away the
ray of hope from the poor man's life!"
More Puritan Frowns
and rationalistic motives, singly or in combination, account for the discredit of chance and luck in modern
times. Nineteenth Century literature is full of disparaging
allusions. "Chance cannot touch me!" cries Margaret Fuller.
The poet Henley penned the famous lines:
RELIGIOUS

"I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul."
In similar vein, Tennyson wrote: "Man is man and master
of his fate"; while Emerson stated scornfully: "Shallow men
believe in luck."

Two excellent instances of that Puritanic hostility to the

luck-idea which is so widespread in present-day America are
afforded by the following editorials from well-known American periodicals. The first of these editorials, entitled, "Pagan
Words," runs as follows:
"There are two words which ought never to be heard
by a young boy or girl'luck' and 'chance,' the two verbal
scapegoats on which are laid half the sins and follies of the
race. . . . No real success is ever achieved by accident, chance
or luck; that is to say, by a blind and brutal play of forces
or influences, or by a meaningless combination of conditions.
What seems thus is often seen later to be due to the introduction of a new and higher purpose."1
The second editorial, entitled, "Mascots," severely condemns all such luck-practices. It cites as a recent instance the
case of Walter Wellman, in his attempted dirigible flight
across the Atlantic. Wellman, asserts the editorial, took along
a black cat as a mascot, and when the cat dropped overboard
he stopped and fished it out of the water, fearful lest, if
abandoned, it might spoil his luck. "We judge," the editor
continues, "that there are even college students who would
expect to lose a football game if their mascot were to be lost
or die."
The editor then asks: "What is the essence of this worship of the mascot? It is the belief that its presence will bring
the advantage of luck as additional to the advantage of skill.
The doctrine and worship of the mascot are the prevailing
form of idolatry in the most degraded savage tribes. . . .
The old superstition dies hard. Apparently intelligent people
will carry a horse-chestnut in the pocket as a preventive
against rheumatism. All this is not merely silly; it is rank
superstition. It assumes that apart from the laws of Nature
and the will of God, the world is ruled by chance, and that
a black cat or goat or written amulet or a bone or tooth

can command chance and rule the universe. It is called fetishism, and it is the lowest, most ignorant and degraded of all
religions. We have recognized the fact that many, perhaps
most of those who must have a mascot know perfectly well
that they are fooling. But that kind of low fooling ought not
to be encouraged. It should not be taught to children. Lord
Lytton said well: 'On earth rules conscience; in Heaven
watches God; but Fortune is the phantom we invoke to
silence the one and to dethrone the other!'"
A Liberal Churchman on Luck
THE editorials just quoted undoubtedly reflect the weight of
"orthodox" opinion on the subject. Yet some liberal churchmen take a different attitude. Dr. John Haynes Holmes, the
distinguished pastor of the Community Church of New York
City, frankly admits the existence of the luck element in
human affairs. Interviewed on the subject, he stated:
"When I say that I believe in luck I want to make it
clear that by the exercise of what we call luck there is no
suspension of natural laws. If, for instance, I am walking
along a sidewalk and a stone drops off the cornice, hits me
on the head, and kills me, everything that happens is due
to the definite operation of natural law. The engineer can
tell you why the stone became loose; the physicist will tell
you why gravitation made it fall; the physician will tell
you what were the physical causes that led to my death on
being hit by the stone. The only thing strange about such
a happening was the combinationthe fact that I happened
to be passing when the stone fell. And history is full of cases
in which luck has had a great determining influence."
Recent Views on the Luck-Problem
THE stubborn persistence of countless popular notions concerning luck proves that no mere denial of the luck-factor

and no condemnation of superstitious practices can somehow

satisfy. After all is said and done, there remains a deep human
urge, arising spontaneously out of individual experiences and
practical observation of everyday life. Luck may be anathematized or scoffed atyet the problem is still there.
And a few open-minded thinkers have realized this. One
of the most penetrating analyses which have ever been penned
on the subject is contained in the following lines:
"We of to-day do not, as part of our philosophy, believe
in Fortune. Some of us consider every possible event as decided by the conscious Providence of God; some of us regard all happenings as linked inevitably together in a logical
infinity of cause and effect; and most of us perhaps think
of the world about us as a sort of combination of the two,
wherein at least nothing can fall by chance.
"And yet, though we admit abstractly this philosophy,
it fails of application to our concrete circumstances. Doubtless
the coin falls by the Will of God; but that Will we can
neither fathom nor forecast. Surely the turn of the card is
due to natural causes; but to causes intricate and remote
beyond our possible knowing. So that, for practical purposes,
we dwell among continual accidents; and in no very different case from our own children, for whom life is all one
wild and wanton tissue of adventure. All things are dreamed
of in our philosophy, but few are clearly seen; it may be
true, but it doesn't fit the facts.
"The child asks concerning his cakes and toys: 'How may
these good things be, that they may come about more often?'
And there the child goes hand-in-hand with all the saints and
sages of the world up to the closed doors of that dark temple
where the Sphinx, inscrutably smiling, answers the universal
query with: 'Because.'
"And so we are not after all much wiser than our forefathers; and we may well enough accept, for actual concerns,

their fable of Lady Fortune, with her wheel; wantonly false

or fair, mocking her followers and favoring them who pay
her small regard;sure only of changefulness. Ultimately
false, it agrees none the less truly with our seeing; as a picture
showing the world flat instead of round. Wiser still is that
more ancient vision of affairs as governed by gods, beyond
and above whom lurks an arbitrary Fate. For it more nearly
represents our actual state,able to know and control our
destinies to some extent; while yet, through and over all,
incalculable chance remains."
Thus our survey of the age-old relations of religion and
philosophy to chance and luck ends, fittingly enough, on a
note of interrogation. Especially have we analyzed the various
modern currents of opposition, and we have seen how, though
arising from widely different sources, they have all combined
to discredit the luck-idea. The upshot has been that tacit tabu
of the subject which has prevented it from being discussed
and studied as it really deserves.
For surely, a factor in human life which, despite everything, displays such astounding vitality, merits careful observation. We boast that ours is a scientific age. Let us, then, give
even disreputable Lady Luck a truly unbiased and openminded hearing. And, in the process, the obvious next-step
is to see what modern science has to say.