THE TYRANNY OF COINCIDENCE.
NOTHING is more despotic, more arbitrary, more re- sistless, than the tyranny exercised by coincidence. Fate gives no more smashing blow than that which she delivers by means of a coincidence. There are thousands of men and women whose lives have been altered for good or evil, or on whom the judgment of the world has been passed irrevocably, owing to the fiat of a mere coincidence. What we mean is well illustrated by a story told by Miss Madge Symonds in a recent number of the Westminster Gazette. The incident is trivial and unimportant in itself, but it clearly exemplifies the tyranny of coincidence. Miss Symonds and a party of friends had driven from Athens to the foot of Hymettus, in a carriage drawn by two horses. The drive being over, the coachman proceeded to give corn to his horses. One of them, however, would not eat, but hung his head and refused all food. The driver, in a state of wild excitement, thereupon presented himself before his fares, and declared, with frenzied words, that one of the ladies had " overlooked " the suffering horse, and that the beast was about to expire. The only way to get it cured from the effects of the evil eye was for the overlooker to spit upon it. The driver appears to have had no doubt which lady was the possessor of the evil power exercised upon his animal. Naturally enough, the lady in question had no great fancy to try this primitive form of veterinary surgery, and refused. The man's entreaties and adjurations, however, became so vehement and so threatening, that at last the alleged pos- sessor of the evil eye had to yield. No sooner had she spat upon the horse than a most welcome change set in. The beast, which had appeared to be at its last gasp, promptly grew better, and very soon was eating like its fellow. Of course the change was due to a coincidence. Probably the horse was at first too tired to eat, but during the discussion " to spit or not to spit," he no doubt got rested. By the time, then, the ceremony was performed, he was quite fit for his breakfast. It was in fact post hoc, not propter hoc. The spitting and the recovery following each other so closely was a mere coincidence. But though we may hold this view, it was of course not held by the Greek coachman. He, we may be sure, felt at once completely confirmed in his belief in the evil eye. The coincidence gave him what he thought ample proof of the efficacy of his charm against "over- looking." If nothing had happened, and the English ladies had been able to laugh at him for making one of them do a disagreeable thing without any result, the driver might have began to think that after all his juggling rites were nonsense. Depend upon it, the coincidence riveted the chains of super- stition upon him tighter than ever. After the incident we have just noticed, he will probably believe as firmly in the evil eye and the way to counteract its influence as he will in the procession of the seasons, or the following of day by night.
This is what we mean by the tyranny of coincidence. It is a force which can no more be restrained than chance in any other shape, and yet it has the most far-reaching consequences. In many ways, it is more difficult to com- bat than accident in its more material form. A man may say :—" In spite of accident or bad luck, I intend to show the world what I am, and to let them see that I am not a coward, or a fool, or a liar." Against the material obstacles offered by fate, a man who takes up this position can usually prevail. He may not be able to make himself a great name, or to do great things, because the fall of a chimney-pot or the stumble of a horse may inter- fere with his career, but as a rule these accidents will not prevent him from showing his true character to the world. It is different with those accidents which we call coincidences. They may contrive to alter a man's whole moral and mental appearance,—may make the honest man look like a knave, the honourable man look like a cad, the faithful and plain- dealing man seem false-hearted and a liar. After all, we can only judge of men as we find them, and by the results of our observations. But it may very well happen that a coincidence will entirely obscure the true view of a man's character and acts. Coincidence shows its tyranny in nothing more than in its way of giving apparent substance and reality to rumours. Some malicious person starts a rumour that A B is secretly interested in such and such a company, though he goes about professing to have nothing to do with it. C D, a stranger, hears this rumour by accident. An hour after he happens to get into the same railway-carriage with A B, and hears him praising the company in question as a thoroughly sound concern, but adding that he has no interest in it. It is almost certain that, under the circumstances, C D will take this fact as confirmation of the rumours he has heard. Yet it may well be that the thing is a mere coincidence. A B may very likely have only spoken of this company twice in his life,—once on the occasion that gave rise to the rumour, and again when, to C D's mind, the rumour was confirmed. The unlucky coincidence may, however, have produced so strong an apparent case against A B's bona fides that an unpleasant impression of disingenuousness will never be erased from C D's mind. It may happen, indeed, that this unlucky chance will set going a whole train of evils. C D's bias, unless he is a very just man and peculiarly on his guard against hasty judgments, may grow and grow until he gets an instinctive feeling of distrust about A B,—a distrust of which he will perhaps forget the origin, but which will be stereotyped in his mind as " There's something not quite right in business matters about that fellow A B." It is perhaps foolish in people to form instinctive prejudices on evidence which may be purely coincidental, but we know that as a matter of fact hundreds of men form important judg- ments on grounds quite as slight. The tyranny of coincidence is seen to work even worse evils in the nearer and more domestic concerns of life. Cases of jealousy made living and permanent by some piece of pure coincidence will occur to almost every one who knows anything of the world. It is not necessary for an Iago to steal the handkerchief and poison Othello's mind. Pare accident will do it just as effectually. A man begins to be causelessly jealous of his wife, or a woman of her husband. If chance is kindly, the jealousy may die away without injury. Every now and then, however, some coincidence, which it seems impossible to regard as pure coincidence, but which is so none the less, happens at the exact psychological instant, and appears to give solid grounds for suspicions that before rested on nothing.
Unfortunately, it is far easier to state and describe the evil tyranny of coincidence than to suggest any means of getting rid of the oppression. No man could regulate his conduct in life by saying that he will not base any action, or form any judgment, on circumstances which seem due to human arrangements, but which might have been due purely to a chance coincidence. A man who tried to do that would be taken in at every tarn. Always to give the benefit of the doubt is a dangerous, nay, an impossible, rule. Those who want to do evil are not slow to avail themselves of this claim, and look forward to being able to shelter their conduct behind what they may afterwards declare was nothing but a strange coincidence. When A, who is accused of robbing the till, is asked how it was that he was seen in such and such a place on the night of the theft, he answers that it was a most un- fortunate coincidence. He is guilty, but he boldly appeals to the fact that things have often looked quite as black for men who have after all been proved entirely innocent. As a matter of fact, the wise and prudent man is as often as not obliged to eliminate the possibility of coincidence, and to act as if that explanation of the circumstances could not hold good. Otherwise nine guilty persons would be allowed to escape in order to prevent the possibility of one being unfairly con- demned. The difficulty here is, of course, a part of the difficulty which arises in all matters of human conduct. You cannot make a hard and fast rule either to reject or to accept the explanation afforded by the plea of coincidence. If life could be governed by such simple rules, it would be a very much easier place to live in than it is. The good man indeed would only need to be a careful clerk. Every question of right and wrong would be referred to its appropriate rule and decided ac- cordingly, and perfection would present no greater difficulties than being punctual at the office in the morning. It is the perpetual balance between sternness and tenderness, between thinking no evil and encouraging evil by allowing oneself to be taken in, between forgiving wrong too easily and making
too much of it, that makes life the struggle it is, and brings out the better qualities of human nature. The truth is, that this tyranny of coincidence and the vast possibilities of evil that may arise from it, must be met boldly and fearlessly like the other evils of life. It is a mystery, and an evil mystery perhaps ; but man must not cower before it or let it paralyse his will. He must not even grow despondent over the wrong it may cause. The cases in which it does irreparable injury and brings human lives to utter ruin, must be regarded by the wise man as the soldier regards the men who die on the field of battle. If the General believes in the cause for which he is fighting, he does not refuse to order a charge because of the men who will fall. We know that a great deal of apparent injustice is bound to take place in life, and that we ourselves may often be forced to be the immediate instruments of that injustice. That knowledge must not, however, paralyse us, and make us too fearful of doing wrong to be able to do right. It is part of our duty to run the risk of doing what may be injustice. All that we are concerned to trouble about, is that we act rightly according to our ability to know the right. The rest we must leave in the trust and belief that what is imperfect and unintelligible here will in the end be made good. " On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven the perfect round." After all, the tyranny of coincidence, which sometimes seems so blind, so cruel, so oppressive, is only one fragment of the mystery of life. The injustice is not greater when some unhappy coincidence wrecks A's life by putting him under a suspicion from which he never extricates himself, than when B is born with an inherited predilection for drink and vice into a family of dipsomaniacs and prostitutes. In both cases fate seems—but only seems—to have shut the door of hope in the victim's face. It must be remembered, also, that the influence of coincidence on life, though we mark it most when it is evil, is not always injurious. Like all the unknown and unknowable forces of the world, it works good as well as evil. When things look blackest against an innocent man, it not unfrequently happens that a strange coincidence will save him. Again, how many men have said, with a shudder of relief, " If it had not been for this or that coincidence, all the world would have believed me guilty of this or that misdeed." The tyranny of coin- cidence, as we have said, as often works on men's minds to influence them for good as for evil. With this knowledge we must in the end rest content. We cannot in nature and in this world have the good without the evil. We must be satisfied with doing right as we understand it, knowing that here, as elsewhere, the law of compensation is continually at work.
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