accident and luck may seem to have no place in a world of law, and yet the fate of lives rests almost entirely on what can be better classified under this head than any other.
this is a pluralistic universe. the world is made up of an infinite number of independent machines, each having its own existence and controlled by the laws of its own being. in going its several ways and living its own life, inevitably it often clashes with others and is seriously affected by them. the fox and the rabbit both roam the woods, apparently at will, at least independently of each other. by an infinite number of circumstances, at a particular time and place, their paths cross and the fox devours the rabbit. had they not met at the time and place, the fate of the rabbit would not have been the same. the fox would have traveled farther and eaten another rabbit or some other animal in its stead.
an engine is running on a railroad track. it makes the trip day after day without accident or disaster. an automobile is one of a million built in a far off city. its mechanism is marvelous, and each part is dependent on the rest for its normal functioning. some vital piece of the machine contains a flaw. how it chanced to be imperfect is another story involving endless speculation. an inherent natural defect in the ore, or a tired workman anywhere from the original smelting place to the last hand that touched it, may have been the cause; or, the reason may be still more impossible to discover. the machine is purchased and does its work perfectly for months. it is driven thousands of miles without any mishap. it is propelled along the highway and reaches the railroad track over which the engine runs. it is filled with happy people enjoying a vacation. the automobile and the engine reach the crossing at almost the same time. the automobile driver sees the engine and applies the brakes. for the first time since it left the shop, the machinery does not work. the car forges ahead and reaches the tracks just in time to be struck by the engine. the merry party meets disaster. no power could foresee the catastrophe, nor provide against the death that must result. inevitably comes the clash of independent machines. each human being is a separate machine. along the road of life he meets countless others like himself. some chance meetings are fortunate and help the journey. some other chance meeting with a human machine, a mechanical device, an infinitesimal microbe that happened to be at the same place at the same time brings disaster or death. this is luck or chance or fate, and this really hovers over every life, controlling its course and destiny and deciding when the puppet shall be laid away!
luck and chance are the chief of all factors that really affect man. from birth to death the human machine is called on to make endless adjustments. a child is born and starts down the road of life. he starts blindly and, for the most part, travels the whole way in the mists and clouds. on his pathway he meets an infinite number of other pilgrims going blindly like himself. from the beginning to the end, all about him and in front of him are snares and pitfalls. his brain and nervous system are filled with emotions and desires which lure him here and there. temptations are beckoning and passions urging him. he has no guide to show the way and no compass to direct his course. he knows that the journey will bring him to disaster in the end. he does not know the time or the nature of the last catastrophe he shall meet. every step is taken in doubt and pain and fear. his friends and companions, through accident or disease, drop around him day by day. he cannot go back or halt or wait. he must go forward to the bitter end.
the whole journey of life is largely a question of luck. let anyone ask himself the question how often he has escaped disaster or how often death has just passed him by. how often has he done some act that would have led to degradation had it been known? how many hair-breadth escapes has he met? how many accidents has he had which luckily were slight but which easily might have caused his destruction?
chance is the great element in life. two men invest money; one gains a fortune, the other loses all. two men are riding in a machine and it goes over a cliff; one is killed, the other escapes. the deadly germ is taken by one, it passes the other by; or, it is taken by one when his health will make him immune, by another at the time that it will destroy his life. how many temptations to violate the law has one just missed by a lucky accident? how many times has a previous experience, education, or a friend at the right time saved him from destruction?
the imperfect man travels this road; he is poor and friendless; his life is a long series of accidents great and small. the first accident that weakens his structure makes the second more certain and so on in increasing ratio until the end. good luck crowds around one life, while ill luck and disaster follow another's footsteps wherever he goes with the persistency of his shadow.
in all the infinite number of chances one false step may be enough to bring final disaster. all depends on the nature of the step. every pilgrim makes innumerable false steps; often luck alone saves the situation; often luck alone compasses the destruction.
insurance companies know just when accidents will befall the insured. if a man lives long enough he will die from a mischance. in a thousand men, a certain number will meet accident in a given time. it is just the same whether the insurance is written to be payable when a leg is cut off by a train or when money is embezzled from an employer. in either event the time can be figured out, and inevitably it will come if the time is long enough.
neither is it necessary that the bad luck shall be great at the first misfortune. it may be but the loss of a few dollars which another could easily stand. it may be only a few days of sickness which would be of no consequence to someone else. it may be the death of a father or an uncle, while the same sort of tragedy might be the source of another's wealth. it may be some other person's hard luck which takes him from school and leaves him to follow a life of hard and constant toil. it may be that he had the bad luck not to marry the person of his choice, or it may be that he had the bad luck to marry her. it may be because he had no children; it may be because he had too many. it may well be that he has been saved from prison by dying early of tuberculosis. he may have been saved from a railroad wreck by going to jail. infinite are the tricks of chance. infinite are the combinations and consequences that may come from turning the cards in a single deck.
who is the perfect one that should be willing to punish vengefully his fellow-man? let one look honestly into his own life and pick out the important things that lead to fortune or disaster from birth onward, and say how many are the results of circumstances over which he had no control.
where is the human being, in the presence of a dead child or a dead parent or a dead friend or in the presence of a terrible trouble, that has not sat down in sorrow and despair and again and again lived over every circumstance that led to the disaster, asking why he did not turn this way instead of that way? why did he not stop here, or go there; why did he do this or why did he not do that? why did he not take this short step? why did he not think of this or think of that? if only any one of almost an infinite number of things had been done or left undone, the dead would be alive or the disaster would not have befallen. every man who is honest with himself knows that he has been a creature of conditions and chance, or at least what is chance as far as a man can see, and what was clearly chance to him. he knows that if he has met success, he has only been more in luck than the rest. if he has intelligence and human sympathy, he feels only pity for the suffering. he would never punish in vengeance or hatred. he knows that all do the best they can, with what they have.
enumerating some of the many causes of crime ought to be an unnecessary task. to give the number of ways men die or are killed by accident, means only that sooner or later they die, and if they had not died one way, they would have died another. it means only that a machine will inevitably give way in some part, and man may go on finding the weak spots and strengthening them forever and still the end will come. fate does not look for a weak spot; it looks for the weakest and finds it.
manifold causes produce crime; some men commit it from one cause: some from another. statistics only show the number of men who commit crime from the various separate causes. in logic and philosophy it really shows that, a certain heredity placed in a certain environment, will meet obstructions and obstacles. some heredities will carry men further, and some environments will overcome them more quickly; but as surely as effects follow from causes, every heredity will meet disaster in some way under any environment, and the time and kind of disaster it meets depend not upon perverseness or freedom of will, but upon the fortune of the meeting of heredity with the manifold environment that surrounds every life. it must be plain that life lasts only as long as it makes adjustments. that it consists only of adjustments. that, ordinarily, strong heredity and a good environment will serve the longest. that, generally, a weak heredity and a poor environment will meet disaster soonest. life may be lengthened either by improving the heredity or the environment or both. whatever catastrophe overtakes it and the time it falls depend not upon the will of the machine, but upon the character of the machine that starts on the journey and the road it travels. the disasters cannot in reason or justice be divided into criminal or non-criminal. they are all natural; they are each and all inevitable. each is the inevitable destruction of a machine which could stand so much, but which could stand no more. and in each, in spite of both heredity and the general environment, the constant meeting with other machines due to pure luck and chance is a great factor, if not the chief factor, that determines the individual life.
