III. The Valuation of Chance

III. The Valuation of Chance.III. Wertung des Zufalls.

Some circumstances of life bring it about that one seeks especially familiar dealings with chance. As outstanding representatives of such conduct I should like to name certain forms of superstition, and games of hazard.

Superstition is in no way accustomed to value chances as such, but attributes a guidance to them; it makes great use of that personification of chance which we explained in our first section. Our experiences since then let us understand that in a certain sense it is right in doing so; for superstition proceeds exactly as things went in our examples, where the marionettes of chance were moved by human hands. It too dresses up the chance happening, whether by taking part in it or by seeing ideas into it. The superstitious man is then not wrong to want to read a “meaning” out of the finished result. But he deceives himself about the origin of the meaningful element; he ascribes it to a power outside himself; he does not know that he has smuggled it into things himself.