ABSTRACT
There appears to have been some appreciation of the theory of chance in the latter part of the fifteenth century, for Sir John More, father of the author of “Utopia,” Sir Thomas More, is said to have declared that “marriage was like dipping one's hand into a bag in which there were twenty snakes and one eel, for it was twenty to one that you caught not the eel.” A more explicit application of the probability theory to events is contained in the writings of Mandeville, in the early eighteenth century. In a discussion of chance, Mandeville uses the illustration of the rebound of a tennis ball and also the throw of dice. He says:
To a Man, who knows nothing of the Tennis-Court, the Skips and Rebounds of the Ball seem to be all fortuitous; as he is not able to guess at the several different Directions it will receive, before it comes to the Ground; so, as soon as it has hit the Place, to which it was plainly directed at first, it is Chance to him where it will fall: whereas the experienced Player, knowing perfectly well the Journey the Ball will make, goes directly to the Place, if he is not there already, where it will certainly come within his Reach. Nothing seems to be more the Effect of Chance than a Cast of the Dice: yet they obey the Laws of Gravity and Motion in general, as much as any thing else; and from the Impressions that are given them, it is impossible they should fall otherwise than they do: but the various Directions which they shall receive in the whole Course of the Throw being entirely unknown, and the Rapidity with which they change their Situation being such, that our slow Apprehension cannot trace them, what the Cast will be is a Mystery to human Understanding, at fair Play. But if the same variety of Directions was given to two Cubes of ten Feet each, which a Pair of Dice receive as well from one another as the Box, the Caster's Fingers that cover it, and the Table they are flung upon, from the time they are taken up 'till they lye still, the same Effect would follow; and if the Quantity of Motion, the Force that is imparted to the Box and Dice was exactly known, and the Motion itself was so much retarded in the Performance, that what is done in three or four seconds, should take up an Hour's time, it would be easy to find out the Reason of every Throw, and Men might learn with Certainty to foretell which Side of the Cube would be uppermost. It is evidence then, that the Words fortuitous and casual, have no other meaning, than what depends upon our want of Knowledge, Foresight and Penetration; the Reflection on which will shew us, by what an Infinity of Degrees all human Capacity falls short of that universal intuitus, with which the supreme Being beholds at once every thing without Exception, whether to us it be visible or invisible, past, present, or to come. 1
