ABSTRACT
There is often in the Simultaneous, the Coincidental, an apparent uniformity of tendency, which simulates designs, but which so far as human agency is concerned, is wholly fortuitous. We see this in the commonest concerns of life. We see it in events affecting mightily the destinies of empires. Under a pressure of concurrent annoyances and vexations, men often cry out that there is a conspiracy against them, and the historical inquirer often sees a conspiracy, when in reality there is only a coincidence. A great disaster like the massacre at Vellur, acts like iodine upon hidden writings in rice water.
