ance" is a disreputable word, I know. It is supposed by many pious
persons to be improper and almost blasphemous to use it. But I am not
one of those who share this verbal prejudice. I am inclined rather to
believe that it is a good word to which a bad reputation has been
given. I feel grateful to that admirable "psychologist who writes like a
novelist," Mr. William James, for his brilliant defence of it. For what
does it mean, after all, but that some things happen in a certain way
which might have happened in another way? Where is the immorality, the
irreverence, the atheism in such a supposition? Certainly God must be
competent to govern a world in which there are possibilities of various
kinds, just as well as one in which every event is inevitably determined
beforehand. St. Peter and the other fishermen-disciples on the Lake
of Galilee were perfectly free to cast their net on either side of the
ship. So far as they could see, so far as any one could see, it was a
matter of chance where they chose to cast it. But it was not until they
let it down, at the Master's word, on the right side that they had good
luck. And not the least element of their joy in the draft of fishes was
that it brought a change of fortune.

Leave the metaphysics of the question on the table for the present. As
a matter of fact, it is plain that our human nature is adapted to
conditions variable, undetermined, and hidden from our view. We are
not fitted to live in a world where a + b always equals c, and there is
nothing more to follow. The interest of life's equation arrives with the
appearance of x, the unknown quantity. A settled, unchangeable, clearly
foreseeable order of things does not suit our constitution. It tends to
melancholy and a fatty heart. Creatures of habit we are undoubtedly; but
it is one of our most fixed habits to be fond of variety. The man who
is never surprised does not know the taste of happiness, and unless the
unexpected sometimes happens to us, we are most grievously disappointed.

Much of the tediousness of highly civilized life comes from its
smoothness and regularity. To-day is like yesterday, and we think that
we can predict to-morrow. Of course we cannot really do so. The
chances are still there. But we have covered them up so deeply with
the artificialities of life that we lose sight of them. It seems as if
everything in our neat little world were arranged, and provided for,
and reasonably sure to come to pass.