the nature of things. It leaves the reality of free
will unimpaired, and the evils feared do not ensue. Our
responsibility is great, since all that we do is done in the sight
of all-seeing Providence.

BOOK V.

I.

She ceased, and was about to pass on in her discourse to the exposition
of other matters, when I break in and say: 'Excellent is thine
exhortation, and such as well beseemeth thy high authority; but I am
even now experiencing one of the many difficulties which, as thou saidst
but now, beset the question of providence. I want to know whether thou
deemest that there is any such thing as chance at all, and, if so, what
it is.'

Then she made answer: 'I am anxious to fulfil my promise completely, and
open to thee a way of return to thy native land. As for these matters,
though very useful to know, they are yet a little removed from the path
of our design, and I fear lest digressions should fatigue thee, and thou
shouldst find thyself unequal to completing the direct journey to our
goal.'

'Have no fear for that,' said I. 'It is rest to me to learn, where
learning brings delight so exquisite, especially when thy argument has
been built up on all sides with undoubted conviction, and no place is
left for uncertainty in what follows.'

She made answer: 'I will accede to thy request;' and forthwith she thus
began: 'If chance be defined as a result produced by random movement
without any link of causal connection, I roundly affirm that there is no
such thing as chance at all, and consider the word to be altogether
without meaning, except as a symbol of the thing designated. What place
can be left for random action, when God constraineth all things to
order? For "ex nihilo nihil" is sound doctrine which none of the
ancients gainsaid, although they used it of material substance, not of
the efficient principle; this they laid down as a kind of basis for all
their reasonings concerning nature. Now, if a thing arise without
causes, it will appear to have arisen from nothing. But if this cannot
be, neither is it possible for there to be chance in accordance with the
definition just given.'

'Well,' said I, 'is there, then, nothing which can properly be called
chance or accident, or is there something to which these names are
appropriate, though its nature is dark to the vulgar?'

'Our good Aristotle,' says she, 'has defined it concisely in his
"Physics," and closely in accordance with th