In truth, Chance, in the sense in which the gamblers understand it, is a
god without existence. They worship only a lie, which each of them
pictures to himself in a different shape. Each of them ascribes to it
laws, habits, preferences that are utterly contradictory, as a whole,
and purely imaginary. According to some, it favours certain numbers.
According to others, it obeys certain rhythms that are easily grasped.
According to others again, it contains within itself a sort of justice
that ends by giving an equal value to each group of chances. According
to others, lastly, it cannot possibly favour indefinitely any particular
series of simple chances for the benefit of the bank. We should never
come to an end if we tried to review the whole illusory _corpus juris_
of roulette. It is true that, in practice, the indefinite repetition of
the same limited accidents necessarily forms groups of coincidences in
which the gambler's deluded eye seems to discern some phantom laws. But
it is no less true that, upon trial, at the moment when you rely upon
the assistance of the surest phantom, it vanishes abruptly and leaves
you face to face with the unknown which it was masking. For the rest,
most gamblers bring to the green cloth many other illusions, conscious
or instinctive, and infinitely less justifiable. Almost all persuade
themselves that Chance reserves for them special and premeditated
favours or misfortunes. Almost all imagine some undefined but plausible
connection to exist between the little ivory sphere and their presence,
their passions, their desires, their vices, their virtues, their merits,
their intellectual or moral power, their beauty, their genius, the
enigma of their being, their future, their happiness and their life. Is
it necessary to say that there is no such connection; that there could
be none? That little sphere whose judgment they implore, upon which they
hope to exercise an occult influence, that incorruptible little ball has
something else to do than to occupy itself with their joys and sorrows.
It has but thirty or forty seconds of movement and of life; and, during
those thirty or forty seconds, it has to obey more eternal rules, to
resolve more infinite problems, to accomplish more essential duties than
would ever find place in man's consciousness or comprehension. It has,
among other enormous and difficult things, to reconcile in its brief
course those two incomprehensible and immeasurable powers which are
probably the biform soul of the Universe: centrifugal force and
centripetal force. It has to reckon with all the laws of gravitation,
friction, the resistance of the air, all the phenomena of matter. It has
to pay attention to the smallest incidents of the earth or sky; for a
gambler who leaves his seat and imperceptibly disturbs the floor of the
room, or a star that rises in the firmament, compels it to modify and
begin anew the whole of its mathematical operations. It has no time to
play the part of a goddess either well or ill-disposed towards mortals;
it is forbidden to neglect a single one of the numberless formalities
which infinity demands of all that moves within it. And, when, at last,
it attains its goal, it has performed the same incalculable work as the
moon or the other cold and indifferent planets that, outside, above, in
the transparent azure, rise majestically over the sapphire and silver
waters of the Mediterranean. This long work we call Chance, having no
other name to give to that which we do not as yet understand.