Chance

<p>“Chance” is generally held to be: “an accident; something happening without a cause; a supposed agent or mode of activity other than a force, law, or purpose.” The word was derived from the Latin word cadentia, meaning “the falling of the dice.” An “accident” is “something that happens suddenly or unexpectedly,” but the word is generally used in the sense of “something happening without due cause, and out of the established order.” The strict meaning of “Chance” is “without cause,” and it is generally so used. But with the advancing knowledge of the universal prevalence of causality, Chance in the original sense of the term is no longer regarded as existent, possible, or reasonable. The word is now employed in the scientific sense of: “The unknown, or unforeseen cause or causes of an event.” As Benley says: “Chance is but a mere name, and really nothing in itself; a conception of our minds, and only a compendious way of speaking, whereby we would express, that such effects as are commonly attributed to chance, were

verily produced by their true and proper causes.” The highest modern philosophical thought agrees with the Arcane Teaching

that: “In the Cosmos there is no Chance.” Where Law and Order reign, there can be no Chance; no “accidents” no “happenings,”

in the sense of “without cause.” Even the cast of the dice is now seen to be as much the result of Law and Order and Sequence

as is the motion of the sun, planets and tides. Casualty has been superseded by Causality in philosophical thought.</p>

<p>

The Arcane Teaching holds as Truth the idea that every thing and all things—every event and all events—are governed by

Law. That every thing and every event is under Law, Order, and Sequence. That there is no such thing as Chance. That every

event is a link in the Cosmic Sequence of events. That every thing is a part of, and not apart from, the Whole Thing. That

every event is a part of, and not apart from, the Whole Event. That nothing “happens” without precedent causal events proceeding regularly and in logical sequence. That there are no “accidents,” or events outside of the regular order. Hearing these statements, the student will feel impelled to ask the inevitablequestion: “Is this Reign of Law, Order, and Sequence, but another name for the old fetish of Fate, Destiny, or Predestination?

Are we then ruled by arbitrary Fate—governed by the decree of Destiny? Are all events Preordained, Predetermined, and

Predestined ?”</p>