Writers sometimes use these names — sors, fors, fortuna [lot, chance, fortune] — for the same thing, and sometimes distinguish [them]: as when the Satirist says (Satire 1) [Horace, Satires 1.1.1–3]:
“How comes it, Maecenas, that no one lives content / with the lot which either reason has given him, / or chance has thrown his way?”
And in the former way [fors] the lot [sors] is not so much to be called “fortuitous” as [it is called] “chance” [fors]; but in the latter way, not every lot [is] fortuitous, since reason gives some [lot], [and] chance does not throw it. But the name “lot” [sors] seems then to be taken rather for a thing which someone has, or which has fallen to him — whether by inheritance, or by industry, or in any other way whatever. But [as for] the casting of names [by lot], and [the question] about the lot in so far as it is [the sign] of a hidden thing through instruments of this kind (of which above, q. 17) — whether the indication be referred to knowledge alone or to action — [here] it is asked whether it ought to be reckoned fortuitous. But it must be answered, first: that Fortune was of old reckoned by the wretched Gentiles [to be] a God, or some goddess — in whose name Juvenal says [Satires 10.365–366]:
“[It is] we [who] make thee, Fortune, a goddess, and set thee in heaven.”
Concerning her names and temples [there is] much [in] bk. 1, ch. 13; Alexander ab Alexandro; on the painting, Cebes in the Tablet; and Albertus in the second [book] of the Physics, chapter six. And so neither lots, nor any effects [of chance], are altogether fortuitous, because chance is no Divinity [Numen]. And so St. Augustine (City [of God] bk. 4, ch. 18) denies that there is any Fortune; and (Retractations bk. 1, ch. 1) he says: “In three books of mine, Against the Academics, it does not please me that I so often named ‘fortune’ — although I did not wish any goddess to be understood by this name, but the fortuitous
(col. 861)
outcome of things, either in [things] of our body, or in external [goods] or evils.” And a little after: “It repents me that I so named ‘fortune’ there, since I see men to have [it] in a very bad habit, [that] where one ought to say ‘God willed this,’ [they] say ‘Fortune willed this.’” Secondly: Fortune is sometimes called a thing whose cause is hidden from us. “Perhaps,” says Augustine in the same place of the Retractations, “what is commonly named ‘fortune’ is governed by a certain hidden order, and we call nothing ‘chance’ in things except [that] whose reason and cause is secret” — and so very many lots may have been fortuitous, yet not all, because it is established that God is the cause of some, as [was the case] with this [lot] concerning Achan. But in that way [things] innumerable — even those which [happen] by nature, and always happen — would be fortuitous; and likewise very many [things are] fortuitous to the ruder [sort] which [are] not [so] to the more learned. The turning of the magnet toward the Arctic region, for example, [is] fortuitous to all; and an eclipse to all the less instructed — of which kind were those [men] of whom Rojas [treats] in his Astrolabe. And so, in q. 32, Abulensis perhaps argues these things. Thirdly: Fortune is sometimes called a particular efficient cause, in respect of some effect which, with some effect [aimed at] deliberately — or, as the Philosopher says (ch. 6, bk. 2 of the Physics), κατὰ προαίρεσιν [kata proairesin, “according to deliberate choice”] — is joined to that [effect] which was aimed at, [though] not aimed at deliberately. So Aristotle, in the place cited, and, in the exposition of that place, the weightier philosophers — as much the Christians (Soto, Toletus, the Coimbrans) as the Gentiles [pagans]. And in this way most call lots fortuitous, as Abulensis (qq. 32, 33) here, and Cajetan (on the 2a2ae, q. 96, a. 8). Yet I think it must rather be said, first: because, in lots, whatever things are done are inquired into and found — all these are done by a fixed purpose and provision of the mind. For the lot-caster does not merely employ the instruments of the lot — for example, he does not merely throw the slips into the urn, shake [them], [and] draw [one] out, but he also aims at this, that he may know and embrace what those [slips] shall have indicated: nay, for this very reason he uses them, that he may find this out. Just as, therefore, if someone were to dig in a field to this end, that he might find a treasure, that finding would not be fortuitous — so neither [are] lots fortuitous. Secondly: In every fortuitous outcome there must be two effects, of which the one is aimed at through itself and primarily, [while] the other is joined to it beyond all expectation and all effort. But in casting lots [there is] only one primary effect, and no other is joined to it beyond the caster’s expectation. For primarily the caster aims at the knowledge of the thing which he desires to know, and no other effect is thereafter associated with this per accidens — at least in so far as [it comes] from the lot itself. For it is another matter if, from elsewhere, envy, grief, contention, or something similar arise, which was not thought of nor deliberately sought. Thirdly: Because, if there were anything fortuitous in the lot, most of all would [it be] that confluence of causes, of which — from Boethius — Abulensis [treats] (qq. 36, 37). But not even that is fortuitous. For that the caster throws his hand into the urn and draws out a slip, is plainly voluntary. And that this slip — which pronounces this man King, or [the man] guilty of the sacrilege — is drawn out, [is] also voluntary: either generally, and as it were confusedly, in so far as all will that this [slip] fall to someone; or singly, and precisely, in so far as of its own accord [each] freely binds and determines itself to the drawing-out of this slip — [namely, the caster] who draws it. But in some lots it can happen that it be determined by nature, or by some other external cause, whence the knowledge is proximately drawn: but howsoever it be, the lot-casters always will it so, and aim at it. Just as the election of a King is not called fortuitous — although the individual electors are ignorant which [candidate] the votes, whether the more [numerous] or the better, will choose — because all will that someone be chosen, and are now doing this one [thing]: so neither [is] the casting of lots fortuitous. And again, just as, when I wish to walk, my walking is not fortuitous — although I do not precisely know whether I move the [one] foot first, or with what muscles and vital spirits I move both — so neither is the casting of lots to be placed among fortuitous [things], although in it something be distinctly unknown, since that very [thing] is nonetheless desired and sought after. Fourthly: Clearly St. Thomas (q. 96, in the cited third article) indicates both that lot-actions are done deliberately, and that through them the outcome of the lots is deliberately inquired into. “Divination,” he says, “(the lot-kind) is made from the consideration of those things which come about from certain [things] which are done seriously by men for inquiring out something hidden.” But if lots be not from Fortune — for the causes already stated — neither will they be from chance, although this [term “chance”] extends more widely to them. For nothing happens in these which, as it were [their] mark, is not proposed and sought. And all these things I understand in respect of the casters themselves. For in respect of God, all the somewhat wiser Philosophers know [that] nothing at all [is] fortuitous, or from chance; and St. Augustine teaches [it] (On the Trinity bk. 3, ch. 4, and 83 Questions, q. 34), [and] Abulensis (q. 31). The Coimbrans, in the place cited — although that reasoning of theirs is not pleasing, by which they take it universally that God cannot be the per-accidens cause of anything: because he can be the per-accidens cause of a sin, when he concurs efficiently with the action of a creature, which [action], for example, is a theft or an adultery; and yet he does not aim at a sin of this kind, whose per-se cause is something worse and baser. But perhaps they are speaking of positive being. But away with that [saying] of Ausonius:
“Fragile are the affairs of men [which] the Lot nourishes and rules and destroys.”
And likewise that doubt of Claudian:
“Or is nothing fixed, but does uncertain Lot wander? / And bring and bring back the changes, and do mortal things have [only] chance?” [Claudian, In Rufinum 1.12–13]