On Chance (-1699)

"Is it possible, then, for any man to apprehend in advance occurrences for which no cause or reason can be assigned? What do we mean when we employ such terms as luck, fortune, accident, turn of the die, except that we are seeking to describe events which happened and came to pass in such a way that they either might not have happened and come to pass at all or might have happened and come to pass under quite different circumstances? How then can an event be anticipated and predicted which occurs fortuitously and as a result of blind chance and of the spinning of Fortune's wheel?" (Marcus Tullius Cicero, "De Divinatione", 44 BC)

"The universal cause is one thing, a particular cause another. An effect can be haphazard with respect to the plan of the second, but not of the first. For an effect is not taken out of the scope of one particular cause save by another particular cause which prevents it, as when wood dowsed with water, will not catch fire. The first cause, however, cannot have a random effect in its own order, since all particular causes are comprehended in its causality. When an effect does escape from a system of particular causality, we speak of it as fortuitous or a chance happening […]" (Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologica", cca. 1266-1273)

"Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance." (Michel de Montaigne, "Essays", 1580)

"Men are further beholding […] generally to chance, or anything else, than to logic, for the invention or arts and sciences." (Francis Bacon, "The Advancement of Learning", 1605)

"Even the effects already discovered are due to chance and experiment, rather than to the sciences; for our present sciences are nothing more than peculiar arrangements of matters already discovered, and not methods for discovery or plans for new operations." (Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum", 1620)

"Thus, joining the rigor of demonstrations in mathematics with the uncertainty of chance, and conciliating these apparently contradictory matters, it can, taking its name from both of them, with justice arrogate the stupefying name: The Mathematics of Chance." (Blaise Pascal, [Address to the Academie Parisienne de Mathematiques] 1654)

"As a Foundation to the following Proposition, I shall take Leave to lay down this Self-evident Truth: That any one Chance or Expectation to win any thing is worth just such a Sum, as wou’d procure in the same Chance and Expectation at a fair Lay." (Christiaan Huygens, "De ratiociniis in ludo aleae", 1657)

"According to the doctrine of chance, you ought to put yourself to the trouble of searching for the truth […]." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées", 1670)

"It is impossible for a Die, with such determin’d force and direction, not to fall on such a determin’d side, only I don’t know the force and direction which makes it fall on such a determin’d side, and therefore I call that Chance, which is nothing but want of Art [...]" (John Arbuthnot, "Of the Laws of Chance", 1692)

"I believe the calculation of the quantity of probability might be improved to a very useful and pleasant speculation, and applied to a great many events which are accidental, besides those of games; only these cases would be infinitely more confused, as depending on chances which the most part of men are ignorant of." (John Arbuthnot, "Of the Laws of Chance", 1692)