e539b656
XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien
From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid
In message
<6d92495d-7106-4bdb-84fc-e1e361e268c0@er4g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>
Christopher Kreuzer spoke these
staves:
>
> On Aug 29, 2:00 am, sean_q wrote:
>>
>> Some examples of various forces at work, seemingly in a continuum
>> ranging from dim, subtle and vague to immediate, proximate and
>> strong:
>
> Some nice examples there. I'm going to annotate them and try and
> add more.
I did intend to add some more comments, but given the length of my
comments on 'chance' in Middle-earth I think that further comments
will have to be removed to a possible other post :-)
>> "Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design
>> of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that
>> Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and _not_ by its maker. In
>> which case you also were meant to have it.
>
> This is Middle-earth 'chance' at work. Iluvatar if a named entity
> is needed.
Hmmm . . . that would mean that 'chance' is somehow equivalent to
'fate' or 'providence' within Middle-earth. This is, I think, not
exactly the situation that Tolkien is setting up -- rather he is
often qualifying his use of 'chance' to imply that it isn't actually
chance at all, but precisely fate, the Music, or providence that is
at work.
>> "Think of what might have been. Dragon-fire and savage swords
>> in Eriador, night in Rivendell. There might be no Queen in
>> Gondor. We might now hope to return from the victory here only to
>> ruin and ash. But that has been averted – because I met Thorin
>> Oakenshield one evenin g on the edge of spring in Bree. A
>> chance-meeting, as we say in Middle-earth."
>>
>> [Clearly, in this context, "chance" means something other than
>> "statistically random".]
>
> Middle-earth 'chance'. Iluvatar/divine fate?
Again I think Tolkien is implying here that we are dealing with a
different kind of chance that isn't really chance at all, but rather
is a miracle (as Tolkien defines it in a letter).
This, of course, doesn't mean that 'chance', even when applied
correctly, refers to a stochastic process: rather I think that
'chance', properly so called, refers to what is also so called by
Boëthius (this is not to say that Boëthius is necessarily a source
for Tolkien, but I think that Tolkien's philosophical sources are
from the same tradition as Boëthius, and I think that Boëthius' /The
Consolation of Philosophy/ is in many cases one of the clearest
medieval expositions of this philosophy):
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 the truth.'
'How, pray?' said I.
'Thus,' says she: 'Whenever something is done for the
sake of a particular end, and for certain reasons some
other result than that designed ensues, this is called
chance; for instance, if a man is digging the earth for
tillage, and finds a mass of buried gold. Now, such a find
is regarded as accidental; yet it is not "ex nihilo," for
it has its proper causes, the unforeseen and unexpected
concurrence of which has brought the chance about. For had
not the cultivator been digging, had not the man who hid
the money buried it in that precise spot, the gold would
not have been found. These, then, are the reasons why the
find is a chance one, in that it results from causes which
met together and concurred, not from any intention on the
part of the discoverer. Since neither he who buried the
gold nor he who worked in the field intended that the
money should be found, but, as I said, it happened by
coincidence that one dug where the other buried the
treasure. We may, then, define chance as being an
unexpected result flowing from a concurrence of causes
where the several factors had some definite end. But the
meeting and concurrence of these causes arises from that
inevitable chain of order which, flowing from the fountain-
head of Providence, disposes all things in their due time
and place.'
Boëthius, /The Consolation of Philosophy/, book V ch. I, translated
by H.R. James
Thus 'chance' is something where we (the Eruhíni) cannot guess the
chain of causation and thus we have no idea what caused a certain
event, but it is caused by normal 'rules' of causation (i.e. without
any divine or other supernatural intervention). When Tolkien, as
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