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reference of the event to a general relation that has a cause. The
event, it is true was governed by the law of the current. But
the fact which we are considering it that
the two pieces that were dashed together had long before
belonged together. That is a fact that would not happen once
in ten thousand times, although when you join to this fact
various circumstances of the actual event, and so contemplate
quite another fact it would happen every time, no doubt.
That is to say nobody can doubt it but an adherent of the E's
sect. The example is a very good one as showing that the
causal necessitation of a more concrete fact does not prevent a
more prescinded or general fact of the same event from being quite
fortuitous. The position of Aristotle in this matter is
altogether right, and not “veri propinqua ratione,”
as Boëthius says; but it is a position that nobody can

34

reference of the event to a general relation that has a cause. The
event, it is true was governed by the law of the current. But
the fact which we are considering it that
the two pieces that were dashed together had long before
belonged together. That is a fact that would not happen once
in ten thousand times, although when you join to this fact
various circumstances of the actual event, and so contemplate
quite another fact it would happen every time, no doubt.
That is to say nobody can doubt it but an adherent of the E's
sect. The example is a very good one as showing that the
causal necessitation of a more concrete fact does not prevent a
more prescinded or general fact of the same event from being quite
fortuitous.
The position of Aristotle in this matter is altogether right, and not "veri propinqua ratione", as Boethius says; but ut us a position that nobody can