They both come ultimately, from the
Latin "cadere," to fall. Chance is a falling-out, like that of a die
from the dice-box; and coincidence signifies one falling-out on the top
of another, the concurrent happening of two or more chances which
resemble or somehow fit into each other. If you rattle six dice in a box
and throw them, and they turn up at haphazard--say, two aces, a deuce,
two fours, and a six--there is nothing remarkable in this falling out.
But if they all turn up sixes, you at once suspect that the dice are
cogged; and if that be not so--if there be no sufficient cause behind
the phenomenon--you say that this identical falling-out of six separate
possibilities was a remarkable coincidence. Now, applying the
illustration to drama, I should say that the playwright is perfectly
justified in letting chance play its probable and even inevitable part
in the affairs of his characters; but that, the moment we suspect him of
cogging the dice, we feel that he is taking an unfair advantage of us,
and our imagination either cries, "I won't play!" or continues the game
under protest.
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