Book 8
6
For in navigation it is not the cleverest who are fortunate, but (just as in throwing dice one man throws a blank and another a six) a man is fortunate according as things were arranged by nature.Or, with Jackson’s emendations, another a six according as nature determines, so here a man is lucky because his nature is such. Or is it because he is loved by God, as the phrase goes, and because success is something from outside? as for instance a badly built ship often gets through a voyage better, though not owing to itself, but because it has a good man at the helm.
7
But on this showing the fortunate man has the deity as steersman. But it is strange that a god or deity should love a man of this sort, and not the best and most prudent. If, then, the success of the lucky must necessarily be due to either nature or intellect or some guardianship, and of these three causes two are ruled out, those who are fortunate will be so by nature.
8
But again, nature of course is the cause of a thing that happens either always or generally in the same way, whereas fortune is the opposite. If, then, unexpected achievement seems a matter of fortune, but, if a man is fortunate owing to fortune, it would seem that the cause is not of such a sort as to produce the same result always or generally—
