  Du Bois was no less interested in determining (again, “by study and measurement”) the limits of law than he was in determining the limits of chance. Law, he believed, marked the limit of chance, and chance, he believed, marked the limit of law. Knowledge of social laws and regularities can contribute to social reform by enabling the social reformer causally to explain social problems and rationally to chart plans to solve those problems.  Knowledge of the element of chance—or, more exactly, of the scope and limits of chance in organized, modern social life—can contribute to social reform by enabling the reformer to gauge the extent to which implementing his ideas would entail experimenting with (“essaying”) plans of action that, due to the play of chance, carry a significant risk of failure—plans that he could not confidently endorse, despite his knowledge of the social laws and regularities shaping modern social life. Just as knowledge of the scope and limits of chance could provide the “Captain of Industry” who speculates in currency and trades in floated, corporate stock a reason to modify his investment decisions, so too could it provide the reformer a reason to modify his plans of action and similarly to meet the “tingling challenge of  risk.”[33] 