The Four Tusked Elephant

Coincidences play an important role in determining the success or failure of a mission. Most often, one or few strokes of coincidences is involved in great discoveries and inventions. This can be seen in the mission of Armand Denis to discover the four tusked elephant. Two important coincidences set him in his quest again when he had thought of giving up. (Claim) 


Denis had stopped his journey after he and his Pygmies companions saw even a big elephant having only two tusks. But after few months, the first coincidence occurred when  he revisited the Pygmy's country and stayed at a hotel in a place called Butembo. There, some Belgian sellers were talking in Flemish, the language he was familiar with as a child, about the four tusked elephant. The next coincidence occurred when Denis was despondently driving back to his camp and caught sight of something white in a ditch just beyond the administrator's office. On close observation he found that it was the skull of a fully grown elephant. Both of these coincidences fueled him with proof and  positive energy to continue on his abandoned mission. (Ground)

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Due to the first coincidence, Denis was able to figure out that an African had sold four tusks to a Greek trader and insisted that he had taken it from a single dead elephant. Denis found the African and bribed him to bring the skull of that four tusked elephant. He also wrote to the warehouse where the four tusks were sent to send them to him at a greater price through post office at Butembo. These actions immediately set into motion the real actions needed to prove the existence of four tusked elephant. Due to the second coincidence, Armand Denis finally got one of the proof to verify his hypothesis. Thinking that he had lost the skull of elephant and the tusks he had gathered now proved nothing, he was sure he had failed. This coincidence helped him gain his confidence to work in his mission again. (Warrant and Backing)

I completely agree with people who say that hard work and dedication towards the goal far outlines the importance of coincidence. But most often, it is the coincidence that guides the path to reach the goal when hard work and dedication wither away or aren't sufficient. Armand Denis had put his heart and soul in his mission. But only coincidences led his quest to completion by providing required proof and motivation. Even then, he wasn't completely convinced that the mystery of the existence of  four tusked elephant was solved. (Rebuttal and Qualifier)