If you live by th esword, you make yourself far more likely to die by said sword. Its a mark of a good warrior that he or she has lived by the sword and not died by the sword.
But I digress.
In terms of the oringal post, its, as someone said, a Karma -like concept. In terms of there being natural laws, thats a problem to leave to philosophers. Suffice to say, tht Gollums love for the Ring and its eventual killing of him could be seen as a purely literary device, to show th edangers of too much of a specific thing.
Those are my musings anyways. But yes. Its all down to numbers in the end
Mephiston