r ^82 ] 



Page 344. " A wife man therefore proportions his belief to 

 " his evidence" (he means to his proof) : " in fuch conclufions as 

 " are founded on an infallible experience^ he expeds the event 

 " with the laft degree of affurance, and regards his paft experi- 

 " ence as a full proof of the future exiftence of that event." Let 

 us here confider what experience he dignifies with the appella- 

 tion of infallible. It furely is not his own ^f^ySwa/ experience, but 

 that general and uniform experience of others which he could 

 know only by teftimony, for if he never before fired a piftol or 

 a cannon, he would, on attempting it, exped the event expe- 

 rienced by others, with the fame degree of affurance, as if 

 gained by his own pradice ; but neither his nor their experience 

 can be denominated infallible^ for both engines often mifs fire or 

 burft. This term indeed is never applied to experience, but by 

 quacks or mountebanks, who promife infallible cures, &c. The 

 exped^ation of ivife men is generally confinedto a high degree of 

 probability, and feldom rifes to certainty, except in very fimple 

 cafes ; and even then abfolute infallibility on all poflible oc- 

 cafions, and in all poiiible circumftances, is never afcribed to 

 it. 



Ibid. " In, all cafes of probability we miift balance the op- 

 " pofite experiments, and dedud the froaller number from the 

 " greater, in order to know the exadl force of the fuperior evidence," 

 " or rather probability — This mode of eftimating probabilities; 



is 



