PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



ANY work on Probability by a Cambridge man will be so 

 likely to have its scope and its general treatment of the 

 subject prejudged, that it may be well to state at the outset 

 that the following Essay is in no sense mathematical. Not 

 only, to quote a common but often delusive assurance, will 

 no knowledge of mathematics beyond the simple rules of 

 Arithmetic be required to understand these pages, but it is 

 not intended that any such knowledge should be acquired by 

 the process of reading them. Of the two or three occasions 

 on which algebraical formulae occur they will not be found to 

 form any essential part pf the text. 



The science of Probability occupies at present a some 

 what anomalous position. It is impossible, I think, not to 

 observe in it some of the marks and consequent disadvantages 

 of a sectional study. By a small body of ardent students it 

 has been cultivated with great assiduity, and the results they 

 have obtained will always be reckoned among the most ex 

 traordinary products of mathematical genius. But by the 

 general body of thinking men its principles seem to be 

 regarded with indifference or suspicion. Such persons may 

 admire the ingenuity displayed, and be struck with the pro 

 fundity of many of the calculations, but there seems to 



