CHAPTER III. 



0^ THE CAUSAL PROCESS BY WHICH THE GROUPS OR 

 SERIES OF PROBABILITY ARE BROUGHT ABOUT. 



1. IN discussing the question whether all the various 

 Toups and series with which Probability is concerned are of 

 &amp;gt;recisely one and the same type, we made some examination 

 f the process by which they are naturally produced, but we 

 Qust now enter a little more into the details of this pro- 

 ess. All events are the results of numerous and com 

 plicated antecedents, far too numerous and complicated 

 in fact for it to be possible for us to determine or take 

 them all into account. Now, though it is strictly true that 

 we can never determine them all, there is a broad dis 

 tinction between the case of Induction, in which we can 

 make out enough of them, and with sufficient accuracy, to 

 satisfy a reasonable certainty, and Probability, in which we 

 cannot do so. To Induction we shall return in a future 

 chapter, and therefore no more need be said about it here. 



We shall find it convenient to begin with a division 

 which, though not pretending to any philosophical accuracy, 

 will serve as a preliminary guide. It is the simple division 

 into objects, and the agencies which affect them. All the 

 phenomena with which Probability is concerned (as indeed 

 most of those with which science of any kind is concerned) 

 are the product of certain objects natural and artificial, 

 acting under the influence of certain agencies natural and 



