CHAPTER VI 1 . 



THE SUBJECTIVE SIDE OF PROBABILITY. 

 MEASUREMENT OF BELIEF. 



1. HAVING now obtained a clear conception of a 

 certain kind of series, the next enquiry is, What is to be 

 done with this series? How is it to be employed as a means 

 of making inferences? The general step that we are now 

 about to take might be described as one from the objective 

 to the subjective, from the things themselves to the state of 

 our minds in contemplating them. 



The reader should observe that a substitution has, in a 

 great number of cases, already been made as a first stage 

 towards bringing the things into a shape fit for calculation. 

 This substitution, as described in former chapters, is, in a 

 measure, a process of idealization. The series we actually 

 meet with are apt to show a changeable type, and the indivi 

 duals of them will sometimes transgress their licensed irregu 

 larity. Hence they have to be pruned a little into shape, as 



1 Originally written in somewhat deavour to express myself with less 

 of a spirit of protest against what emphasis, and I have made altera- 

 seemed to me the prevalent dis- tions in that direction. The reader 

 position to follow De Morgan in who wishes to see a view not sub- 

 taking too subjective a view of the stantially very different from mine, 

 science. In reading it through now but expressed with a somewhat oppo- 

 I cannot find any single sentence to site emphasis, can refer to Mr F. Y. 

 which I could take distinct objection, Edgeworth s article on &quot; The Philoso- 

 though I must admit that if I were phy of Chance &quot; (Mind, Vol. ix. ) 

 writing it entirely afresh I should en- 



