SECT. 25.] Measurement of Belief. 149 



have been giving what is to be regarded as a justification of 

 his belief from the point of view of the individual agent him 

 self. If we suppose the existence of an enlarged fellow-feel 

 ing, the applicability of such a justification becomes still more 

 extensive. We can assign a very intelligible sense to the 

 assertion that it is 999 to 1 that I shall not get a prize in a 

 lottery, even if this be stated in the form that my belief in 

 my so doing is represented by the fraction y^th of certainty. 

 Properly it means that in a very large number of throws I 

 should gain once in 1000 times. If we include other contin 

 gencies of the same kind, as described in the last section, 

 each individual may be supposed to reach to something like 

 this experience within the limits of his own life. He could 

 not do it in this particular line of conduct alone, but he could 

 do it in this line combined with others. Now introduce the 

 possibility of each man feeling that the gain of others offers 

 pome analogy to his own gains, which we may conceive his 

 doing except in the case of the gains of those against whom 

 he is directly competing, and the above justification becomes 

 still more extensively applicable. 



The following would be a fair illustration to test this 

 view. I know that I must die on some day of the week, and 

 there are but seven days. My belief, therefore, that I shall 

 die on a Sunday is one-seventh. Here the contingent event 

 is clearly one that does not admit of repetition; and yet 

 would not the belief of every man have the value assigned it 

 ;by the formula? It would appear that the same principle 

 will be found to be at work here as in the former examples. 

 It is quite true that I have only the opportunity of dying 

 once myself, but I am a member of a class in which deaths 

 occur with frequency, and I form my opinion upon evidence 

 drawn from that class. If, for example, I had insured my 

 life for 1000, 1 should feel a certain propriety in demanding 



