SECT. 33.] Measurement of Belief. 159 



rhe employment of any distinct word is generally a proof 

 that mankind have observed some distinct properties in the 

 things, which have caused them to be singled out and have 

 that name appropriated to them. There is such a class of 

 words assigned by popular usage to the kind of events of 

 which Probability takes account. If we examine them we 

 shall find, I think, that they direct us unmistakeably to the 

 two-fold aspect of the question, the objective and the sub 

 jective, the quality in the events and the state of our minds 

 in considering them, that have occupied our attention 

 during the former chapters. 



The word extraordinary , for instance, seems to point -to 

 the observed fact, that events are arranged in a sort of ordo 

 or rank. No one of them might be so exactly placed that 

 we could have inferred its position, but when we take a great 

 many into account together, running our eye, as it were, 

 along the line, we begin to see that they really do for the 

 most part stand in order. Those which stand away from the 

 line have this divergence observed, and are called ex 

 traordinary, the rest ordinary, or in the line. So too irre 

 gular and abnormal are doubtless used from the appear 

 ance of things, when examined in large numbers, being that 

 of an arrangement by rule or measure. This only holds 

 when there are a good many ; we could not speak of the 

 single events being so arranged. Again the word law , in 

 its philosophical sense, has now become quite popularised. 

 How the term became introduced is not certain, but 

 there can be little doubt that it was somewhat in this 

 way: The effect of a law, in its usual application to 

 human conduct, is to produce regularity where it did not 

 previously exist ; when then a regularity began to be per 

 ceived in nature, the same word was used, whether the cause 

 was supposed to be the same or not. In each case there 



