238 Chance, Causation, and Design. [CHAP. x. 



this instance as more remarkable than many analogous ones 

 taken from other quarters. 



That there is a certain foundation of truth in the reason 

 ings in support of which the above examples are advanced, 

 cannot be denied, but their authors appear to me very much 

 to overrate the sort of opposition that exists between the 

 theory of Chances and the doctrine of Causation. As regards 

 first that wider conception of order or regularity which we 

 have termed uniformity, anything which might be called 

 objective chance would certainly be at variance with this in 

 one respect. In Probability ultimate regularity is always 

 postulated j in tossing a die, if not merely the individual 

 throws were uncertain in their results, but even the average 

 also, owing to the nature of the die, or the number of the 

 marks upon it, being arbitrarily interfered with, of course no 

 kind of science would attempt to take any account of it. 



3. So much must undoubtedly be granted ; but must 

 the same admission be made as regards the succession of the 

 individual events ? Can causation, in the sense of invariable 

 succession (for we are here shifting on to this narrower 

 ground), be denied, not indeed without suspicion of scientific 

 heterodoxy, but at any rate without throwing uncertainty 

 upon the foundations of Probability ? De Morgan, as we 

 have seen, strongly maintains that this cannot be so. I find 

 myself unable to agree with him here, but this disagreement 

 springs not so much from differences of detail, as from those 

 of the point of view in which we regard the science. He 

 always appears to incline to the opinion that the indivi 

 dual judgment in probability is to admit of justification ; 

 that when we say, for instance, that the odds in favour of 

 some event are three to two, that we can explain and justify 

 our statement without any necessary reference to a series or 

 class of such events. It is not easy to see how this can be 



