SECT. 4.] Chance, Causation, and Design. 239 



done in any case, but the obstacles would doubtless be 

 greater even than they are, if knowledge of the individual 

 event were not merely unattained, but, owing to the absence 

 of any causal connection, essentially unattainable. On the 

 theory adopted in this work we simply postulate ignorance 

 of the details, but it is not regarded as of any importance 

 on what sort of grounds this ignorance is based. It may 

 be that knowledge is out of the question from the nature 

 of the case, the causative link, so to say, being missing. It 

 may be that such links are known to exist, but that either 

 we cannot ascertain them, or should find it troublesome to 

 do so. It is the fact of this ignorance that makes us appeal 

 to the theory of Probability, the grounds of it are of no 

 importance. 



4. On the view here adopted we are concerned only 

 with averages, or with the single event as deduced from an 

 average and conceived to form one of a series. We start 

 with the assumption, grounded on experience, that there is 

 uniformity in this average, and, so long as this is secured to 

 us, we can afford to be perfectly indifferent to the fate, as 

 regards causation, of the individuals which compose the 

 average. The question then assumes the following form : 

 Is this assumption, of average regularity in the aggregate, 

 inconsistent with the admission of what may be termed 

 causeless irregularity in the details ? It does not seem to me 

 that it would be at all easy to prove that this is so. As 

 a matter of fact the two beliefs have constantly co-existed in 

 the same minds. This may not count for much, but it sug 

 gests that if there be a contradiction between them it is by 

 no means palpable and obvious. Millions, for instance, have 

 believed in the general uniformity of the seasons taken one 

 with another, who certainly did not believe in, and would 

 very likely have been ready distinctly to deny, the existence 



