272 Objective Treatment of Logic. [CHAP. XL 



or occasional only, is here normal. It is just the condition 

 which is specially characteristic of Probability. Hence it 

 follows that however decidedly we may reject the Con- 

 ceptualist theory we cannot altogether reject the use of 

 Conceptualist language. If we can prove that a given man 

 will die next year, or attain sufficiently near to proof to 

 leave us practically certain on the point, we may speak of 

 his death as a (future) fact. But if we merely contemplate 

 his death as probable? This is the sort of inference, or 

 substitute for inference, with which Probability is specially 

 concerned. We may, if we so please, speak of probable 

 facts, but if we examine the meaning of the words we 

 may find them not merely obscure, but self- contradictory. 

 Doubtless there are facts here, in the fullest sense of the 

 term, namely the statistics upon which our opinion is ulti 

 mately based, for these are known and admitted by all who 

 have looked into the matter. The same language may also 

 be applied to that extension of these statistics by induction 

 which is involved in the assertion that similar statistics 

 will be found to prevail elsewhere, for these also may right 

 fully claim universal acceptance. But these statements, as 

 was abundantly shown in the earlier chapters, stand on a 

 very different footing from a statement concerning the in 

 dividual event ; the establishment and discussion of the 

 former belong by rights to Induction, and only the latter 

 to Probability. 



7. It is true that for want of appropriate terms to 

 express such things we are often induced, indeed compelled, 

 to apply the same name of facts to such individual contin 

 gencies. We should not, for instance, hesitate to speak of 

 the fact of the man dying being probable, possible, unlikely, 

 or whatever it might be. But I cannot help regarding such 

 expressions as a strictly incorrect usage arising out of a 



