276 Objective Treatment of Logic. [CHAP. XT. 



logician keeps them back until their evidence is so strong 

 that they come before the world at once in the full dignity 

 of facts. Hence, as already remarked, this stage of their 

 career is not much dwelt upon in Logic. But the whole 

 business of Probability is to discuss and estimate them at 

 this point. Consequently, so far as this science is concerned, 

 the explanation of the Material logician as to the reference 

 of names and propositions has to be modified. 



10. The best way therefore of describing our position 

 in Probability is as follows : We are entertaining a concep 

 tion of some event, past, present, or future. From the nature 

 of the case this conception is all that can be actually enter 

 tained by the mind. In its present condition it would be 

 incorrect to call it a fact, though we would willingly, if we 

 could, convert it into such by making certain of it one way 

 or the other. But so long as our conclusions are to be 

 effected by considerations of Probability only, we cannot do 

 this. The utmost we can do is to estimate or evaluate it. 

 The whole function of Probability is to give rules for so 

 doing. By means of reference to statistics or by direct 

 deduction, as the case may be, we are enabled to say how 

 much this conception is to be believed, that is in what pro 

 portion out of the total number of cases we shall be right 

 in so doing. Our position, therefore, in these cases seems 

 distinctly that of entertaining a conception, and the process 

 of inference is that of ascertaining to what extent we are 

 justified in adding this conception to the already received 

 body of truth and fact. 



So long, then, as we are confined to Probability these 

 conceptions remain such. But if we turn to Induction we 

 see that they are meant to go a step further. Their final 

 stage is not reached until they have ripened into facts, and 

 so taken their place amongst uncontested truths. This is 



