292 The Relativity of Probability. [CHAP. xn. 



was lost is but small, of course. On turning to another 

 paper, I see that the man who was lost was a passenger, not 

 one of the crew ; my slight anxiety is at once doubled. But 

 another account adds that it was an Englishman, and on 

 that line at that season the English passengers are known 

 to be few ; I at once begin to entertain decided fears. And 

 so on, every trifling bit of information instantly affecting my 

 expectations. 



15. Now since it is peculiarly characteristic of Proba 

 bility, as distinguished from Induction, to be thus at the 

 mercy, so to say, of every little fact that may be floating 

 about when we are in the act of forming our opinion, what 

 can be the harm (it may be urged) of expressing this state 

 of things by terming our state of expectation relative ? 



There seem to me to be two objections. In the first place, 

 as just mentioned, we are induced to reject such an expres 

 sion on grounds of consistency. It is inconsistent with the 

 general spirit and treatment of the subject hitherto adopted, 

 and tends to divorce Probability from Inductive logic instead 

 of regarding them as cognate sciences. We are aiming at 

 truth, as far as that goal can be reached by our road, and 

 therefore we dislike to regard our conclusions as relative in 

 any other sense than that in which truth itself may be said 

 to be relative. 



In the second place, this condition of unstable assent, 

 this constant liability to have our judgment affected, to any 

 degree and at any moment, by the accession of new know 

 ledge, though doubtless characteristic of Probability, does 

 not seem to me characteristic of it in its sounder and more 

 legitimate applications. It seems rather appropriate to a 

 precipitate judgment formed in accordance with the rules r 

 than a strict example of their natural employment. Such 

 precipitate judgments may occur in the case of ordinary de- 



