SECT. 16.] The Relativity of Probability. 293 



ductive conclusions. In the practical exigencies of life we 

 are constantly in the habit of forming a hasty opinion with 

 nearly full confidence, at any rate temporarily, upon the 

 strength of evidence which we must well know at the time 

 cannot be final. We wait a short time, and something else 

 turns up which induces us to alter our opinion, perhaps to 

 reverse it. Here our conclusions may have been perfectly 

 sound under the given circumstances, that is, they may be 

 such as every one else would have drawn who was bound to 

 make up his mind upon the data before us, and they are 

 unquestionably relative judgments in the sense now under 

 discussion. And yet, I think, every one would shrink from 

 so terming them who wished systematically to carry out the 

 view that Logic was to be regarded as an organon of truth. 



16. In the examples of Probability which we have 

 hitherto employed, we have for the most part assumed that 

 there was a certain body of statistics set before us on which 

 our conclusion was to rest. It was assumed, on the one 

 hand, that no direct specific evidence could be got, so that 

 the judgment was really to be one of Probability, and to rest 

 on these statistics ; in other words, that nothing better than 

 them was available for us. But it was equally assumed, on 

 the other hand, that these statistics were open to the obser 

 vation of every one, so that we need not have to put up with 

 anything inferior to them in forming our opinion. In other 

 words, we have been assuming that here, as in the case of 

 most other sciences, those who have to draw a conclusion 

 start from the same footing of opportunity and information. 

 This, for instance, clearly is or ought to be the case when 

 we are concerned with games of chance ; ignorance or mis 

 apprehension of the common data is never contemplated 

 there. So with the statistics of life, or other insurance : so 

 long as our judgment is to be accurate (after its fashion) or 



