SECT. 24.] Modality. 319 



It is true that when we know the odds for or against an 

 event, we can always state them explicitly without the neces 

 sity of first agreeing as to the usage of terms which shall 

 imply them. But there would often be circumlocution and 

 pedantry in so doing, and as long as modal terms are in 

 practical use it would seem that there could be no harm, and 

 might be great good, in arriving at some agreement as to the 

 degree of probability which they should be generally under 

 stood to indicate. Bentham, as is well known, in despair of 

 ever obtaining anything accurate out of the language of com 

 mon life on this subject, was in favour of a direct appeal to 

 the numerical standard. He proposed the employment, in 

 judicial trials, of an instrument, graduated from to 10, on 

 which scale the witness was to be asked to indicate the de 

 gree of his belief of the facts to which he testified : similarly 

 the judge might express the force with which he held his 

 conclusion. The use of such a numerical scale, however, was 

 to be optional only, not compulsory, as Bentbam admitted 

 that many persons might feel at a loss thus to measure the 

 degree of their belief. (Rationale of Judicial Evidence, 

 Bk. L, Ch. vi.) 



24. Throughout this chapter we have regarded the 

 modals as the nearest counterpart to modern Probability 

 which was afforded by the old systems of logic. The reason 

 for so regarding them is, that they represented some slight 

 attempt, rude as it was, to recognize and measure certain 

 gradations in the degree of our conviction, and to examine 

 the bearing of such considerations upon our logical inferences. 



But although it is amongst the modals that the germs of 

 the methods of Probability are thus to be sought ; the true 

 subject-matter of our science, that is, the classes of objects 

 with which it is most appropriately concerned, are rather 

 represented by another part of the scholastic logic. This 



