SECT. 31.] Modality. 327 



he is. If, indeed, juries composed a close profession, they 

 might, as was said above, retain a traditional standard. But 

 being, as they are, a selection from the ordinary lay public, 

 their own decisions in the past can hardly be held up to 

 them as a direction what they are to do in future. 



31. It would appear therefore that we may fairly say 

 that the English law, at any rate, definitely rejects the main 

 assumption upon which the logical doctrine of modality and 

 its legal counterpart are based : the assumption, namely, that 

 different grades of conviction can be marked off from one 

 another with sufficient accuracy for us to be able to refer 

 individual cases to their corresponding classes. And that 

 with regard to the collateral question of fixing a standard of 

 certainty, it will go no further than pronouncing, or im 

 plying, that we are to be content with nothing short of, but 

 need not go beyond, reasonable certainty. 



This is a statement of the standard, with which the 

 logician and scientific man can easily quarrel ; and they 

 may with much reason maintain that it has not the slightest 

 claim to accuracy, even if it had one to strict intelligibility. 

 If a man wishes to know whether his present degree of cer 

 tainty is reasonable, whither is he to appeal ? He can 

 scarcely compare his mental state with that which is ex 

 perienced in the important affairs of life, for these, as 

 already remarked, would indicate no fixed value. At the 

 same time, one cannot suppose that such an expression is 

 destitute of all signification. People would not continue to 

 use language, especially in matters of paramount importance 

 and interest, without meaning something by it. We are 

 driven therefore to conclude that reasonable certainty does 

 in a rude sort of way represent a traditional standard to 

 which it is attempted to adhere. As already remarked, this 

 is perfectly practicable in the case of any class of professional 



