328 Modality. [CHAP. xm. 



men, and therefore not altogether impossible in the case of 

 those who are often and closely brought into connection with 

 such a class. Though it is hard to believe that any such 

 expressions, when used for purposes of ordinary life, attain 

 at all near enough to any conventional standard to be worth 

 discussion ; yet in the special case of a jury, acting under 

 the direct influence of a judge, it seems quite possible that 

 their deliberate assertion that they are fully convinced 

 may reach somewhat more nearly to a tolerably fixed standard 

 than ordinary outsiders would at first think likely. 



32. Are there then any means by which we could 

 ascertain what this standard is ; in other words, by which we 

 could determine what is the real worth, in respect of accu 

 racy, of this reasonable certainty which the juries are sup 

 posed to secure ? In the absence of authoritative declara 

 tions upon the subject, the student of Logic and Probability 

 would naturally resort to two means, with a momentary 

 notice of which we will conclude this enquiry. 



The first of these would aim at determining the standard 

 of judicial certainty indirectly, by simply determining the 

 statistical frequency with which the decisions (say) of a jury 

 were found to be correct. This may seem to be a hopeless 

 task ; and so indeed it is, but not so much on any theoretic 

 insufficiency of the determining elements as on account of 

 the numerous arbitrary assumptions which attach to most 

 of the problems which deal with the probability of testimony 

 and judgments. It is not necessary for this purpose that we 

 should have an infallible superior court which revised the 

 decisions of the one under consideration 1 ; it is sufficient if a 



1 The question will be more fully to the simplest possible elements by 



discussed in a future chapter, but a supposing only two judges or courts, 



few words may be inserted here by of the same average correctness of 



way of indication. Keduce the case decision. Let this be indicated by 



