330 Modality. [CHAP. xin. 



that would ensue if everything were considered open to 

 doubt and question. Moreover, even if they did assign a, 

 degree of certainty this would rather be an indication of 

 what legislators or judges thought reasonable than of what 

 was so considered by the juries themselves. 



There are indeed presumptions as to the time after which 

 a man, if not heard of, is supposed to be dead (capable of 

 disproof, of course, by his reappearance). If this time varied 

 with the age of the man in question, we should at once have 

 some such standard as we desire, for a reference to the Life 

 tables would fix his probable duration of life, and so deter 

 mine indirectly the measure of probability which satisfied 

 the law. But this is not the case ; the period chosen is 

 entirely irrespective of age. The nearest case in point (and 

 that does not amount to much) which I have been able to 

 ascertain is that of the age after which it has been pre 

 sumed that a woman was incapable of bearing children. 

 This was the age of 53. A certain approach to a statistical 

 assignment of the chances in this case is to be found in 

 Quetelet s Physique Sociale (Vol. I. p. 184, note). According 

 to the authorities which he there quotes it would seem that 

 in about one birth in 5500 the mother was of the age of 50 

 or upwards. This does not quite assign the degree of what 

 may be called the a priori chance against the occurrence of a 

 birth at that age, because the fact of having commenced a. 

 family at an early age represents some diminution of the 

 probability of continuing it into later life. But it serves to 

 give some indication of what may be called the odds against 

 such an event. 



It need not be remarked that any such clues as these to 

 the measure of judicial certainty are far too slight to be of 

 any real value. They only deserve passing notice as a pos 

 sible logical solution of the problem in question, or rather as. 





