342 Fallacies. [CHAR XIY. 



incompletely done, some of the component parts of the event 

 being supposed to be determined or arranged (to use a 

 sporting phrase) in the form in which we now know that 

 they actually have happened, and only the remaining ones 

 being fairly contemplated as future chances. 



A man, for example, is out with a friend, whose rifle goes 

 off by accident, and the bullet passes through his hat. He 

 trembles with anxiety at thinking what might have hap 

 pened, and perhaps remarks, How very near I was to being* 

 killed! Now we may safely assume that he means some 

 thing more than that a shot passed very close to him. He 

 has some vague idea that, as he would probably say, his 

 chance of being killed then was very great. His surprise 

 and terror may be in great part physical and instinctive, 

 arising simply from the knowledge that the shot had passed 

 very near him. But his mental state may be analysed, and 

 we shall then most likely find, at bottom, a fallacy of the 

 kind described above. To speak or think of chance in con 

 nection with the incident, is to refer the particular incident 

 to a class of incidents of a similar character, and then to con 

 sider the comparative frequency with which the contem 

 plated result ensues. Now the series which we may suppose 

 to be most naturally selected in this case is one composed of 

 shooting excursions with his friend; up to this point the 

 proceedings are assumed to be designed, beyond it only, 

 in the subsequent event, was there accident, Once in a 

 thousand times perhaps on such occasions the gun will go 

 off accidentally; one in a thousand only of those discharges 

 will be directed near his friend s head. If we will make the 

 accident a matter of Probability, we ought by rights in this 

 way (to adopt the language of the first example), to toss up 

 again fairly. But we do not do this ; we seem to assume for 

 certain that the shot goes within an inch of our heads, de- 



