364 Fallacies. [CHAP. xiv. 



rightly neglected from all practical consideration, however 

 proper it might be, on speculative grounds, to keep our minds 

 open to their actual existence. But it has often occurred to 

 me that there is a common error in neglecting to take them into 

 account when they may, though individually small, make up 

 for their minuteness by their number. As the mathematician 

 would express it, they may occasionally be capable of being 

 integrated into a finite or even considerable magnitude. 



For instance, we may be confronted with a difficulty out 

 of which there appears to be only one appreciably possible 

 mode of escape. The attempt is made to force us into 

 accepting this, however great the odds apparently are against 

 it, on the ground that improbable as it may seem, it is at 

 any rate vastly more probable than any of the others. I 

 can quite admit that, on practical grounds, we may often find 

 it reasonable to adopt this course ; for we can only act on 

 one supposition, and we naturally and rightly choose, out 

 of a quantity of improbabilities, the least improbable. But 

 when we are not forced to act, no such decisive preference is 

 demanded of us. It is then perfectly reasonable to refuse 

 assent to the proposed explanation ; even to say distinctly 

 that we do not believe it, and at the same time to decline, 

 at present, to accept any other explanation. We remain, in 

 fact, in a state of suspense of judgment, a state perfectly 

 right and reasonable so long as no action demanding a spe 

 cific choice is forced upon us. One alternative may be 

 decidedly probable as compared with any other individually, 

 but decidedly improbable as compared with all others col 

 lectively. This in itself is intelligible enough ; what people 

 often fail to see is that there is no necessary contradiction 

 between saying and feeling this, and yet being prepared 

 vigorously to act, when action is forced upon us, as though 

 this alternative were really the true one. 



