SECT. 8.] Testimony. 401 



their value has to be estimated through the somewhat hazy 

 medium of our judgment and memory, which places them 

 under a very different aspect. 



8. Any one who knows anything of the game of whist 

 may supply an apposite example of the distinction here 

 insisted on, by recalling to mind the alteration in the nature 

 of our inferences as the game progresses. At the commence 

 ment of the game our sole appeal is rightfully made to the 

 theory of Probability. All the rules upon which each player 

 acts, and therefore upon which he infers that the others will 

 act, rest upon the observed frequency (or rather upon the 

 frequency which calculation assures us will be observed) with 

 which such and such combinations of cards are found to 

 occur. Why are we told, if we have more than four trumps, 

 to lead them out at once ? Because we are convinced, on 

 pure grounds of probability, capable of being stated in the 

 strictest statistical form, that in a majority of instances we 

 shall draw our opponent s trumps, and therefore be left with 

 the command. Similarly with every other rule which is 

 recognized in the early part of the play. 



But as the play progresses all this is changed, and 

 towards its conclusion there is but little reliance upon any 

 rules which either we or others could base upon statistical 

 frequency of occurrence, observed or inferred. A multitude 

 of other considerations have come in ; we begin to be in 

 fluenced partly by our knowledge of the character and 

 practice of our partner and opponents; partly by a rapid 

 combination of a multitude of judgments, founded upon 

 our observation of the actual course of play, the grounds 

 of which we could hardly realize or describe at the time 

 and which may have been forgotten since. That is, the 

 particular combination of cards, now before us, does not 

 readily fall into any well-marked class to which alone it can 



v. 26 



