478 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



against a double star, anybody infers that the existence 

 of a double star leads to this: " It is a probability of 

 10,000 to 1 that the existence of fliat double star is due 

 to a cause unrecognized in our chance-calculations," I 

 say that such person is under a mistake. There is no 

 logical connection between the two. Possibly it would 

 be so on the average of the great number of firmaments 

 as aforesaid, but on this I am not able at this moment 

 to speak. 



' I think that the existence of that double star gives a 

 small probability of law, but I am not in a state to give 

 an estimate of the probability. 



'2. " That there is a mathematical certainty of cause or 

 design if two stars and the spectator are in the same line." 



' Certainly not. The chance of it is, as we say, in- 

 finitely small (a bad word), which means that if a million 

 of money depended on finding the thing, the chance 

 when you are turned adrift in a new cosmical system is 

 not worth the millionth part of a farthing, but it is as 

 possible as ever, without special cause or design. 



6 There are, in this neighbourhood, four conspicuous 

 objects sensibly in a straight line (three church-spires 

 and the centre of a conspicuous clump of trees or 

 " spinney"), which I will walk you to see on the next 

 clear day that you are here : everybody who sees it 

 remarks, " How curious/' but nobody insinuates either 

 that they were so set on purpose, or that it was im- 

 possible that they could have so come by the mere 

 accident of four independent local selections. But I 

 would offer a very large bet, I mean very large odds, 

 that you will not find such a thing near Edinburgh, or 

 even anywhere else near London. 



'3. " That a uniform spacing of the stars is more 

 probably the result of chance than any other observed 

 order of distribution." 



' Certainly not as a consequence of any theory of 

 probabilities. Surely Mitchell cannot have said any- 

 thing so absurd. There is nothing in the result of pro- 

 babilities that bears on it except in the sense that I 



