194 INDUCTION. 



course of experience), that we do not disbelieve, 

 merely because the chances were against them, things 

 in strict conformity to the uniform course of experi- 

 ence ; that we do not disbelieve an alleged fact merely 

 because the combination of causes upon which it 

 depends occurs only once in a certain number of 

 times. It is evident that whatever is shown by expe- 

 rience to occur in a certain proportion (however small) 

 of the whole number of possible cases, is not contrary 

 to experience ; (though we are right in disbelieving it, 

 if some other supposition respecting the matter in 

 question would be true in a greater proportion of the 

 whole number of cases.) What would really be con- 

 trary to experience, would be the assertion that the 

 event had happened more frequently in some large 

 number of times, than the same combination had ever 

 been known to occur in that number of times ; and 

 this alone it is which is improbable, in the sense of 

 incredibility, or, as we have called it, improbability 

 after the fact. 



5. While the defenders of Christianity against 

 Hume have thus confounded two different meanings 

 of the word improbability, contending that because 

 improbability of the one kind is not necessarily a 

 ground of disbelief, neither therefore is the other, and 

 that nothing supported by credible testimony ought 

 ever to be disbelieved ; Laplace, again, falling into the 

 same confusion between the two meanings, contends 

 on the contrary, that because improbability of the one 

 kind is a sufficient ground for disbelief, the other is so 

 too ; and that what is improbable before the fact, is 

 therefore (not indeed in all cases, but in a peculiar 

 class of cases which I am about to specify), incredible 

 after it. 



