2 ESSAY -ON PROBABILITIES. 



accidents of life, and contains the principles on which 

 it is found practicable to induce many to join together, 

 and consent that all shall bear the average lot in life of 

 the whole. But the ill educated offspring of a vicious 

 parent is frequently fated to* bear the stigma of his de- 

 scent, long after his own conduct has created the good 

 opinion of those who know him. The science which I 

 endeavour, and I believe almost for the first time, to ren- 

 der practically accessible in its higher and more useful 

 parts to readers whose knowledge of mathematics ex- 

 tends no farther than common arithmetic, is still often 

 considered as foreign to the pursuits, and dangerous in the 

 conduct, of life. It is said to be necessary only to gam- 

 blers, and calculated to excite a passion for their worthless 

 and degrading pursuit. This refers to its practical and 

 moral consequences : with regard to its title to confidence, 

 it is often supposed to rest upon pure conventions of an 

 uncertain order, and to depend for the connection of 

 results with principles upon the higher branches of ma- 

 thematics; things understood by very few, and frequently 

 distrusted, if not by those who have reached them, by 

 those who have passed some way up the avenue which 

 leads to them. All these impressions must necessarily 

 be removed before the theory of probabilities can occupy 

 its proper place ; and it is, therefore, my preliminary 

 task to meet the arguments which arise out of them. 

 There is an indefinite dislike in many minds to all know- 

 ledge which they cannot reach ; it may tend to remove 

 this if I show that results, at least, are very easily at- 

 tained, and methods practised: but the notion that 

 asserted knowledge is not knowledge must be met by 

 preliminary reasoning, and imperfect as it must neces- 

 sarily be, considered as a view of the subject, it may 

 yet afford the means of dwelling on the first principles 

 to a greater extent than is usually done in formal treatises 

 on recognised subjects. 



Human knowledge is, for the most part, obtained 

 under the condition that results shall be, at least, of that 

 degree of uncertainty which arises from the possibility of 



