X PREFACE. 



esting and valuable, but I have not been able to agree uniformly 

 with the historical statements which it makes or implies. 



A more ambitious work bears the title Histoire dii Calcul 

 des Prohabilites depuis ses origines jusqud nos jours par Charles 

 Gouraud... Paris, 184^8. This consists of 148 widely printed octavo 

 pages ; it is a popular narrative entirely free from mathematical 

 symbols, containing however some important specific references. 

 Exact truth occasionally suffers for the sake of a rhetorical style 

 unsuitable alike to history and to science; nevertheless the general 

 reader will be gratified by a lively and vigorous exhibition of the 

 whole course of the subject. M. Gouraud recognises the value of 

 the purely mathematical part of the Theory of Probability, but 

 will not allow the soundness of the applications which have been 

 made of these mathematical formulse to questions involving moral 

 or political considerations. His history seems to be a portion of a 

 very extensive essay in three folio volumes containing 1929 pages 

 written when he was very young in competition for a prize pro- 

 posed by the French Academy on a subject entitled Theorie de la 

 Certitude; see the Rapport by M. Franck in the Seances et Tra- 

 vaux de V Academie des Sciences morales et politiques, Vol. x. 

 pages 372, 382, and Vol. XI. page 139. It is scarcely necessary 

 to remark that M. Gouraud has gained distinction in other branches 

 of literature since the publication of his work which we have here 

 noticed. 



There is one history of our subject which is indeed only a 

 sketch but traced in lines of light by the hand of the great 

 master himself: Laplace devoted a few pages of the introduction 

 to his celebrated work to recording the names of his predecessors 

 and their contributions to the Theory of Probability. It is much 

 to be regretted that he did not supply specific references through- 

 out his treatise, in order to distinguish carefully between that 

 which he merely transmitted from preceding mathematicians and 

 that which he originated himself. 



It is necessary to observe that in cases where I point out a 

 similarity between the investigations of two or more writers I do 

 not mean to imply that these investigations could not have been 

 made independently. Such coincidences may occur easily and 

 naturally without any reason for imputing unworthy conduct to 

 those who succeed the author who had the priority in publication. 

 I draw attention to this circumstance because I find with regret 

 that from a passage in my former historical work an inference has 

 been drawn of the kind which I here disclaim. In the case of a 

 writer Uke Laplace who agrees with his predecessors, not in one or 

 two points but in very many, it is of course obvious that he must 

 have borrowed largely, and we conclude that he supposed the 



