CONDORCET. 387 



course of a day is disregarded by mankind ; so that may 



be considered tbe numerical estimate of a risk which any person is 

 willing to neglect. Condorcet objects to this on various grounds ; 

 and himself proposes a different numerical estimate. He finds 

 from tables of mortality that the risk for a person aged 37 of a 



sudden death in the course of a week is -r-^ — zttt^ , and that the 



o2 X o80 



risk for a person aged 47 is — — j^ . He assumes that prac- 

 tically no person distinguishes between these risks, so that their 

 difference is in fact disregarded. The difference between these 



fractions is TTi>fw^, and this Condorcet proposes to take as a risk 



which a man would practically consider equivalent to zero in the 

 case of his own life. See Art. 644. 



711. Condorcet considers however that the risk which we 

 may with propriety neglect will vary with the subject to which it 

 relates. He specially considers three subjects, the establishment 

 of a new law, the decision between claimants as to the right to a 

 property, and the condemnation of an accused person to capital 

 punishment. We may observe that he records the opinion that 

 capital punishments ought to be abolished, on the ground that, 

 however large may be the probability of the correctness of a 

 single decision, we cannot escape having a large probability that in 

 the course of many decisions some innocent person will be con- 

 demned. See his pages cxxvi, 241. 



712. We now arrive at Condorcet's fourth part, which occupies 

 pages 242 — 278. He says on his page 242, 



Jusqu'ici nous n'avons considere notre sujet que d'une maniere ab- 

 straite, et les suppositions generales que nous avons faites s'eloignent 

 trop de la rialite. Cette Partie est destinee h developper la methode de 

 faire entrer dans le calcul les principales donnees auxquelles on doit 

 avoir egard pour que les resultats oil Ton est conduit, soient applicables 

 a la pratique. 



Condorcet divides this part into six questions. In these ques- 



25—2 



