236 THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENCE. 



tion. The answer obtained is therefore not the real 

 probability, which is usually indeterminate, but only, as it 

 were, the most probable probability. Certain problems 

 solved by Boole are free from logical conditions and 

 therefore may admit of valid answers. These as I have 

 shown h may also be solved by the simple combinations 

 of the Abecedarium, but the remainder of the problems 

 do not admit of a determinate answer, at least by Boole's 

 method. 



Comparison of the Theory with Experience. 



The Laws of Probability rest upon the simplest principles 

 of reasoning, and cannot be really negatived by any 

 possible experience. It might happen that a person 

 should always throw a coin head uppermost, and appear 

 incapable of getting tail by chance. The theory would 

 not be falsified, because it contemplates the possibility of 

 the most extreme runs of luck. Our actual experience 

 might be counter to all that is probable ; the whole 

 course of events might seem to be in complete contra- 

 diction to what we should expect, arid yet a casual con- 

 junction of events might be the real explanation. It is 

 just possible that some regular coincidences which we 

 attribute to fixed laws of nature, are due to the accidental 

 conjunction of phenomena in the cases to which our 

 attention is directed. All that we can learn from 

 finite experience is capable, according to the theory of 

 probabilities, of misleading us, and it is only infinite 

 experience that could assure us of any inductive truths. 



At the same time, the probability that any extreme 

 runs of luck will occur is so excessively slight, that it 

 would be absurd seriously to expect their occurrence. It 



h 'Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society/ 

 3rd Series, vol. iv. p. 347. 



