xlviii Apjyendix. 



persons of extensive information, but apparently unacquainted with the nature 

 of Probability, ridicule what they termed " belief in a probable God." Now, 

 ■whatever may be the merits or demerits of the old theory, that " the invisible 

 things" of Creative Agency are clearly inferrible from their effects, such 

 criticism, at all events, is fallacious. Probability, in the extended application 

 of the term, includes moral certainty; and, furthermore, the probability, in any 

 case, as we shall presently have occasion to notice, belongs to the evidence 

 adduced, and is not at all an attribute of the object of the thought or belief. 

 Probability, it has been well observed, as distinguished from demonstrative 

 proof, is the rule of human life. There are innumerable matters of practical 

 importance, as to which we cannot reasonably look for a direct knowledge, or 

 that species of certainty which is termed absolute. In all such cases the 

 question to be considered is, What is the degree of the so-called probability 1 

 Is it of so high a grade as to warrant a rational assurance, and therefore to 

 demand a practical recognition "? 



5. We now proceed to determine the basis of Probability. It is evident, 

 in the first place, that any supposed event or thing, about which we may 

 cogitate, is either real or unreal, and that there are no degrees of reality. But 

 in ascribing a probability we do not either affirm or deny reality ; and the 

 degrees of probability are innumerable. Probability, therefore, is not a quality 

 of things in themselves, or objectively considered. In the proj^osition, 

 Hannibal will probably becoine master of Italy, or, the Duke of Normandy 

 will probably conquer England, it must be allowed that, notwithstanding 

 the grammatical construction, there is no assertion made as to the mode or 

 character of the achievement. New Zealand is probably a remnant of a 

 submerged continent : in saying this, we do not characterize in any way either 

 the submergence of one part or the survival of another ; but we intimate that 

 we have much evidence in harmony with that conclusion, while our knowledge 

 of the events is incomplete. To allege that a stated event is probable, in 

 whatever degree, is merely a mode of expression whereby we designate the 

 extent of our knowledge upon the subject as compared with the extent of the 

 statement ; and the probability varies according to the varying data of our 

 knowledge. When, by an ominous accident, the eminent statesman, Mr. 

 Huskisson, was killed on the occasion of the first-constructed railway being 

 opened, his death was a matter of certainty to the inhabitants of Liverpool, at 

 the same time that his being alive was a supposition of high probability to a 

 person in London or Kent. The basis of a probability is, then, the amount of 

 our knowledge of the determining circumstances j and this knowledge has 

 respect either to the intrinsic circumstances of the individual case itself, or in 

 general to the attributes of a class of things to which the case in question 

 belongs, or to both of these sources of inference. 



