Iviii Appendix. 



parts. The numerator is the number of those parts to which the proposition 

 in question applies. 



Fourthly, the identification of Probability with Belief, to which recent 

 writers have been prone, is untenable. It is an extreme reaction against that 

 which is implied in some usual forms of expression, whereby probability is 

 attributed to things in themselves, or as objectively considered. 



Fifthly, and lastly, Probability is neither wholly objective nor wholly 

 subjective, being constituted by a relation between the two. The knowledge 

 of the data, and the hypothesis of what is not in the data, are in the mind of 

 the investigator ; while the data known, and the circumstances of the data, are 

 objective. 



What is Science? By the Eev. E. Kidd, LL.D. 

 [Bead before the Auckland Institute, l^th June, 1874.] 



The present age is allowed to be eminently an age of scientific advance- 

 ment ; and the word Science is one that we do very frequently employ. And 

 yet it is not by any means an easy matter to obtain a precise answer to the 

 question. What is Science. In any books which I have an opportunity of 

 consulting, including works on the history and philosophy of Science, I have 

 met with only one passage even purporting to be a formal definition, except in 

 dictionaries and encyclopedias ; and I have not anywhere found a definition 

 such as would appear to me to be adequate. The subject is one not unfitting 

 to be noticed in an institute of science or of literature. 



There are two ways of defining the application of a term. One, the ruder, 

 way is to enumerate the objects to which the term is applied. Such, for 

 instance, is the case with the legal word Felony, in its modern usage. It is 

 not now practicable, I believe, to specify any attribute which pertains to 

 every act of felony, and to felony alone. All that the jurisconsult can do, by 

 way of defining this word, is to tell us what indictable offences have been, and 

 what have not been, authoritatively pronounced to be felonious. It is quite 

 conceivable that some similar defect of connotation should be the case with 

 the applications of the term Science ; but we are not to acquiesce in such an 

 alternative, except in the last resort. The more satisfactory kind of definition 

 is that which declares, not merely what the word denotes, but what it 

 connotes ; that is, a definition which docs not simply enumerate the objects to 

 which the word is applied, but states the attributes or properties by which the 

 class beaiing that name is characterized. In any case, however, it will be 



