PROCEEDINGS. 
583 
40th Meeting. March 21, 1888. 
The Chairman presided. 
Present, fifteen members and guests. 
The minutes of the 39th meeting were read and approved. 
Mr. M. H. Doolittle presented a communication on Proba¬ 
bilities. 
Mr. Doolittle read an extract from the chapter on the Calcu¬ 
lation of Chances in the eighth edition of Mill’s System of Logic, 
in which Mill accedes to Laplace’s definition of the term proba¬ 
bility , as implied in his statement of requisites for mathematical 
calculation, after having controverted it in an earlier edition. 
While Mr. D. regarded Laplace’s definition and statement as 
eminently proper for adoption by mathematicians in order to a 
comprehensive and correct understanding of the subject, he 
maintained that a signification is very extensively attached to 
the term when used without qualification, not only in popular 
usage, but also among scientific men, such as largely to justify 
the position at first taken by Mr. Mill. 
41st Meeting. April 4, 1888. 
The Chairman presided. 
The Secretary being absent, Mr. G. K. Gilbert was appointed 
Secretary pro tem. 
Present, eleven members. 
The minutes of the fortieth meeting were read and approved, 
subject to revision by Mr. Doolittle, of his remarks. 
The subject for discussion was, What is Force? 
The following paper by Mr. A. Hall was read by the Chair¬ 
man : 
When a man comes to intellectual consciousness he finds himself in a 
wonderful and interesting world, full of change and motion on earth and 
in the heavens. Perhaps the most striking of these phenomena are the 
rising and setting of the sun and moon and the grand procession of the 
