FOURTH PAPER
THE PROBABILITY OF INDUCTION[1]
I
We have found that every argument derives its force from the general truth of the class of inferences to which it belongs; and that probability is the proportion of arguments carrying truth with them among those of any genus. This is most conveniently expressed in the nomenclature of the medieval logicians. They called the fact expressed by a premise an antecedent, and that which follows from it its consequent; while the leading principle, that every (or almost every) such antecedent is followed by such a consequent, they termed the consequence. Using this language, we may say that probability belongs exclusively to consequences, and the probability of any consequence is the number of times in which antecedent and consequent both occur divided by the number of all the times in which the antecedent occurs. From this definition are deduced the following rules for the addition and multiplication of probabilities:
Rule for the Addition of Probabilities.—Given the separate probabilities of two consequences having the same antecedent and incompatible consequents. Then the sum of these two numbers is the probability of the consequence,
- ↑ Popular Science Monthly, April, 1878.
