this, if we are to be in a position to justify our inferences. The force of these considerations will come out in the course of the investigation in Chapter VI.
The late Leslie Ellis[1] has expressed what seems to me a substantially similar view in terms of genus and species, instead of speaking of a series. He says, “When individual cases are considered, we have no conviction that the ratios of frequency of occurrence depend on the circumstances common to all the trials. On the contrary, we recognize in the determining circumstances of their occurrence an extraneous element, an element, that is, extraneous to the idea of the genus and species. Contingency and limitation come in (so to speak) together; and both alike disappear when we consider the genus in its entirety, or (which is the same thing) in what may be called an ideal and practically impossible realization of all which it potentially contains. If this be granted, it seems to follow that the fundamental principle of the Theory of Probabilities may be regarded as included in the following statement,—The conception of a genus implies that of numerical relations among the species subordinated to it.” As remarked above, this appears a substantially similar doctrine to that explained in this chapter, but I do not think that the terms genus and species are by any means so well fitted to bring out the conception of a tendency or limit as when we speak of a series, and I therefore much prefer the latter expression.
§ 6. The reader will now have in his mind the conception of a series or group of things or events, about the individuals of which we know but little, at least in certain respects, whilst we find a continually increasing uniformity as we take larger numbers under our notice. This is definite
- ↑ Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol. ix. p. 605. Reprinted in the collected edition of his writings, p. 50.
