instinct which we call common-sense, and to which we appeal for the legitimisation of our conventions, must be distrusted. But to this conclusion we can no longer subscribe. We cannot do without that obscure instinct. Without it, science would be impossible, and without it we could neither discover nor apply a law. Have we any right, for instance, to enunciate Newton's law? No doubt numerous observations are in agreement with it, but is not that a simple fact of chance? and how do we know, besides, that this law which has been true for so many generations will not be untrue in the next? To this objection the only answer you can give is: It is very improbable. But grant the law. By means of it I can calculate the position of Jupiter in a year from now. Yet have I any right to say this? Who can tell if a gigantic mass of enormous velocity is not going to pass near the solar system and produce unforeseen perturbations? Here again the only answer is: It is very improbable. From this point of view all the sciences would only be unconscious applications of the calculus of probabilities. And if this calculus be condemned, then the whole of the sciences must also be condemned. I shall not dwell at length on scientific problems in which the intervention of the calculus of probabilities is more evident. In the forefront of these is the problem of interpolation, in which, knowing a certain number of values of a function, we try to discover the intermediary values. I may also mention the celebrated theory of errors of observation,
