Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/139

Rh most formidable to that one whom one prefers, which gives too great an advantage to the candidates of mediocre merit. Likewise experience has caused the abandonment of this mode of election in the societies which had adopted it.

The election by the absolute majority of the suffrages unites to the certainty of not admitting any one of the candidates whom this majority rejects, the advantage of expressing most often the desire of the assembly. It always coincides with the preceding mode when there are only two candidates. Indeed it exposes an assembly to the inconvenience of rendering elections interminable. But experience has shown that this inconvenience is nil, and that the general desire to put an end to elections soon unites the majority of the suffrages upon one of the candidates.

The choice among several propositions relative to the same object ought to be subjected, seemingly, to the same rules as the election among several candidates. But there exists between the two cases this difference, namely, that the merit of a candidate does not exclude that of his competitors ; but if it is necessary to choose among propositions which are contrary, the truth of the one excludes the truth of the others. Let us see how one ought then to view this question.

Let us give to each voter an urn which contains an infinite number of balls, and let us suppose that he distributes them upon the divers propositions according to the respective probabilities which he attributes to them. It is clear that the total number of balls expressing certainty, and the voter being by the hypothesis assured that one of the propositions ought