Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/142



Analysis confirms what simple common sense teaches us, namely, the correctness of judgments is as much more probable as the judges are more numerous and more enlightened. It is important then that tribunals of appeal should fulfil these two conditions. The tribunals of the first instance standing in closer relation to those amenable offer to the higher tribunal the advantage of a first judgment already probable, and with which the latter often agree, be it in compromising or in desisting from their claims. But if the uncertainty of the matter in litigation and its importance determine a litigant to have recourse to the tribunal of appeals, he ought to find in a greater probability of obtaining an equitable judgment greater security for his fortune and the compensation for the trouble and expense which a new procedure entails. It is this which had no place in the institution of the reciprocal appeal of the tribunals of the district, an institution thereby very prejudicial to the interest of the citizens. It would be perhaps proper and conformable to the calculus of 132