Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/174

164 and have constantly found that they are included within the limits which the supposition of an equal possibility of the drawing of all the numbers allows us to admit without improbability.

In a long series of events of the same kind the single chances of hazard ought sometimes to offer the singular veins of good luck or bad luck which the majority of players do not fail to attribute to a kind of fatality. It happens often in games which depend at the same time upon hazard and upon the competency of the players, that that one who loses, troubled by his loss, seeks to repair it by hazardous throws which he would shun in another situation; thus he aggravates his own ill luck and prolongs its duration. It is then that prudence becomes necessary and that it is of importance to convince oneself that the moral disadvantage attached to unfavorable chances is increased by the ill luck itself.

The opinion that man has long been placed in the centre of the universe, considering himself the special object of the cares of nature, leads each individual to make himself the centre of a more or less extended sphere and to believe that hazard has preference for him. Sustained by this belief, players often risk considerable sums at games when they know that the chances are unfavorable. In the conduct of life a similar opinion may sometimes have advantages; but most often it leads to disastrous enterprises. Here as everywhere illusions are dangerous and truth alone is generally useful.

One of the great advantages of the calculus of probabilities is to teach us to distrust first opinions. As we recognize that they often deceive when they may be