Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/206

196 I have collected all these methods in my Théorie analytique des Probabilités, in which I have proposed to expound in the most general manner the principles and the analysis of the calculus of probabilities, likewise the solutions of the most interesting and most difficult problems which calculus presents.

It is seen in this essay that the theory of probabilities is at bottom only common sense reduced to calculus; it makes us appreciate with exactitude that which exact minds feel by a sort of instinct without being able ofttimes to give a reason for it. It leaves no arbitrariness in the choice of opinions and sides to be taken; and by its use can always be determined the most advantageous choice. Thereby it supplements most happily the ignorance and the weakness of the human mind. If we consider the analytical methods to which this theory has given birth; the truth of the principles which serve as a basis; the fine and delicate logic which their employment in the solution of problems requires; the establishments of public utility which rest upon it; the extension which it has received and which it can still receive by its application to the most important questions of natural philosophy and the moral science; if we consider again that, even in the things which cannot be submitted to calculus, it gives the surest hints which can guide us in our judgments, and that it teaches us to avoid the illusions which ofttimes confuse us, then we shall see that there is no science more worthy of our meditations, and that no more useful one could be incorporated in the system of public instruction.