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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Probabilities, by Martin Farquhar Tupper This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Probabilities The Complete Prose Works of Tupper, Volume 6 (of 6) Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper Release Date: October 13, 2005 [EBook #16857] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROBABILITIES *** Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net PROBABILITIES; AN AID TO FAITH. BY Martin Farquhar Tupper, A.M., F.R.S. THE AUTHOR OF "PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY." "ALMOST THOU PERSUADEST ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN." HARTFORD: PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON. 1851. PROBABILITIES. AN AID TO FAITH. The certainty of those things which most surely are believed among us, is a matter quite distinct from their antecedent probability or improbability. We know, and take for facts, that Cromwell and Napoleon existed, and are persuaded that their characters and lives were such as history reports them: but it is another thing, and one eminently calculated to disturb any disbeliever of such history, if a man were enabled to show, that, from the condition of social anarchy, there was an antecedent likelihood for the use of military despots; that, from the condition of a popular puritanism, or a popular infidelity, it was previously to have been expected that such leaders should have the several characteristics of a bigoted zeal for religion, or a craving appetite for worldly glory; that, from the condition liable to revolutions, it was probable to find such despots arising out of the middle class; and that, from the condition of reaction incidental to all human violences, there was a clear expectability that the power of such military monarchs should not be continued to their natural heirs. Such a line of argument, although in no measure required for the corroboration of facts, might have considerable power to persuade _a priori_ the man, who had not hitherto seen reason to credit such facts from posterior evidence. It would have rolled away a great stone, which to such a mind might otherwise have
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