John Venn

“ To many persons the mention of Probability suggests little else than the notion of a set of rules, very ingenious and profound rules no doubt, with which mathematicians amuse themselves by setting and solving puzzles. ”

“ The science of Probability occupies at present a somewhat anomalous position. It is impossible, I think, not to observe in it some of the marks and consequent disadvantages of a sectional study. By a small body of ardent students it has been cultivated with great assiduity, and the results they have obtained will always be reckoned among the most extraordinary products of mathematical genius. But by the general body of thinking men its principles seem to be regarded with indifference or suspicion. ”

“ In the works of most writers upon the subject we should search in vain for anything like a critical discussion of the fundamental principles upon which its rules rest, the class of enquiries to which it is most properly applicable, or the relation it bears to Logic and the general rules of inductive evidence. ”

“ It arises from the belief that Probability is a branch of mathematics trying to intrude itself on to ground which does not altogether belong to it. I shall endeavour to show that this belief is unfounded. To answer correctly the sort of questions to which the science introduces us does generally demand some knowledge of mathematics, often a great knowledge, but the discussion of the fundamental principles on which the rules are based does not necessarily require any such qualification. ”

“ In other words, if the large and growing body of readers who can find pleasure in the study of books like Mill’s Logic and Whewell’s Inductive Sciences, turn with aversion from a work on Probability, the cause in the latter case must lie either in the view of the subject or in the manner and style of the book. ”

“ Such persons may admire the ingenuity displayed, and be struck with the profundity of many of the calculations, but there seems to them, if I may so express it, an unreality about the whole treatment of the subject. ”

“ Any work on Probability by a Cambridge man will be so likely to have its scope and its general treatment of the subject prejudged, that it may be well to state at the outset that the following Essay is in no sense mathematical. Not only, to quote a common but often delusive assurance, will ‘no knowledge of mathematics beyond the simple rules of Arithmetic’ be required to understand these pages, but it is not intended that any such knowledge should be acquired by the process of reading them. ”

“ When they have searched for illustrations drawn from the practical business of life, they have very generally, but unfortunately, hit upon just the sort of instances which, as I shall endeavour to show hereafter, are among the very worst that could be chosen for the purpose. ”