but calmer judgments, see that the chance is too small to deserve consideration. But such a man's belief, if we look only to that, will not differ in its nature from sound belief. His conduct also in consequence of his belief will by itself afford no ground of discrimination; he will make his will as sincerely as a man who is unmistakeably on his death-bed. The only resource is to check and correct his belief by appealing to past and current experience.[7] This was advanced as an objection to the theory on which probability is regarded as concerned primarily with laws of belief. But on the view taken in this Essay in which we are supposed to be concerned with laws of inference about things, error and difficulty from this source vanish. Let us bear clearly in mind that we are concerned with inferences about things, and whatever there may be in belief which does not depend on experience will disappear from notice.
§ 32. These emotions then can claim no notice as an integral portion of any science of inference, and should in strictness be rigidly excluded from it. But if any of them are uniform and regular in their production and magnitude, they may be fairly admitted as accidental and extraneous accompaniments. This is really the case to some extent with our surprise. This emotion does show a considerable degree of uniformity. The rarer any event is the more am I, in common with most other men, surprised at it when it does happen. This surprise may range through all degrees, from the most languid form of interest up to the condition which we term ‘being startled’. And since the surprise seems to be pretty much the same, under similar circumstances, at different times, and in the case of different persons, it is free from that extreme irregularity which is found in most of the other mental conditions which accompany the contemplation
of unexpected events. Hence our surprise, though, as stated above, having no proper claim to admission into the science of Probability, is such a constant and regular accompaniment of that which Probability is concerned with, that notice must often be taken of it. References will occasionally be found to this aspect of the question in the following chapters.