one can aid effectively in rejecting every other motion, but no one can succeed in passing his own. Pressure of urgent necessity may possibly force them out of this state of practical inaction, by, so to say, breaking through the opposition at some point of least resistance; but unless aided by some such pressure they are left in a state of hopeless dead-lock.
§ 33. Assuming that the spiritualistic solution admits of, and is to receive, scientific treatment, this, it seems to me, is the conclusion to which one might sometimes be led in the face of the evidence offered. We might have to say to every individual explanation, It is incredible, I cannot accept it; and unless circumstances should (which it is hardly possible
that they should) force us to a hasty decision,—a decision, remember, which need indicate no preference of the judgment beyond what is just sufficient to turn the scale in its favour as against any other single alternative,—we leave the matter thus in abeyance. It will very likely be urged that one of the explanations (assuming that all the possible ones had been included) must be true; this we readily admit. It will probably also be urged that (on the often-quoted principle of Butler) we ought forthwith to accept the one which, as compared with the others, is the most plausible, whatever its absolute worth may be. This seems distinctly an error. To say that such and such an explanation is the one we should accept, if circumstances compelled us to anticipate our decision, is quite compatible with its present rejection. The only rational position surely is that of admitting that the truth is somewhere amongst the various alternatives, but confessing plainly that we have no such preference for one over another as to permit our saying anything else than that we disbelieve each one of them.
§ 34. (VIII.) The very common fallacy of ‘judging by the event,’ as it is generally termed, deserves passing notice here, as it clearly belongs to Probability rather than to Logic; though its nature is so obvious to those who have grasped the general principles of our science, that a very few words of remark will suffice. In one sense every proposition must consent to be judged by the event, since this is merely, in other words, submitting it to the test of experience. But there is the widest difference between the test appropriate to a universal proposition and that appropriate to a merely proportional or statistical one. The former is subverted by a single exception; the latter not merely admits exceptions, but implies them. Nothing, however, is more common than to blame advice (in others) because it has happened to turn
out unfortunately, or to claim credit for it (in oneself) because it has happened to succeed. Of course if the conclusion was avowedly one of a probable kind we must be prepared with complacency to accept a hostile event, or even a succession of them; it is not until the succession shows a disposition to continue over long that suspicion and doubt should arise, and then only by a comparison of the degree of the assigned probability, and the magnitude of the departure from it which experience exhibits. For any single failure the reply must be, ‘the advice was sound’ (supposing, that is, that it was to be justified in the long run), ‘and I shall offer it again under the same circumstances.’
§ 35. The distinction drawn in the above instance deserves careful consideration; for owing to the wide difference between the kind of propositions dealt with in Probability and in ordinary Logic, and the consequent difference in the nature of the proof offered, it is quite possible for arguments of the same general appearance to be valid in the former and fallacious in the latter, and conversely.
For instance, take the well-known fallacy which consists in simply converting a universal affirmative, i.e.[ TN: space] in passing from All A is B to All B is A. When, as in common Logic, the conclusion is to be as certain as