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cela ? Évidemment par l’expérience[1]. Il est donc vrai que nous avons besoin de l’expérience pour nous apprendre à quel degré, dans quels
- ↑ Why it is that, with exactly the same amount of evidence, both negative and positive, we did not reject the assertion that there are black swans while we should refuse credence to any testimony which asserted there were men wearing their heads underneath their shoulders. The first assertion was more credible than the latter. But why more credible ? So long as neither phenomenon had been actually witnessed, what reason was there for finding the one harder to be believed than the other ? Apparently, because there is less constancy in the colours of animals, than in the general structure of their internal anatomy. But how do we know this ? Doubtless, from experience. It appears, then, that we need experience to inform us in what degree, and in what cases, or sorts of cases, experience is to be relied on. Experience must be consulted in order to learn from it under what circumstances arguments from it will be valid. We have no ulterior test to which we subject experience in general ; but we make experience its own test. Experience testifies that among the uniformities which it exhibits or seems to exhibit, some are more to be relied on than others ; and uniformity, therefore, may be presumed, from any given number of instances, with a greater degree of assurance, in proportion as the case belongs to a class in which the uniformities have hitherto been found more uniform.
