CHANCE, in its original and strict meaning, may be defined as that which determines the course of events, in the absence of law, ordinary causation, or providence. Strictly speaking, it is an idea which few would now be disposed to admit as corresponding to anything which really exists; the religious mind excluding it as inconsistent with the belief in the divine government, and the philosophical mind rejecting it as inconsistent with a recognition of universal laws of causation. As a word, however, it has always been, and always will be popularly accepted; and its use is correct so far as we over look, or choose for the moment to throw out of view, the more universal connection of events, and regard them as their emergence, on a superficial view, appears to be deter mined. The idea of C., as referring to some' apparently capricious or at least inexpli cable cause of an event, distinguishes it from the word probability, or the degree with which the expectation of an event approves itself to a particular mind, the first express ing what metaphysicians would call an objective, and the second a subjective idea. • It
is clear that C., being only legitimate as an expression in popular parlance—or if admit ted as a term in philosophy, one that would at once lead into the most inextricable pro blems—is a term which is much too indefinite to admit of any kind of measurement; while what we call probability, or the degree with which an expectation approves itself. owing to certain data presented to the mind, does, as we shall hereafter see, admit of a kind of measurement which leads to very important consequences. For these reasons, the consideration of what is sometimes called the doctrine of chances, but what is more properly the theory of probabilities, will be found under the head of PROBABILITY.