I Am Now About To Set Seriously

I Am Now About To Set Seriously To Work Upon Preparing For The Press An Account Of My Theory Of Logic And Probabilities Which In Its Present State I Look Upon As The Most Valuable If Not The Only Valuable Contribution That I Have Made Or Am Likely To Make To Science And The Thing By Which I Would Desire If At All To Be Remembered Hereafter.

I Presume That Few Who Have Paid Any Attention To The History Of The Mathematical Analysis, Will Doubt That It Has Been Developed In A Certain Order, Or That That Order Has Been, To A Great Extent, Necessary -- Being Determined, Either By Steps Of Logical Deduction, Or By The Successive Introduction Of New Ideas And Conceptions, When The Time For Their Evolution Had Arrived.

No Matter How Correct A Mathematical Theorem May Appear To Be, One Ought Never To Be Satisfied That There Was Not Something Imperfect About It Until It Also Gives The Impression Of Being Beautiful.

It Follows That The Word Probability, In Its Mathematical Acceptance, Has Reference To The State Of Our Knowledge Of The Circumstances Under Which An Event May Happen Or Fail. With The Degree Of Information We Possess Concerning The Circumstances Of An Event, The Reason We Have To Think That It Will Occur, Or, To Use A Single Term, Our Expectation Of It Will Vary. Probability Is The Expectation Founded Upon Partial Knowledge.

To Unfold The Secret Laws And Relations Of Those High Faculties Of Thought By Which All Beyond The Merely Perceptive Knowledge Of The World And Of Ourselves Is Attained Or Matured, Is A Object Which Does Not Stand In Need Of Commendation To A Rational Mind.