BOOK I PART III
with a diminution of force in the evidence cor-
respondent to the number of the opposite ex-
periments. Each possibility, of which the prob-
ability is composed, operates separately upon
the imagination; and it is the larger collection
of possibilities, which at last prevails, and that
with a force proportionable to its superiority.
All these phenomena lead directly to the prece-
dent system; nor will it ever be possible upon
any other principles to give a satisfactory and
consistent explication of them. Without consid-
ering these judgments as the effects of custom
on the imagination, we shall lose ourselves in
perpetual contradiction and absurdity.