Suppose, for instance, I have found by long observation, that of twenty ships, which go to sea, only nineteen return.

Suppose I see at present twenty ships that leave the port: I transfer my past experience to the future, and represent to myself nineteen of these ships as returning in safety, and one as perishing.

Concerning this there can be no difficulty.

But as we frequently run over those several ideas of past events, in order to form a judgment concerning one single event, which appears uncertain; this consideration must change the FIRST FORM of our ideas, and draw together the divided images presented by experience; since it is to it we refer the determination of that particular event, upon which we reason.

Many of these images are supposed to concur, and a superior number to concur on one side.