Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 053.djvu/436

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quodque solum, certa nitri signa præbere, sed plura concurrere debere, ut de vero nitro producto dubium non relinquatur.

LII. An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances. By the late Rev. Mr. Bayes, F. R. S. communicated by Mr. Price, in a Letter to John Canton, A. M. F. R. S.

Dear Sir,

Read Dec. 23,
1763.I now send you an essay which I have found among the papers of our deceased friend Mr. Bayes, and which, in my opinion, has great merit, and well deserves to be preserved. Experimental philosophy, you will find, is nearly interested in the subject of it; and on this account there seems to be particular reason for thinking that a communication of it to the Royal Society cannot be improper.

He had, you know, the honour of being a member of that illustrious Society, and was much esteemed by many in it as a very able mathematician. In an introduction which he has writ to this Essay, he says, that his design at first in thinking on the subject of it was, to find out a method by which we might judge concerning the probability that an event has to happen, in given circumstances, upon supposition that we know nothing concerning it but that, under the same circum-

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