It is obvious that we must be prepared to form an opinion upon the propriety of taking the step involved in making such an inference. Hitherto we have had as little to do as possible with the irregular individuals; we have regarded them simply as fragments of a regular series. But we cannot long continue to neglect all consideration of them. Even if these events in the gross be tolerably certain, it is not only in the gross that we have to deal with them; they constantly come before us a few at a time, or even as individuals, and we have to form some opinion about them in this state. An insurance office, for instance, deals with numbers large enough to obviate most of the uncertainty, but each of their transactions has another party interested in it--What has the man who insures to say to their proceedings? for to him this question becomes an individual one. And even the office itself receives its cases singly, and would therefore like to have as clear views as possible about these single cases. Now, the remarks made in the preceding chapters about the subjects which Probability discusses might seem to preclude all enquiries of this kind, for was not ignorance of the individual presupposed to such an extent that even (as will be seen hereafter) causation might be denied, within considerable limits, without affecting our conclusions? The answer to this enquiry will require us to turn now to the consideration of a totally distinct side of the question, and one which has not yet come before us. Our best introduction to it will be by the discussion of a special example.