29. Is it then perfectly arbitrary what series or class of instances we select by which to judge? By no means; it has been stated repeatedly that in choosing a series, we must seek for one the members of which shall resemble our individual in as many of his attributes as possible, subject only to the restriction that it must be a sufficiently extensive series. What is meant is, that in the above case, where we have two series, we cannot fairly call them contradictory; the only valid charge is one of incompleteness or insufficiency for their purpose, a charge which applies in exactly the same sense, be it remembered, to all statistics which comprise genera unnecessarily wider than the species with which we are concerned. The only difference between the two different classes of cases is, that in the one instance we are on a path which we know will lead at the last, through many errors, towards the truth (in the sense in which truth can be attained here), and we took it for want of a better. In the other instance we have two such paths, perfectly different paths, either of which however will lead us towards the truth as before. Contradiction can only seem to arise when it is attempted to justify each separate step on our paths, as well as their ultimate tendency. Still it cannot be denied that these objections are a serious drawback to the completeness and validity of any anticipations which are merely founded upon statistical frequency, at any rate in an early stage of experience, when but few statistics have been collected. Such knowledge as Probability can give is not in any individual case of a high order, being subject to the characteristic infirmity of repeated error; but even when measured by its own standard it commences at a very low stage of proficiency. The errors are then relatively very numerous and large compared with what they may ultimately be reduced to.