4. On the view here adopted we are concerned only with averages, or with the single event as deduced from an average and conceived to form one of a series. We start with the assumption, grounded on experience, that there is uniformity in this average, and, so long as this is secured to us, we can afford to be perfectly indifferent to the fate, as regards causation, of the individuals which compose the average. The question then assumes the following form:--Is this assumption, of average regularity in the aggregate, inconsistent with the admission of what may be termed causeless irregularity in the details? It does not seem to me that it would be at all easy to prove that this is so. As a matter of fact the two beliefs have constantly co-existed in the same minds. This may not count for much, but it suggests that if there be a contradiction between them it is by no means palpable and obvious. Millions, for instance, have believed in the general uniformity of the seasons taken one with another, who certainly did not believe in, and would very likely have been ready distinctly to deny, the existence of necessary sequences in the various phenomena which compose what we call a season. So with cards and dice; almost every gambler must have recognized that judgment and foresight are of use in the long run, but writers on chance seem to think that gamblers need a good deal of reasoning to convince them that each separate throw is in its nature essentially predictable. 5. In its application to moral and social subjects, what gives this controversy its main interest is its real or supposed bearing upon the vexed question of the freedom of the will; for in this region Causation, and Fatalism or Necessitarianism, are regarded as one and the same thing. Here, as in the last case, that wide and somewhat vague kind of regularity that we have called Uniformity, must be admitted as a notorious fact. Statistics have put it out of the power of any reasonably informed person to feel any hesitation upon this point. Some idea has already been gained, in the earlier chapters, of the nature and amount of the evidence which might be furnished of this fact, and any quantity more might be supplied from the works of professed writers upon the subject. If, therefore, Free-will be so interpreted as to imply such essential irregularity as defies prediction both in the average, and also in the single case, then the negation of free-will follows, not as a remote logical consequence, but as an obvious inference from indisputable facts of experience.