If the premises are known to be true not of a bare majority, but of nearly the whole, of their respective subjects, we may go on joining one such proposition to another for several steps, before we reach a conclusion not presumably true even of a majority. The error of the conclusion will amount to the aggregate of the errors of all the premises. Let the proposition, Most A are B, be true of nine in ten; Most B are C, of eight in nine: then not only will one A in ten not be C, because not B, but even of the nine-tenths which are B, only eight-ninths will be C: that is, the cases of A which are C will be only 8/9 of 9/10, or four-fifths. Let us now add Most C are D, and suppose this to be true of seven cases out of eight; the proportion of A which is D will be only 7/8 of 8/9 of 9/10, or 7/10. Thus the probability progressively dwindles. The experience, however, on which our approximate generalizations are grounded, has so rarely been subjected to, or admits of, accurate numerical estimation, that we cannot in general apply any measurement to the diminution of probability which takes place at each illation; but must be content with remembering that it does diminish at every step, and that unless the premises approach very nearly indeed to being universally true, the conclusion after a very few steps is worth nothing. A hearsay of a hearsay, or an argument from presumptive evidence depending not on immediate marks but on marks of marks, is worthless at a very few removes from the first stage. § 7. There are, however, two cases in which reasonings depending on approximate generalizations may be carried to any length we please with as much assurance, and are as strictly scientific, as if they were composed of universal laws of nature. But these cases are exceptions of the sort which are currently said to prove the rule. The approximate generalizations are as suitable, in the cases in question, for purposes of ratiocination, as if they were complete generalizations, because they are capable of being transformed into complete generalizations exactly equivalent.