£ypenmental  XeQtelation  29
for  believing  that  the  long-continued  and  costly
proceedings  of  the  Alliance  were  simply  thrown
away,  except  so  far  as  they  might  be  a  warning
against  similar  unwise  attempts  at  legislation.  I
showed  that  the  Alliance  were  striving  against
triple  improbabilities  :  firstly,  the  improbability  (as
manifested  by  the  decreasing  ratio  of  the  ayes
to  the  noes  in  the  House  of  Commons’  divisions)
that  Parliament  would  ever  pass  the  Bill  ;  secondly,
the  improbability  that,  if  passed,  the  Permissive
Act  would  be  largely  adopted  by  local  authorities  ;
thirdly,  the  improbability  that,  if  adopted,  it  would
succeed  in  lessening  intemperance.  According  to
the  mathematical  principle  of  the  composition  of
probabilities  by  multiplication,  the  probability  that
any  good  would  ever  result  from  an  agitation
costing  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  pounds,
and  extending  already  beyond  a  quarter  of  a  century
in  duration,  was  practically  nil.  The  only  effective
answers  given  to  my  arguments  were  that  of  the
Rev.  Mr.  Steinthal  and  one  or  two  others,  who
held  that  the  probabilities  in  question  are  not
altogether  independent,  because  Parliament  could
hardly  be  forced  to  pass  the  Bill  unless  there  were
extensive  localities  wishing  to  adopt  it.  There  is
a  certain  amount  of  truth  in  this  objection,  but  it
does  not  to  any  great  degree  strengthen  the  position
of  the  Alliance.  Their  proposals  in  their  original
form  seem  to  me  to  have  the  character  of  a  vast
experiment,  so  vast  that  it  was  intended  to  involve