Page "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" Paragraph 17

This short chapter begins with the notions of probability and chance.

For him, " probability " means a higher chance of occurring, and brings about a higher degree of subjective expectation in the viewer.

By " chance ", he means all those particular comprehensible events which the viewer considers possible in accord with their experience.

However, further experience takes these equal chances, and forces the imagination to observe that certain chances arise more frequently than others.

These gentle forces upon the imagination cause the viewer to have strong beliefs in outcomes.

This effect may be understood as another case of custom or habit taking past experience and using it to predict the future.

( Hume 1974: 346-348 )