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SECOND BOOK
125

quences, of seeing them in their full importance, indeed, all of them, without omission; in which case the number obtained has still to be divided by chance. To mention the principal difficulty: All the results which, singly, call only he anticipated with great trouble, now have to be balanced on the same scales against one another; and it so often happens that for this casuistry of advantage, owing to the difference in quality of all these possible results, both scales and weights are found wanting. But suppose that even here we were able to get to a satisfactory issue, and that chance had placed in our scales results which admit mutual balancing, we now have indeed in the picture of the results of a certain action a motive for doing this very action—yea, one motive! But at the moment of our eventual action we are pretty frequently influenced by a set of motives other than those under discussion, that is those of the “pictorial group of results." The habitual play of our energy, or a slight encouragement on the part of a person whom we honour, fear, or love; or love of case, which prefers to do that which is nearest at hand; or some excitement of the imagination, caused at the decisive moment by some trivial occurrence; or physical influence, springing up quite unexpectedly; or caprice; or the outburst of some passion which, quite by accident, is ready to burst forth; in short, motives of which some are not known to us at all, some but very little, and which we can never counterbalance in advance, are the instigators. Probably even among them a contest takes place, a driving