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the reason becomes embarrassed. I say all this will be seen. But let it
not for a moment be supposed that, in proceeding with the sad narrative
of Marie from the epoch just mentioned, and in tracing to its dénouement
the mystery which enshrouded her, it is my covert design to hint at an
extension of the parallel, or even to suggest that the measures adopted
in Paris for the discovery of the assassin of a grisette, or measures
founded in any similar ratiocination, would produce any similar result.
For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it should be
considered that the most trifling variation in the facts of the
two cases might give rise to the most important miscalculations,
by diverting thoroughly the two courses of events; very much as,
in arithmetic, an error which, in its own individuality, may be
inappreciable, produces, at length, by dint of multiplication at all
points of the process, a result enormously at variance with truth. And,
in regard to the former branch, we must not fail to hold in view that
the very Calculus of Probabilities to which I have referred, forbids all
idea of the extension of the parallel:--forbids it with a positiveness
strong and decided just in proportion as this parallel has already been
long-drawn and exact. This is one of those anomalous propositions which,
seemingly appealing to thought altogether apart from the mathematical,
is yet one which only the mathematician can fully entertain. Nothing,
for example, is more difficult than to convince the merely general
reader that the fact of sixes having been thrown twice in succession by
a player at dice, is sufficient cause for betting the largest odds that
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