“We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not know is like what we know.”

—  William Kingdon Clifford

The Ethics of Belief (1877), The Limits Of Inference
Context: p>We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not know is like what we know. We may believe the statement of another person, when there is reasonable ground for supposing that he knows the matter of which he speaks, and that he is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence; and where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is worse than presumption to believe.</p

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William Kingdon Clifford 48
English mathematician and philosopher 1845–1879

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