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the ratio of a house, as if a ratio were some
absolute quality of the house? You would say that
in the first place, it is not the house, but some
dimension or measure of the house that can
have a ratio. That is a fault similar to speaking
of the probability of an event instead of the
probability of a fact, or of the truth of a proposition.
But this you would say is a small absurdity
compared to that of speaking of the ratio of
a thing without mentioning but one term of the
ratio. If anything has a ratio, it must be a
ratio to something. A proposition may have
a probability without any second member, provided
the term probability be used in
another and perhaps more legitimate sense.