"The calculus of probability is equally applicable to things of all kinds, moral and physical and, if only in each case observations provide the necessary numerical data, it does not at all depend on their nature." (Siméon-Denis Poisson, "Researches into the Probabilities of Judgements in Criminal and Civil Cases", 1837)
"The probability of an event is our reason to believe that it will occur or occurred. [...] Probability depends on our knowledge about an event; for the same event it can differ for different persons. Thus, if a person only knows that an urn contains white and black balls, whereas another person alsoknows that there are more white balls than black ones, the latter has more grounds to believe in the extraction of a white ball. In other words, for him, that event has a higher probability than for the former." (Siméon-Denis Poisson, "Règles générales des probabilités", 1837)
"The measure of the probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favourable to that event, to the total number of cases favourable or contrary, and all equally possible' (equally like to happen)." (Siméon-Denis Poisson, "Règles générales des probabilités", 1837)
"I consider the world probability as meaning the state of mind with respect to an assertion, a coming event, or any other matter on which absolute knowledge does not exist." (Augustus De Morgan, "Essay on Probability", 1838)
"By degree of probability we really mean, or ought to mean, degree of belief [...] Probability then, refers to and implies belief, more or less, and belief is but another name for imperfect knowledge, or it may be, expresses the mind in a state of imperfect knowledge. (Augustus De Morgan, "Formal Logic: Or, The Calculus of Inference, Necessary and Probable", 1847)
"Without doubt, matter is unlimited in extent, and, in this sense, infinite; and the forces of Nature mould it into an innumerable number of worlds. Would it be at all astonishing if, from the universal dice-box, out of an innumberable number of throws, there should be thrown out one world infinitely perfect? Nay, does not the calculus of probabilities prove to us that one such world out of an infinite number, must be produced of necessity? (Philippe Buchez & William B Greene, "Remarks on the Science of History: Followed by an a priori autobiography", 1849)
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