A Treatise on Probability.

First edition. 8vo. xi, [1], 466, [2, publisher's advertisements] pp. Original brown cloth, spine lettered in gilt and ruled in gilt, ruling continued to boards in blind (offsetting to rear free endpaper, neat underling and a few marginal annotations in black ink to the opening two chapters, contents otherwise generally clean; binding slightly shaken, light wear to spine, corners only gently bumped, notwithstanding a very good copy overall). London, MacMillan and Co., Ltd.

Keynes's third published book and his principal mathematical-philosophical work, a substantial expansion on the subject of his fellowship dissertation, in which he sought to establish a mathematical basis for probability theory as Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead had done for symbolic logic in their Principia Mathematica.

'What Keynes sought to do in the book was to extend the principles of valid thought to arguments that were not conclusive and certain but to which it was rational to attach some weight: matters of belief and opinion based on limited knowledge and subject to uncertainty. Probability was always relative to the evidence available and changed if the knowledge available changed. It had to do with what it was rational to believe, not with truth. On this basis Keynes examined a succession of issues including induction, statistical inference, and the bearing of probability on conduct' (ODNB).

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