Analogies and metaphors are always defective and logically unsatisfactory. It is usual to search for the underlying tertium comparationis . But even this is not permissible with regard to the metaphor we are dealing with. There is no need to repeat that this is a mistaken idea. No less impermissible is the recourse to the calculus of probability in dealing with hypotheses in the field of the natural sciences.
Hypotheses are tentative explanations consciously based on logically insufficient arguments.
Neither frequency probability nor historical understanding enters into the matter. The term hypothesis, applied to definite modes of understanding historical events, is a misnomer. If a historian asserts that in the fall of the Romanoff dynasty the fact that this house was of German background played a relevant role, he does not advance a hypothesis. The facts on which his understanding is founded are beyond question. But the question remains what the relevance of these facts was in the chain of events which brought about the dethronement of this dynasty.