 Proof beyond reasonable doubt represents the maximum level of inductive probability. The prosecution may try to persuade the court to infer that the accused was guilty of burglary by producing evidence to establish that he was found in the vicinity of the victim’s house late at night with the stolen object on him. This inference is licensed by the generalisation that normally if a stranger is found immediately after a burglary in possession of the stolen object, he intentionally removed it himself. The defence may try to defeat the inference by showing that the generalization does not apply in the particular case, for example, by presenting evidence to show that the accused had found the object on the street. The prosecution’s hypothesis is now challenged or put to the test. As a counter-move, it may produce evidence to establish that the object could not have been lying in the street as alleged. If the generalisations on which the prosecution’s case rest survive challenges by the defence at every possible point, then guilt is proved beyond reasonable  doubt.[26]  The same reasoning structure applies in the civil context except that in a civil case, the plaintiff succeeds in proof on the preponderance of evidence so long as the conclusion to be proved by him is more inductively probable than its negation. (Cohen 1977, 1986; cf. Schum  1979.)[27]