Talk about a cumulative case makes much more sense if we suppose that we are dealing with 'probabilistic' — or 'inductive', or 'evidential' — arguments, in which the premises provide 'probabilistic' — or 'inductive', or 'evidential' — support for their conclusions. ... However, once we start talking about accumulating evidence in this sense, it seems to me that the only interesting question to consider is how a given proposition stands in the light of all of the relevant available evidence. That a given proposition is probable given a carefully selected part of the total relevant evidence is not an interesting result. But — at the very least — this makes it very hard to be sure that one has succeeded in setting out a good probabilistic argument for any hotly disputed conclusion.