This paper explores how the Belgian mathematician Paul Mansion became interested in probability theory. In comparison to many other countries at the time, probability theory had a much stronger presence in Belgium. In addition, Mansion, who was an avowed Catholic militant, had found probability theory to be a useful means of reflecting on certain problems pertaining to determinism and randomness that were arising in scientific debates at the time. Mansion’s work took place during a time of consolidation of mathematical education in Belgium, as well as a new interest in probabilistic results and the foundation of the Institute for Philosophy in Louvain by his friend Désiré Mercier. The present paper addresses how these aspects intersected at the turn of the twentieth century.

This paper is an edited version of a talk given in Sheffield as part of the celebration of fifty years of the Applied Probability Trust and its journals. I sought to sketch the background to the Trust's formation in the development of different applications of probability during the previous century, and to draw lessons for the future of the discipline and therefore of its journals.