  The main hypothesis about Thomas Bayes's intentions to write his famous Essay
on probability is that he wanted to refute the arguments of David Hume against
the reliability of the occurrence of miracles, published in 1748. In this paper
we argue that it was not Bayes's intention to rebut Hume but that his interest
on the "inverse problem" came about as result of his study of the second
edition of Abraham De Moivre's book, The Doctrine of Chances, published in
1738.
  A possible communication of Bayes's breakthrough might have annoyed De
Moivre, leading to a response written for Bayes in the third edition of De
Moivre's book, published in 1756. Among other points, the response claims that
De Moivre was the first to solve the mentioned inverse problem. Under this
perspective Richard Price's letter, written as preface to Bayes's essay, has a
new interpretation, appearing also as a defense of Bayes premiership on a
satisfactory or proper solution.
