Hazarding

The possessors of some of the homes on the Drive were more than mere names to him; for he had been a guest at an occasional semi-public entertainment in certain of the mansions he passed. But it never occurred to Gregg to dream of owning one of them; indeed, his hazardings of his future were altogether too vague to picture himself founding a family.

You see the vague speculations of Democritus becoming precise in Dalton, the cloudy hazardings of Pythagoras set solid in figures by Kepler; here is the balance, there is the yard-stick; number one is the principle of all things; […]