Quotes from Laplace (1749-1827) about Kolmogorov complexity in his
publication "philosophical Essay on probabilities", Dover 1952
(originally published in French in 1819).

"We arrange in our thought all possible events in various classes; and
we regard as extraordinary those classes which include a very small
number. In the game of heads and tails, if heads comes up a hundred
times in a row then this appears to us extraordinary, because the
almost infinite number of combinations that can arise in a hundred
throws are divided 
  1) in regular sequences, or those in which we observe a rule that is 
     easy to grasp, and 
  2) in irregular sequences, that are incomparably more numerous.

...

(Occam's razor by Laplace)

"The regular combinations occur more rarely only because they are less
numerous. If we seek a cause wherever we perceive symmetry, it is not
that we regard the symmetrical event as less possible than the others,
but since this event ought to be the effect of 
   1) a regular cause or 
   2) that of chance, 
the first of these suppositions is more probable than the second.

"On a table we see letters arranged in this order "Constantinople" and
we judge that this arrangement is not the result of chance, not
because it is less possible than others, for if this word were not
employed in any language we would not suspect it came from any
particular cause, but this word being in use among us, it is
comparably more probable that some person has thus arranged the
aforesaid letters than that this arrangement is due to chance.