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• Book IV: Of Operations Subsidiary to Induction
• Chapter I: Of Observation and Description
• Chapter II: Of Abstraction, Or the Formation of Conceptions
• Chapter III: Of Naming, As Subsidiary to Induction
• Chapter IV: Of the Requisites of a Philosophical Language, and the Principles of Definition
• Chapter V: On the Natural History of the Variations In the Meaning of Terms
• Chapter VI: The Principles of a Philosophical Language Further Considered
• Chapter VII: Of Classification, As Subsidiary to Induction
• Chapter VIII: Of Classification By Series
• Book V: On Fallacies
• Chapter I: Of Fallacies In General
• Chapter II: Classification of Fallacies
• Chapter III: Fallacies of Simple Inspection; Or a Priori Fallacies
• Chapter IV: Fallacies of a Observation
• Chapter V: Fallacies of a Generalization
• Chapter VI: Fallacies of a Ratiocination
• Chapter VII: Fallacies of Confusion
• Book VI: On the Logic of the Moral Sciences
• Chapter I: Introductory Remarks
• Chapter II: Of Liberty and Necessity
• Chapter III: That There Is, Or May Be, a Science of Human Nature
• Chapter IV: Of the Laws of Mind
• Chapter V: Of Ethology, Or the Science of the Formation of Character
• Chapter VI: General Considerations On the Social Science
• Chapter VII: Of the Chemical, Or Experimental, Method In the Social Science
• Chapter VIII: Of the Geometrical, Or Abstract Method
• Chapter IX: Of the Physical, Or Concrete Deductive Method
• Chapter X: Of the Inverse Deductive, Or Historical Method
• Chapter XI: Additional Elucidations of the Science of History
• Chapter XII: Of the Logic of Practice, Or Art; Including Morality and Policy

CHAPTER VII

Fallacies of Confusion

§ 1. [Fallacy of Ambiguous Terms] Under this fifth and last class ^ait is^a convenient to arrange all those fallacies, in which the source of error is not so much a false estimate of the probative force of known evidence, as an indistinct, indefinite, and fluctuating conception of what the evidence is.

At the head of these stands that multitudinous body of fallacious reasonings, in which the source of error is the ambiguity of terms: when something which is true if a word be used in a particular sense, is reasoned on as if it were true in another sense. In such a case there is not a mal-estimation of evidence, because there is not properly any evidence to the point at all; there is evidence, but to a different point, which from a confused apprehension of the meaning of the terms used, is supposed to be the same. This error will naturally be oftener committed in our ratiocinations than in our direct inductions, because in the former we are deciphering our own or other people’s notes, while in the latter we have the things themselves present, either to ^bthe senses or to the^b memory. Except, indeed, when the induction is not from individual cases to a generality, but from generalities to a still higher generalization; in that case the fallacy of ambiguity may affect the inductive process as well as the ratiocinative. It occurs in ratiocination in two ways: when the middle term is ambiguous, or when one of the terms of the syllogism is taken in one sense in the premises, and in another sense in the conclusion.

Some good exemplifications of this fallacy are given by Archbishop Whately.^[*]

The following are instances of great practical importance, in which arguments are habitually founded on a verbal ambiguity.

The mercantile public are frequently led into this fallacy by the phrase, “scarcity of money.” In the language of commerce “money” has two meanings: currency, or the circulating medium; and capital seeking investment, especially investment on loan. In this last sense the word is used when the “money market” is spoken of, and when the “value of money” is said to be high or low, the rate of interest being meant. The consequence of this ambiguity is, that as soon as scarcity of money in the latter of these senses begins to be felt,—as soon as there is difficulty of obtaining loans, and the rate of interest is high,—it is concluded that this must arise from causes acting upon the quantity of money in the other and more popular sense; that the circulating medium must have diminished in quantity, or ought to be increased. I am aware that, independently of the double meaning of the term, there are in ^jthe facts^j themselves some peculiarities, giving an apparent support to this error; but the ambiguity of the language stands on the very threshold of the subject, and intercepts all attempts to throw light upon it.

Another ambiguous expression which continually meets us in the political controversies of the present time, especially in those which relate to organic changes, is the phrase “influence of property:” which is sometimes used for the influence of respect for superior intelligence, or gratitude for the kind offices which persons of large property have it so much in their power to bestow; at other times for the influence of fear; fear of the worst sort of power, which large property ^kalso^k gives to its possessor, the power of doing mischief to dependents. To confound these two, is the standing fallacy of ambiguity brought against those who seek to purify ^lthe^l electoral system from corruption and intimidation.^m Persuasive influence, acting through the conscience of the voter, and carrying his heart and mind with it, is beneficial—therefore ⁿ(it is pretended)ⁿ coercive influence, which compels him to forget that he is a moral agent, or to act in opposition to his moral convictions, ought not to be placed under restraint.

Another word which is often turned into an instrument of the fallacy of ambiguity, is Theory. In its most proper acceptation, theory means the completed result of philosophical induction from experience. In that sense, there are erroneous as well as true theories, for induction may be incorrectly performed, but theory of some sort is the necessary result of knowing anything of a subject, and having put one’s knowledge into the form of general propositions for the guidance of practice. ^oIn this, the proper sense of the word, Theory is the explanation of practice.^o In another and ^pa^p more vulgar sense, theory means any mere fiction of the imagination, endeavouring to conceive how a thing may possibly have been produced, instead of examining how it was produced. In this sense only are theory, and theorists, unsafe guides; but because of this, ridicule or discredit is attempted to be attached to theory in its proper sense, that is, to legitimate generalization, the end and aim of all philosophy; and a conclusion is represented as worthless, just because that has been done, which if done correctly, constitutes the highest worth that a principle for the guidance of practice can possess, namely, to comprehend in a few words the real law on which a phenomenon depends, or some property or relation which is universally true of it.

“The Church” is sometimes understood to mean the clergy alone, sometimes the whole body of believers, or at least of communicants. The declamations respecting the inviolability of church property are indebted for the greater part of their apparent force to this ambiguity. The clergy, being called the church, are supposed to be the real owners of what is called church property; whereas they are in truth only the managing members of a much larger body of proprietors, and enjoy on their own part a mere usufruct, not extending beyond a life interest.

^q The following is a Stoical argument taken from Cicero De Finibus, book the third: “Quod est bonum, omne laudabile est. Quod autem laudabile est, omne honestum est. Bonum igitur quod est, honestum est.”^[*] Here the ambiguous word is laudabile, which in the minor premise means anything which mankind are accustomed, on good grounds, to admire or value; as beauty, for instance, or good fortune: but in the major, it denotes exclusively moral qualities. In much the same manner the Stoics ^rendeavoured logically to justify as philosophical truths, their figurative and rhetorical expressions of ethical sentiment:^r as that the virtuous man is alone free, alone beautiful, alone a king, &c. Whoever has virtue has Good (because it has been previously determined not to call anything else good); but, again, Good necessarily includes freedom, beauty, and even ^skingship^s , all^t these being good things; therefore whoever has virtue has all these.

The following is an argument of Descartes to prove, in his à priori manner, the being of ^ua^u God. The conception, says he, of an infinite Being proves the real existence of such a being. For if there is not really any such being, I must have made the conception; but if I could make it, I can also unmake it; which evidently is not true; therefore there must be, externally to myself, an archetype, from which the conception was derived. ^vIn this argument (which, it may be observed, would equally prove the real existence of ghosts and of witches) the ambiguity^v is in the pronoun I, by which, in one place, is to be understood my will, in another the laws of my nature. If the conception, existing as it does in my mind, had no original without, the conclusion would unquestionably follow that I made it; that is, the laws of my nature must have ^wsomehow^w evolved it: but that my will made it, would not follow. Now when Descartes afterwards adds that I cannot unmake the conception, he means that I cannot get rid of it by an act of my will: which is true, but is not the proposition required. ^xI can as much unmake this conception as I can any other: no conception which I have once had, can I ever dismiss by^y mere volition: but^x what some of the laws of my nature have produced, other laws, or those same laws in other circumstances, ^zmay, and often do, subsequently efface^z .

Analogous to this are some of the ambiguities in the free-will controversy; which, as they will come under special consideration in the concluding Book, I only mention memoriæ causâ. In that discussion, too, the word I is often shifted from one meaning to another, at one time standing for my volitions, at another time for the actions which are the consequences of them, or the mental dispositions from which they proceed. The latter ambiguity is exemplified in an argument of Coleridge (in his Aids to Reflection), in support of the freedom of the will. It is not true, he says, that ^aa^a man is governed by motives; “the man makes the motive, not the motive the man;” the proof being that “what is a strong motive to one man is no motive at all to another.”^[*] The premise is true, but only amounts to this, that different persons have different degrees of susceptibility to the same motive; as they have also to the same intoxicating ^bliquid^b , which however does not prove that they are free to be drunk or not drunk, whatever ^cquantity of the fluid^c they may drink. What is proved is, that certain mental conditions in the ^dperson^d himself, must co-operate, in the production of the act, with the external inducement: but those mental conditions also are the effect of causes; and there is nothing in the argument to prove that they can arise without a cause—that a spontaneous determination of the^e will, without any cause at all, ever takes place, as the free-will doctrine supposes.

The double use, in the free-will controversy, of the word Necessity, which sometimes stands only for Certainty, at other times for Compulsion; sometimes for what cannot be prevented, at other times only for what we have reason to be assured will not; ^fwe shall have occasion hereafter to pursue^f to some of its ulterior consequences.

A most important ambiguity, both in common and in metaphysical language, is thus pointed out by Archbishop Whately in the Appendix to his Logic:^[†]

It is, indeed, not a matter of inference, but of authentic history, that Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, and the Aristotelian doctrine (^hin this respect similar to^h the Platonic) of substantial forms and second substances, grew up in the precise way here pointed out; from the supposed necessity of finding, in things which were said to have the same nature, or the same qualities, something which was the same in the very sense in which a man is the same as himself. All the idle speculations respecting τὸ ὅν, τὸ ἕν, τὸ ὅμοιον, and similar abstractions, so common in the ancient and in some modern schools of ⁱthought, sprangⁱ from the same source. The Aristotelian logicians ^jsaw, however,^j one case of the ambiguity, and provided against it with their peculiar felicity in the invention of technical language, when they distinguished things which differed both specie and numero, from those which differed numero tantum, that is, which were exactly alike (in some particular respect at least) but were distinct individuals. An extension of this distinction to the two meanings of the word Same, namely, things which are the same specie tantum, and a thing which is the same numero as well as specie, would have prevented the confusion which has been a source of so much darkness and such an abundance of positive error in ^kmetaphysical^k philosophy.

One of the most singular examples of the length to which a ^lthinker^l of eminence may be led away by an ambiguity of language, is afforded by this very case. I refer to the famous argument by which Bishop Berkeley flattered himself that he had for ever put an end to “scepticism, atheism, and irreligion.”^[*] It is briefly as follows. I thought of a thing yesterday; I ceased to think of it; I think of it again to-day, I had, therefore, in my mind yesterday an idea of the object; I have also an idea of it to-day; this idea is evidently not another, but the very same idea. Yet an intervening time elapsed in which I had it not. Where was the idea during this interval? It must have been somewhere; it did not cease to exist; otherwise the idea I ^mhad yesterday^m could not be the same idea; no more than the man I see alive to-day can be the same whom I saw yesterday if the man has died in the meanwhile. Now an idea cannot be conceived to exist anywhere except in a mind; and hence there must exist an Universal Mind, in which all ideas have their permanent residence, during the intervals of their conscious presence in our own minds.

ⁿIt is evident thatⁿ Berkeley here confounded sameness numero with sameness specie, that is, with exact resemblance, and assumed the former ^owhere^o there was only the latter ^p;not perceiving^p that when we say we have the same thought to-day which we had yesterday, we do not mean the same individual thought, but a thought exactly similar: as we say that we have the same illness which we had last year, ^qmeaning only the same sort^q of illness.

In one remarkable instance the scientific world was divided into two furiously hostile parties by an ambiguity of language affecting a branch of science which, more completely than most others, enjoys the advantage of a precise and well-defined terminology. I refer to the famous dispute respecting the vis viva, the history of which is given at large in Professor Playfair’s Dissertation. The question was, whether the force of a moving body was proportional (its mass being given) to its velocity simply, or to the square of its velocity: and the ambiguity was in the word Force. “One of the effects,” says Playfair, “produced by a moving body is proportional to the square of the velocity, while another is proportional to the velocity simply:”^[*] from whence clearer thinkers were subsequently led to establish a double measure of the efficiency of a moving power, one being called vis viva, and the other momentum. About the facts, both parties were from the first agreed: the only question was, with which of the two effects the term force should be, or could most conveniently be, associated. But the disputants were by no means aware that this was all; they thought that force was one thing, the production of effects another; and the question, by which set of effects the force which produced both the one and the other should be measured, was supposed to be a question not of terminology, but of fact.

The ambiguity of the word Infinite is the real fallacy in the amusing logical puzzle of Achilles and the Tortoise, a puzzle which has been too hard for the ingenuity or patience of many philosophers, and ^rwhich no less a thinker than Sir William Hamilton considered^r as insoluble; as a sound argument though leading to a palpable falsehood^s .^[*] The fallacy, as Hobbes hinted,^[†] lies in the tacit assumption that whatever is infinitely divisible is infinite; but ^tthe following solution (to the invention of which I have no claim) is more precise and satisfactory.^t

The argument is, let Achilles run ten times as fast as the tortoise, yet if the tortoise has the start, Achilles will never overtake him. For suppose them to be at first separated by an interval of a thousand feet: when Achilles has run these thousand feet, the tortoise will have got on a hundred; when Achilles has run those hundred, the tortoise will have run ten, and so on for ever: therefore Achilles may run for ever without overtaking the tortoise.

Now the “for ever,” in the conclusion, means, for any length of time that can be supposed; but in the premises, “ever” does not mean any length of time; it means any number of subdivisions of time. It means that we may divide a thousand feet by ten,^u and that quotient again by ten, and so on as often as we please; that there never needs be an end to the subdivisions of the distance, nor consequently to those of the time in which it is performed. But an unlimited number of subdivisions may be made of that which is itself limited. The argument proves no other infinity of duration than may be embraced within five minutes. As long as the five minutes are not expired, what remains of them may be divided by ten, and again by ten, as often as we like, which is perfectly compatible with their being only five minutes altogether. It proves, in short, that to pass through this finite space requires a time which is infinitely divisible, but not an infinite time; the confounding of which distinction Hobbes had already seen to be the gist of the fallacy.

The following ambiguities of the word right (in addition to the obvious and familiar one of a right and the adjective right) are ^vextracted^v from a forgotten paper of my own, in a periodical^w :^[‡]

requiring to be conscientiously weighed before adopting or acting on such a resolution.^cdThis last^d example is (like ^eothers which have been^e cited) a case of fallacy within fallacy; it involves not only the second of the two ambiguities pointed out, but the first likewise.

One not unusual form of the Fallacy of Ambiguous Terms, is known technically as the Fallacy of Composition and Division: when the same term is collective in the premises, distributive in the conclusion, or vice versâ: or when the middle term is collective in one premise, distributive in the other. As if one were to say (I quote from Archbishop Whately) “All the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: ABC is an angle of a triangle; therefore ABC is equal to two right angles. . . . There is no fallacy^f more common, or more likely to deceive, than the one now before us. The form in which it is most usually employed is to establish some truth, separately, concerning each single member of a certain class, and thence to infer the same of the whole collectively.”^[*] As in the argument one ^gsometimes hears^g , to prove that the world could do without great men. If Columbus (it is said) had never lived, America would still have been discovered, at most only a few years later; if Newton had never lived, some other person would have discovered the law of gravitation; and so forth. Most true: these things would have been done, but in all probability not ^htill^h some one had again been found with the qualities of ⁱColumbus orⁱ Newton. Because any one great man might have had his place supplied by ^jother great men^j , the argument concludes that all great men could have been dispensed with. The term “great men” is distributive in the premises and collective in the conclusion.

The debauchee destroys his health by successive acts of intemperance, because no one of those acts would be of itself sufficient to do him any serious harm. A sick person reasons with himself, “one, and another, and another, of my symptoms, do not prove that I have a fatal disease;” and practically concludes that all taken together do not prove it.

§ 2. [Fallacy of Petitio Principii] We have now sufficiently exemplified one of the principal Genera in this Order of Fallacies; where, the source of error being the ambiguity of terms, the premises are verbally what is required to support the conclusion, but not really so. In the second great Fallacy of Confusion they are neither verbally nor really sufficient, though, from their multiplicity and confused arrangement, and still oftener from defect of memory, they are not seen to be what they are. The fallacy I mean is that of Petitio Principii, or begging the question; including ^athe^a more complex and not uncommon variety of it, which is termed Reasoning in a Circle.

Petitio Principii, as defined by Archbishop Whately, is the fallacy “in which the premise either appears manifestly to be the same as the conclusion, or is actually proved from the conclusion, or is such as would naturally and properly so be proved.”^[*] By the last clause I presume is meant, that it is not susceptible of any other proof; for otherwise, there would be no fallacy. To deduce from a proposition, propositions from which it would itself more naturally be deduced, is often an allowable deviation from the usual didactic order; or at most, what, by an adaptation of a phrase familiar to mathematicians, may be called a logical inelegance.^*

The employment of a proposition to prove that on which it is itself dependent for proof, by no means implies the degree of mental imbecility which might at first be supposed. The difficulty of comprehending how this fallacy could possibly be committed, disappears when we reflect that all persons, even ^bthe instructed^b , hold a great number of opinions without exactly recollecting how they came by them. Believing that they have at some former time verified them by sufficient evidence, but having forgotten what the evidence was, they may easily be betrayed into deducing from them the very propositions which are alone capable of serving as premises for their establishment. ^c“As if,” says Archbishop Whately, “one^c should attempt to prove the being of a God from the authority of Holy Writ;”^[†] which might easily happen to one with whom both ^ddoctrines, as fundamental tenets of his religious creed^d , stand on the same ground of familiar and traditional belief.

Arguing in a circle, however, is a stronger case of the fallacy, and implies more than the mere passive reception of a premise by one who does not remember how it is to be proved. It implies an actual attempt to prove two propositions reciprocally from one another; and is seldom resorted to, at least in express terms, by any person in his own speculations, but is committed by those who, being hard pressed by an adversary, are forced into giving reasons for an opinion of which, when they began to argue, they had not sufficiently considered the grounds. As in the following example from Archbishop Whately: “Some mechanicians attempt to prove (what they ought to lay down as a probable but doubtful hypothesis^* ) that every particle of matter gravitates equally: ‘why?’ ‘because those bodies which contain more particles ever gravitate more strongly, i.e. are heavier:’ ‘but, (it may be urged,) those which are heaviest are not always more bulky;’ ‘no, but they contain more particles, though more closely condensed:’ ‘how do you know that?’ ‘because they are heavier:’ ‘how does that prove it?’ ‘because all particles of matter gravitating equally, that mass which is specifically the heavier must needs have the more of them in the same space.’ ”^[*] It appears to me that the fallacious reasoner, in his private thoughts, would not be likely to proceed beyond the first step.^g He would acquiesce in the sufficiency of the reason first given, “bodies which contain more particles are heavier.” It is when he finds this questioned, and is called upon to prove it, without knowing how, that he tries to establish his premise by supposing proved what he is attempting to prove by it. The most effectual way, in fact, of exposing a Petitio Principii, when circumstances allow of it, is by challenging the reasoner to prove his premises; which if he attempts to do, he is necessarily driven into arguing in a circle.

It is not uncommon, however, for thinkers, and those not of the lowest description, to be led even in their own thoughts, not indeed into formally proving each of two propositions from the other, but into admitting propositions which can only be so proved. In the preceding example the two together form a complete and consistent, though hypothetical, explanation of the facts concerned. And the tendency to mistake mutual coherency for truth; to trust one’s safety to a strong chain though it has no point of support; is at the bottom of much which, when reduced to the strict forms of argumentation, can exhibit itself no otherwise than as reasoning in a circle. All experience bears testimony to the enthralling effect of neat concatenation in a system of doctrines, and the difficulty with which ^hpeople^h admit the persuasion that anything which holds so well together can possibly fall.

Since every case where a conclusion which can only be proved from certain premises is used for the proof of those premises, is a case of petitio principii, that fallacy includes a very great proportion of all incorrect reasoning. It is necessary, for completing our view of the fallacy, to exemplify some of the disguises under which it is accustomed to mask itself, and to escape exposure.

A proposition would not be admitted by any person in his senses as a corollary from itself, unless it were expressed in language which made it seem different. One of the commonest modes of so expressing it, is to present the proposition itself in abstract terms, as a proof of the same proposition expressed in concrete language. This is a very frequent mode, not only of pretended proof, but of pretended explanation; and is parodied ⁱwhen Molière makes one of his absurd physicians say,ⁱ

• ^jMihi à docto doctore,
• Domandatur causam et rationem quare
• Opium facit dormire.
• A quoi respondeo,
• Quia est in eo
• Virtus dormitiva,
• Cujus est natura
• Sensus assoupire.^j[*]

The words Nature and Essence are grand instruments of this mode of begging the question. As in the well-known argument of the scholastic theologians, that the mind thinks always, because the essence of the mind is to think. Locke had to point out, that if by essence is here meant some property which must manifest itself by actual exercise at all times, the premise is a direct assumption of the conclusion; while if it only means that to think is the distinctive property of a mind, there is no connexion between the premise and the conclusion, since it is not necessary that a distinctive property should be perpetually in action.

The following is one of the modes in which these abstract terms, Nature and Essence, are used as instruments of this fallacy. Some particular properties of a thing are selected, more or less arbitrarily, to be termed its nature or essence; and when this has been done, ^kthese^k properties are supposed to be invested with a kind of indefeasibleness; to have become paramount to all the other properties of the thing, and incapable of being prevailed over or counteracted by them. As when Aristotle, in a passage ^lalready cited^l , “decides that there is no void on such arguments as this: in a void there could be no difference of up and down; for as in nothing there are no differences, so there are none in a privation or negation; but a void is merely a privation or negation of matter; therefore, in a void, bodies could not move up and down, which it is in their nature to do.”^* In other words; it is ^min^m the nature of bodies to move up and down, ergo any physical fact which supposes them not so to move, cannot be authentic. This mode of reasoning, by which a bad generalization is made to overrule all facts which contradict it, is petitio principii in one of its most palpable forms.

None of the modes of assuming what should be proved are in more frequent use than what are termed byⁿ Bentham “question-begging appellatives;”^[*] names which beg the question under the ^odisguise^o of stating it. The most potent of these are such as have a laudatory or vituperative character. For instance, in politics, the word Innovation. The dictionary meaning of this term being merely “a change to something new,” it is difficult for the defenders even of the most salutary improvement to deny that it is an innovation; yet the word having acquired in common usage a vituperative connotation in addition to its dictionary meaning, the admission is always construed as a large concession to the disadvantage of the thing proposed.

The following passage from the argument in refutation of the Epicureans, in the second book of Cicero De Finibus, affords a fine example of this sort of fallacy. “Et quidem illud ipsum non nimium probo (et tantum patior) philosophum loqui de cupiditatibus finiendis. An potest cupiditas finiri? tollenda est, atque extrahenda radicitus. Quis est enim, in quo sit cupiditas, quin recte cupidus dici possit? Ergo et avarus erit, sed finite: adulter, verum habebit modum: et luxuriosus eodem modo. Qualis ista philosophia est, quæ non interitum afferat pravitatis, sed sit contenta mediocritate vitiorum?” The question was, whether certain desires, when kept within^p bounds, are vices or not; and the argument decides the point by applying to them a word (cupiditas) which implies vice. It is shown, however, in the remarks which follow, that Cicero did not intend this as a serious argument, but as a criticism on what he deemed an inappropriate expression. “Rem ipsam prorsus probo: elegantiam desidero. Appellet hæc desideria naturæ; cupiditatis nomen servet alio,” &c.^[*] But many persons, both ancient and modern, have employed this, or something equivalent to it, as a real and conclusive argument. We may remark that the passage respecting cupiditas and cupidus is also an example of another fallacy already noticed, that of Paronymous Terms.

Many more of the arguments of the ancient moralists, and especially of the Stoics, fall within the definition of Petitio Principii. In the De Finibus, for example, which I continue to quote as being probably the best extant exemplification at once of the doctrines and the methods of the schools of^q philosophy existing at that time; ^rof what value as arguments are such pleas as those of Cato in the third book^r : That if virtue were not happiness, it could not be a thing to boast of: That if death or pain were evils, it would be impossible not to fear them, and it could not, therefore, be laudable to despise them, &c.^[†] In one way of viewing these arguments, they may be regarded as appeals to the authority of the general sentiment of mankind which had stamped its approval upon certain actions and characters by the phrases referred to; but that such could have been the meaning intended is very unlikely, considering the contempt of the ancient philosophers for vulgar opinion. In any other sense they are clear cases of Petitio Principii, since the word laudable, and the idea of boasting, imply principles of conduct; and practical maxims can only be proved from speculative truths, namely from the properties of the subject matter, and cannot, therefore, be employed to prove those properties. As well might it be argued that a government is good because we ought to support it, or that there is a God because it is our duty to pray to him.

It is assumed by all the disputants in the De Finibus as the foundation of the inquiry into the summum bonum, that “sapiens semper beatus est.”^[*]sNot simply that wisdom gives the best chance of happiness, or that wisdom consists in knowing what happiness is, and by what things it is promoted; these propositions would not have been enough for them:—but that the sage always is, and must of necessity be, happy.^s The idea that wisdom could be consistent with unhappiness, was always rejected as inadmissible: the reason assigned by one of the interlocutors, near the beginning of the third book, being, that if the wise could be unhappy, there was ^tlittle^t use in pursuing wisdom.^[†] But by unhappiness they did not mean pain or suffering; to that it was granted that the wisest person was liable in common with others: he was happy, because in possessing wisdom he had the most valuable of ^uall^u possessions, the most to be sought and prized of all things, and to possess the most valuable thing was to be the most happy. By laying it down, therefore, at the commencement of the inquiry, that the sage must be happy, the disputed question respecting the summum bonum was in fact begged; with the further assumption, that pain and suffering, so far as they can coexist with wisdom, are not unhappiness, and are no evil.

The following are additional instances of Petitio Principii, under more or less of disguise.

Plato, in the Sophistes, attempts to prove that things may exist which are incorporeal, by the argument that justice and wisdom are incorporeal, and justice and wisdom must be something.^[‡] Here, if by something be meant, as Plato did in fact mean, a thing capable of existing in and by itself, and not as a quality of some other thing, he begs the question in asserting that justice and wisdom must be something: if he means anything else, his conclusion is not proved. This fallacy might also be classed under ambiguous middleterm: something, in the one premise, meaning some substance, in the other merely some object of thought, whether substance or attribute.

It was formerly an argument ^vemployed^v in proof of what is now no longer a popular doctrine, the infinite divisibility of matter, that every portion of matter, however small, must at least have an upper and an under surface. Those who used this argument did not see that it assumed the very point in dispute, the impossibility of arriving at a minimum of thickness; for if there be a minimum, its upper and under surface will of course be one: it will be itself a surface, and no more. The argument owes its very considerable plausibility to this, that the premise does actually seem more obvious than the conclusion, though really identical with it. As expressed in the premise, the proposition appeals directly and in concrete language to the incapacity of the human imagination for conceiving a minimum. Viewed in this light, it becomes a case of the à priori fallacy or natural prejudice, that whatever cannot be conceived cannot exist. Every fallacy of Confusion (it is almost unnecessary to repeat) will, if cleared up, become a fallacy of some other sort; and it will be found of deductive or ratiocinative fallacies generally, that when they mislead, there is mostly, as in this case, a^w fallacy of some other description lurking under them, by virtue of which chiefly it is that the verbal juggle, which is the outside or body of this kind of fallacy, passes undetected.

Euler’s Algebra, a book otherwise of great merit, but full, to overflowing, of logical errors in respect to the foundation of the science, ^xcontains^x the following argument to prove that minus multiplied by minus gives plus, a doctrine the opprobrium of all ^ymere mathematicians^y , and which Euler had not a glimpse of the true method of proving. He says minus multiplied by minus cannot give minus; for minus multiplied by plus gives minus, and minus multiplied by minus cannot give the same product as minus multiplied by plus.^[*] Now one is obliged to ask, why minus multiplied by minus must give any product at all? and if it does, why its product cannot be the same as that of minus multiplied by plus? for this would seem, at the first glance, not more absurd than that minus by minus should give the same as plus by plus, the proposition which Euler prefers to it. The premise requires proof, as much as the conclusion: nor can it be proved, except by that more comprehensive view of the nature of multiplication, and of algebraic processes in general, which would also supply a far better proof of the mysterious doctrine which Euler is here endeavouring to demonstrate.

A^z striking instance of reasoning in a circle is that of some ethical ^awriters^a , who first take for their standard of moral truth what, being the general, they deem to be the natural or instinctive sentiments and perceptions of mankind, and then explain away the numerous instances of divergence from their assumed standard, by representing them as cases in which the perceptions are unhealthy. Some particular mode of conduct or feeling is affirmed to be unnatural; why? because it is abhorrent to the universal and natural sentiments of mankind. Finding no such sentiment in yourself, you question the fact; and the answer is (if your antagonist is polite), that you are an exception, a peculiar case. But neither (say you) do I find in the people of some other country, or of some former age, any such feeling of abhorrence; “ay, but their feelings were sophisticated and unhealthy.”

One of the most notable specimens of reasoning in a circle is the doctrine of Hobbes, Rousseau, and others, which rests the obligations by which human beings are bound as members of society, on a supposed social compact. I wave the consideration of the fictitious nature of the compact itself; but when ^bHobbes, through the whole Leviathan,^b elaborately deduces the obligation of obeying the sovereign, not from the necessity or utility of doing so, but from a promise supposed to have been made by our ancestors, on renouncing savage life and agreeing to establish political society, it is impossible not to retort by the question, why are we bound to keep a promise made for us by others? or why bound to keep a promise at all? No satisfactory ground can be assigned for the obligation, except the mischievous consequences of the absence of faith and mutual confidence among mankind. We are, therefore, brought round to the interests of society, as the ultimate ground of the obligation of a promise; and yet those interests are not admitted to be a sufficient justification for the existence of government and law. Without a promise it is thought that we should not be bound to that ^cwhich is implied in all modes of living in society^c , namely, to yield a general obedience to the laws therein established; and so necessary is the promise deemed, that if none has actually been made, some additional safety is supposed to be given to the foundations of society by feigning one.

§ 3. [Fallacy of Ignoratio Elenchi] Two principal subdivisions of the class of Fallacies of Confusion having been disposed of; there remains a third, in which the confusion is not, as in the Fallacy of Ambiguity, in misconceiving the import of the premises, nor, as in Petitio Principii, in forgetting what the premises are, but in mistaking the conclusion which is to be proved. This is the fallacy of Ignoratio Elenchi, in the widest sense of the phrase; also called by Archbishop Whately the Fallacy of Irrelevant Conclusion. His ^aexamples^a and remarks are highly worthy of citation.

^bAgain,

The works of controversial writers are seldom free from this fallacy.^e The attempts, for instance, to disprove the population doctrines of Malthus, have been mostly cases of ignoratio elenchi. Malthus has been supposed to be refuted if it could be shown that in some countries or ages population has been nearly stationary; as if he had asserted that population always increases in a given ratio, or had not expressly declared that it increases only in so far as it is not restrained by prudence, or kept down by poverty and disease. Or, perhaps, a^f collection of facts is produced to prove that in some one country the people are better off with a dense population than they are in another country with a thin one; or that the people have become more numerous and better off at the same time. As if the assertion were that a dense population could not possibly be well off: as if it were not part of the very doctrine, and essential to it, that where there is a more abundant ^gproduction^g there may be a greater population without any increase of poverty, or even with a diminution of it.

The favourite argument against Berkeley’s theory of the non-existence of matter, and the most popularly effective, next to a “grin”^* —an argument, moreover, which is not confined to “coxcombs,” nor to men like Samuel Johnson,^[†]iwhose greatly overrated ability certainly did not lie in the direction ofⁱ metaphysical speculation, but is the stock argument of the Scotch school of metaphysicians—is a palpable ignoratio elenchi. The argument is perhaps as frequently expressed by gesture as by words, and one of its commonest forms consists in knocking a stick against the ground. This short and easy confutation overlooks the fact, that in denying matter, Berkeley did not deny anything to which our senses bear witness, and therefore cannot be answered by any appeal to them. His scepticism related to the supposed substratum, or hidden cause of the appearances perceived by our senses: the evidence of which, whatever may be ^jthought of^j its conclusiveness, is certainly not the evidence of sense. And it will always remain a signal proof of the want of metaphysical profundity of Reid, Stewart, and, I am sorry to add, of Brown, that they should have persisted in asserting that Berkeley, if he believed his own doctrine, was bound to walk into the kennel, or run his head against a post. As if ^kpersons^k who do not recognise an occult cause of their sensations, could not possibly believe that a fixed order subsists among the sensations themselves. Such a want of comprehension of the distinction between a thing and its sensible manifestation, or, in ^lmetaphysical^l language, between the noumenon and the phenomenon, would be impossible to even the dullest disciple of Kant or Coleridge.

It would be easy to add a greater number of examples of this fallacy, as well as of the others which I have attempted to characterize. But a more copious exemplification does not seem to be necessary; and the intelligent reader will have little difficulty in adding to the catalogue from his own reading and experience. We shall therefore here close our exposition of the general principles of logic, and proceed^m to the ⁿsupplementaryⁿ inquiry which is necessary to complete our design.

BOOK VI

ON THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES

^a“Si l’homme peut prédire, avec une assurance presque entière, les phénomènes dont il connaît les lois; si lors même qu’elles lui sont inconnues, il peut, d’après l’expérience, prévoir avec une grande probabilité les événemens de l’avenir; pourquoi regarderait-on comme une entreprise chimérique, celle de tracer avec quelque vraisemblance le tableau des destinées futures de l’espèce humaine, d’après les résultats de son histoire? Le seul fondement de croyance dans les sciences naturelles, est cette idée, que les lois générales, connues ou ignorées, qui règlent les phénomènes de l’univers, sont nécessaires et constantes; et par quelle raison ce principe serait-il moins vrai pour le développement des facultés intellectuelles et morales de l’homme, que pour les autres opérations de la nature? Enfin, puisque des opinions formées d’après l’expérience . . . sont la seule règle de la conduite des hommes les plus sages, pourquoi interdirait-on au philosophe d’appuyer ses conjectures sur cette même base, pourve qu’il ne leur attribue pas une certitude supérieure à celle qui peut naître du nombre, de la constance, de l’exactitude des observations?” [Marie Jean Caritat, marquis de] Condorcet, Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des Progrès de l’Esprit Humain [Paris: Agasse, 1795, pp. 327-8].^a

[a-a]MS, 43, 46 we find it

[b-b]MS, 43, 46 our senses or to our

[[*] ]Elements of Logic, 9th ed., pp. 177-9; 1st ed., pp. 157-61.

[c-c]Source [1st ed.], MS, 43, 46 what is called Fallacia Figuræ Dictionis,

[d-d]Source [1st ed.], MS, 43, 46 words (i.e. those . . . root)

[e-e]Source [1st and 9th eds.], MS, 43, 46, 51 correspondent

[f-f]Source [1st ed.], MS, 43, 46 absolute

[g-g]+56, 62, 65, 68, 72 [not in Source]

[* ]An example of this fallacy is the popular error that strong drink must be a cause of strength. There is here fallacy within fallacy; for granting that the words “strong” and “strength” were not (as they are) applied in a totally different sense to fermented liquors and to the human body, there would still be involved the error of supposing that an effect must be like its cause; that the conditions of a phenomenon are likely to resemble the phenomenon itself; which we have already treated of as an à priori fallacy of the first rank. hAs well might it be supposed that a strong poison will make the person who takes it, strong.h [JSM’s footnote]

[i]MS, 43 ,” continues the Archbishop, “

[j-j]65, 68 facts [printer’s error?]

[k-k]+43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[l-l]MS, 43, 46 our

[m]MS, 43, 46 “The influence of property is beneficial:” granted, if the former species of influence and that alone be meant; but conclusions are thence drawn in condemnation of expedients which (like secret voting, for example,) would deprive property of some of its influences, though only of the latter and bad kind.

[n-n]MS, 43, 46 we are to infer that

[o-o]+51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[p-p]+51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[q]MS, 43, 46 The following is a favourite argument of Plato. No one desires evil, knowing it to be so: to do wrong is evil; therefore no one desires to do wrong knowing that which he desires, but only in consequence of ignorance. [See Protagoras, 345d-e; in The Dialogues of Plato. Tr. Benjamin Jowett. 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871, Vol. I, p. 172.] In this syllogism the ambiguous word is the middle term, Evil, the double meaning of which is too obvious to need explanation: yet on this foundation Plato constructs his principal ethical doctrine, in which he was followed by most of the philosophical sects among the later Greeks; that virtue is a branch of intelligence, and is to be produced, therefore, mainly by intellectual cultivation. All the inquiries into the summum bonum in the philosophical schools were infected with the same fallacy; the ambiguous word being, as before, Evil, or its contrary correlative, Good, which sometimes meant what is good for oneself, at other times what is good for other people. That nothing which is a cause of evil on the whole to other people, can be really good for the agent himself, is indeed a possible tenet, and always a favourite one with moralists, although in the present age the question has rather been, not whether the proposition is true, but how society and education can be so ordered as to make it true. At all events, it is not proved merely by the fact that a thing beneficial to the world, and a thing beneficial to a person himself, are both in common parlance called good. That is no valid argument, but a fallacy of ambiguity.

Of such stuff, however, were the ethical speculations of the ancients principally composed, especially in the declining period of the Greek philosophical mind.

[[*] ]Ed. Rackham, p. 244 (Bk. III, Chap.viii).

[r-r]MS, 43, 46 were led to all their absurdest paradoxes;

[s-s]MS, 43 royalty

[t]MS, 43, 46, 51 of

[u-u]+51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[v-v]MS, 43, 46 The ambiguity in this case

[w-w]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65 spontaneously

[x-x]MS, 43, 46 That

[y]51, 56, 62 a

[z-z]MS, 43, 46 might not subsequently efface, he would have found it difficult to establish

[a-a]+65, 68, 72

[[*] ]2nd ed. London: Hurst, Chance, 1831, p. 59.

[b-b]MS liquor [printer’s error? see next variant]

[c-c]MS quantity of liquor] 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65 quantity

[d-d]MS, 43, 46 man

[e]MS, 43, 46 man’s

[f-f]MS, 43 has been pointed out by Archbishop Whately [Elements of Logic, pp. 317-21], and we . . . pursue it

[[†] ]9th ed., pp. 339-40; 1st ed., pp. 298-9.

[g-g]+Source [9th ed.], 51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[h-h]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65 essentially the same as

[i-i]MS, 43, 46 philosophy, sprung

[j-j]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56 had, however, seen

[k-k]MS, 43, 46 the higher

[l-l]MS, 43, 46 philosopher

[[*] ]See George Berkeley. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. In Works. London: Priestley, 1820, Vol. I, pp. 1-106.

[m-m]MS have today

[n-n]MS, 43, 46 That

[o-o]43, 46, 51 when [printer’s error?]

[p-p]MS , hardly needs be more particularly pointed out. He could never have broached this strange theory if he had reflected,] 43, 46 as MS . . . he had understood,

[q-q]MS though it is not the same fit

[[*] ]Dissertation, Vol. IV, p. 36.

[r-r]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65 among others of Dr. Thomas Brown [see Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, pp. 481-2], who considered the sophism

[s]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65 ; not seeing that such an admission would be a reductio ad absurdum of the reasoning faculty itself

[[*] ]See Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, Vol. II, p. 373.

[[†] ]“Computation or Logic,” pp. 63-4.

[t-t]MS I am indebted for a more precise solution of it to a friend, of whom it is to be regretted, that his great capacity for abstract metaphysics has never exercised itself in the composition of any work on the subject.* [footnote:] *Mr. Graham, one of the official assignees in Bankruptcy.

[u]MS & the quotient by ten,

[v-v]43 abstracted

[w]MS, 43, 46 work

[[‡] ]“Use and Abuse of Political Terms,” Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, I (May, 1832), p. 169.

[x-x]Source, MS, 43, 46 viz.,

[y]Source, MS, 43, 46 from

[z]Source, MS, 43, 46 the

[a-a]Source, MS, 43, 46 Men

[b]Source, MS, 43, 46, 51, 56 a

[c-c]Source and is, perhaps, altogether the knottiest question in practical ethics.] MS, 43, 46 and is altogether one of the knottiest questions in practical ethics.

[d-d]MS The] 43 This

[e-e]MS some others which we have

[f]MS, 43 ,” continues the archibishop, “

[[*] ]Elements of Logic, pp. 194, 196.

[g-g]MS, 43, 46 often hears, sometimes from persons worthy of better things

[h-h]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65, 68 until

[i-i]MS, 43, 46 a Columbus or a

[j-j]MS, 43, 46 the help of others

[k]MS, 43 ,” says Archbishop Whately, “

[l-l]+Source, 51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72 [probably in MS which is here torn at the edge]

[[†] ]Ibid., p. 196.

[[‡] ]Ibid., p. 198; the following examples are not Whately’s.

[a-a]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62 that

[[*] ]Elements of Logic, 1st ed., p. 179.

[* ][51] In his later editions, Archbishop Whately confines the name of Petitio Principii “to those cases in which one of the premises either is manifestly the same in sense with the conclusion, or is actually proved from it, or is such as the persons you are addressing are not likely to know, or to admit, except as an inference from the conclusion: as, e.g. if any one should infer the authenticity of a certain history, from its recording such and such facts, the reality of which rests on the evidence of that history.” [Ibid., 9th ed., p. 200.]

[b-b]MS, 43, 46 philosophers

[c-c]MS, 43 An example is given by Archbishop Whately: “As if one

[[†] ]Ibid., 1st ed., p. 179.

[d-d]MS, 43, 46 propositions, as fundamental tenets of his religion

[* ]No longer even a probable hypothesis, esince the establishment of the atomic theorye ; it being now certain that the fintegralf particles of different substances gravitate unequally. It is true that these particles, though real minima for the purposes of chemical combination, may not be the ultimate particles of the substance; and this doubt alone renders the hypothesis admissible, even as an hypothesis. [JSM’s note.]

[[*] ]Elements of Logic, p. 201.

[g]MS, 43 [footnote:] *I have found, however, an argument of this exact type in a Bridgewater Treatise [Prout, Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, p. 52]: “Ice and silver, under the same volume, contain very unequal portions of matter, the silver being ten times as heavy as the ice. The vacuities in the ice, therefore, must be very much greater than those in the silver.”

[h-h]MS, 43, 46 men

[i-i]MS, 43 by Molière when he makes one of his absurd physicians say, “l’opium endormit parcequ’il a une vertu soporifique,” or, in the amusing doggrel quoted by Mr. Whewell,] 46, 51, 56, 62, 65, 68 as 72 . . . say, “l’opium . . . as MS . . . in the equivalent doggrel,

[j-j]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65 Mihi demandatur / A doctissimo doctore, / Quare opium facit dormire; / Et ego respondeo, / Quia est in eo / Virtus dormitiva, / Cujus natura est sensus assourpire. [Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. II, pp. 455-6.]

[[*] ]“Troisième Intermède,” Le Malade Imaginaire.

[k-k]MS those

[l-l]MS, 43 which we have already cited from Mr. Whewell

[* ][Whewell,] History of the Inductive Sciences, [3rd ed.,] Vol. I, p. 34 [Quoted also at p. 762 above; the reference to Aristotle is to Physics, Vol. I, pp. 336ff.]

[m-m]+51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[n]MS Mr.

[[*] ]Book of Fallacies, p. 213.

[o-o]MS, 43, 46, 51 guise

[p]MS, 43, 46 definite

[[*] ]Ed. Rackham, p. 112 (Bk. II, Chap. ix).

[q]MS, 43, 46 Greek

[r-r]MS, 43, 46 what are we to think of the arguments of Cato in the third book, derived from common notions

[[†] ]See ibid., pp. 246-8 (Bk. III, Chap. viii).

[[*] ]See, e.g., ibid., p. 64 (Bk. I, Chap. xix).

[s-s]+51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[t-t]MS, 43, 46 not much

[[†] ]See ibid., p. 228 (Bk. III, Chap. iii).

[u-u]+51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[[‡] ]See Sophist, 246e ff.; in The Dialogues of Plato, tr. Jowett, Vol. III, p. 399.

[v-v]+43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[w]MS, 43, 46 latent

[x-x]MS makes use of

[y-y]MS, 43, 46 mathematicians who are not philosophers

[[*] ]Leonhard Euler. Elements of Algebra. Tr. M. Bernoulli. 2 vols. London: Johnson, 1797, Vol. I, p. 13 (Pt. I, Sec. I, Chap. i, Art. 33).

[z]MS, 43, 46 very

[a-a]MS, 43, 46 philosophers

[b-b]MS, 43 a philosopher (as Hobbes does through the whole Leviathan)

[c-c]MS, 43, 46 without which the existence of society would be impossible

[a-a]MS example

[[*] ]Elements of Logic, pp. 212-13. Whately is quoting from Aristotle’s Rhetoric; see, e.g., 1354a 15 (Bk. I, Chap. i).

[b-b]MS, 43, 46 “A good instance of the employment and exposure of this fallacy occurs in Thucydides, in the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus concerning the Mitylenæans: the former (over and above his appeal to the angry passions of his audience) urges the justice of putting the revolters to death; which, as the latter remarked, was nothing to the purpose, since the Athenians were not sitting in judgment, but in deliberation, of which the proper end is expediency.” [Ibid., 9th ed., p. 214; in 1st ed., p. 189, this leads directly into the passage next quoted. The reference is to Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Vol. II, pp. 68, 76 (Bk. III, Chaps. xl, xliv).]

[c-c]Source, 51, 56 an

[d-d]+Source [9th ed.], 51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[[*] ]Ibid., pp. 213-15.

[e]MS, 43, 46 They join issue on the wrong point, or do not join issue at all.

[f]MS, 43 great

[g-g]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56, 62, 65, 68 capital

[* ]“And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.”h [John Brown. “An Essay on Satire: Occasioned by the Death of Mr. Pope,” in A Collection of Poems. By Several Hands. 3 vols. London: Dodsley, 1748, Vol. III, p. 124 (Pt. 2, l. 54).]

[[†] ]See James Boswell. Life of Johnson. Ed. George Birkbeck Hill and L. F. Powell. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934, Vol. I, p. 471 (6 Aug., 1763).

[i-i]MS, 43, 46 of practical understanding, without any particular turn for

[j-j]+51, 56, 62, 65, 68, 72

[k-k]MS, 43, 46 men

[l-l]MS, 43, 46 transcendental

[m]MS, 43, 46 at once

[n-n]MS, 43, 46, 51, 56 supplemental

[a-a]MS, 43, 46 “Une propriété fondamentale que je dois faire remarquer dès ce moment dans ce que j’ai appelé la philosophie positive, et qui doit sans doute lui mériter plus que toute autre l’attention générale, puisqu’elle est aujourd’hui la plus importante pour la pratique, c’est qu’elle peut être considérée comme la seule base solide de la réorganisation sociale qui doit terminer l’état de crise dans lequel se trouvent depuis si long-temps les nations les plus civilisées. . . . Tant que les intelligences individuelles n’auront pas adhéré par un assentiment unanime à un certain nombre d’idées générales capables de former une doctrine sociale commune, on ne peut se dissimuler que l’état des nations restera, de toute nécessité, essentiellement révolutionnaire, malgré tous les palliatifs politiques qui pourront être adoptés, et ne comportera réellement que des institutions provisoires. Il est également certain que si cette réunion des esprits dans une même communion de principes peut une fois être obtenue, les institutions convenables en découleront nécessairement, sans donner lieu à aucune secousse grave, le plus grand désordre étant déjà dissipé par ce seul fait.” Comte, Cours de Philosophie Positive, 1re leçon [Vol. I, pp. 47-8, 49].

[* ]An example of this fallacy is the popular error that strong drink must be a cause of strength. There is here fallacy within fallacy; for granting that the words “strong” and “strength” were not (as they are) applied in a totally different sense to fermented liquors and to the human body, there would still be involved the error of supposing that an effect must be like its cause; that the conditions of a phenomenon are likely to resemble the phenomenon itself; which we have already treated of as an à priori fallacy of the first rank. hAs well might it be supposed that a strong poison will make the person who takes it, strong.h [JSM’s footnote]

[* ]No longer even a probable hypothesis, esince the establishment of the atomic theorye ; it being now certain that the fintegralf particles of different substances gravitate unequally. It is true that these particles, though real minima for the purposes of chemical combination, may not be the ultimate particles of the substance; and this doubt alone renders the hypothesis admissible, even as an hypothesis. [JSM’s note.]

[* ]“And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.”h [John Brown. “An Essay on Satire: Occasioned by the Death of Mr. Pope,” in A Collection of Poems. By Several Hands. 3 vols. London: Dodsley, 1748, Vol. III, p. 124 (Pt. 2, l. 54).]

[]MS, 43, 46, 51 being not

[hAs well might it be supposed that a strong poison will make the person who takes it, strong.h]+62, 65, 68, 72

[esince the establishment of the atomic theorye]MS, 43, 46 but (since the establishment of the atomic theory) opposed to all probability

[fintegralf]MS, 43 integrant

[h]MS, 43, 46 (Pope.) [a mistaken attribution; see footnote above]