UC-NRLF B 3 IMS 517 n ^^■11 lilipl I'i'iii' ^^^^^H|Ji{i< ,1'"' II, 1 !,l.„ ii BERKELEY JBRARY JNIVERSITY OF CALIfORNU / ^ ELEMENTS OF LOGIC. BY THE SAME AUTHOR, ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC. Crown Octaro. Reprinted from the SeveTith {Octa/vo) Edition, ELEMENTS OF LOGIC. 9^1 RICHARD WHATELY, D.D. ARCHBISBUP OJf DUBLIN, KEPRINTED FllOM THE NINTH (oCTAVO) EDITION. LONDON : JOHN W. PAEKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 1857. 18 £7 ADVERTISEMENT. In the present edition, a few insertions, and alterations of expression, in some places, have been introduced. In this and in the preceding edition, several passages have been transferred from the places they formerly occupied, to others which appeared more suitable. And a brief, but, I trust, clear exposure has been added (in Introd. § i, and B. IV. Ch. I. § 1, 2) of the untenable character of some objections which have been of late years revived, in a somewhat new form, against the utility of Science generally, — against the syllogistic theory, — and against the explanations given in this treatise, of reasoning from Induction. These answers (and also additional remarks on some of the same points, in § 4 of the Introduction to the " Memeiits of Rhetoric") have been before the Public now some years ; and as no attempt at a reply has been made, even in subsequent editions of the very works containing the objections, a strong presumption is thus afforded of the soundness of my views. The reader is to observe that the angular [brackets] denote that the word so enclosed is equivalent in meaning to that which precedes it. 955 CONTENTS. PAGE DEDICATION v PREFACE viiitoxxii INTRODUCTION 1 BOOK I. ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF THE SCIENCE 15 BOOK II. SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM 86 Chap. I. — Of the Operations of the Mind, and of Terms .... ib. Chap, II. — Of Propositions . . . . c 41 Chap. III. — Of Arguments 51 Chap. IV.— Supplement to Chap. Ill 64 Chap. V. — Supplement to Chap. 1 80 BOOK III. OF FALLACIES 101 BOOK IV. DISSERTATION ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING . . .150 Chap I.— Of Induction 151 Chap. II.— On the discovery of Trath 156 Chap. III.— Of Inference and Proof 173 Chap. IV.— Of Verbal and Real Questions 177 Chap, v.— OfRealism 182 APPENDIX. No. I. — On certain Terms which are peculiarly liable to be used ambiguously ... 191 No. II. — Miscellaneous Examples for the Exercise of Learners . . . 240 No. III.— Example of Analysis 252 INDEX 263 TO IUCtHT reverend EDWARD COPLESTON, D.D LORD BISHOP OF LLANDAFF, &c. &c. My Dear Lord, To enumerate the advantages I have derived from your instructions, both in regular lectures and in private conversation, would be needless to those acquainted with the parties, and to the Public, uninteresting. My object at present is simply to acknowledge how greatly I am indebted to you in respect of the present Work; not merely as having originally imparted to me the principles of the Science, but also as having contri- buted remarks, explanations, and illustrations, relative to the most important points, to so great an amount that I can hardly consider myself as the Author of more than half of such portions of the treatise as are not borrowed from former publications. I could have wished, indeed, to acknowledge this more explicitly, by marking with some note of distinc- tion those parts which are least my own. But 1 found it could not be done. In most instances there is somethhig belonging to each of us ; and -even in those parts where your share is the largest, it would not be fair that you should be made responsible for any thing that is not entirely your own. Nor is it possible, in the case of a Science, to remember distinctly how far one has been, in each mstance, indebted to the suggestions of another. Information, as to matters of fact, may easily be referred in the mind to the person from whom we have derived it : but scientific truths, when thoroughly embraced, become much more a part of the mind, as it were ; since they rest, not on the authority of the instructor, but on reasoning from data, wliich we ourselves furnish;' they are scions engrafted on the stems previously rooted in our own soil ; and wc arc apt to confound them with its indigenous productions. 1 Sec B. IV. Ch. II. 5 ' VI DEDICA.TION. You youi'self also, I have reason to believe, have forgotten the greater part of the assistance you have afforded in the course of conversations on the subject; as I have found, more than once, that ideas which I distinctly remembered to have received from you, have not been recog- nized by you when read or repeated. As far, however, as I can recollect, though there is no part of the following pages in which I have not, more or less, received valuable suggestions from you, I believe you have contributed less to the Analytical Outline, and to the Treatise on Fal- lacies, and more, to the subjoined Dissertation, than to the rest of the Work. I take this opportunity of pubhcly declaring, that as, on the one hand, you are not responsible for any thing contained in this Work, so, on the other hand, should you ever favour the world with a publication of your own on the subject, the coincidence which will doubtless be found m it with many things here brought forward as my own, is not to be regarded as any indication of plagiarism, at least on your side. Believe me to be. My dear Lord, Your obUged and affectionate Pupil and Friend, RICHARD WHATELY. PREFACE. The following Treatise contains the substance of the Article " Logic*' in the Encyclopoedia Metropolitana. It was suggested to me that a separate publication of it might prove acceptable, not only to some who are not subscribers to that work, but also to several who are ; but wht.. for convenience of reference, would prefer a more portable volume. In fact a number of individuals had actually formed a design (prevented only by this publication) of joining together to have the article reprinted for their own private use. I accordingly revised it, and made such additions, chiefly in the form of Notes, as I thought likely to increase its utility. When applied to to contribute the Article, I asked and obtained permission from Dr. Copleston (now Bishop of LlandaiF) to make use of manuscripts compiled in great measure from what I had heard from him in conversations on the subject, or which he had read to me from his common-place book, interspersed with observations of my own. These manuscripts I had drawn up and was in the habit of employing, for the use of my own pupils. In throwing them into a form suitable for the Encyclopaedia, and in subsequently enlarging the Article into the present volume, I have taken without scruple whatever appeared most valuable from the works of former writers ; especially the concise, but in general accurate, treatise of Aldrich. But while I acknowledge my obligations to my predecessors, of whose labours I have largely availed myself, I do not profess to be altogether satisfied with any of the treatises that have yet appeared ; nor have I accordingly judged it any unreasonable presumption to point out what seem to me the errors they contain. Indeed, whatever deference an Author may profess for the authority of those who have preceded him, the very circumstance of his publishing a work on the same subject, proves that he thinks theirs open to improvement. In censuring, how- ever, as I have had occasion to do, several of the doctrines and explana- tions of logical writers, and of Aldrich in particular, I wish it to be understood that this is not from my having formed a low estimate of the merits of the Compendium drawn up by the Author just mentioned^ but. Viu PREFACE. on the contrary, from its popularity, (it being the one commonly used at Oxford) — from the impossibility of noticing particularly all the points in which we agree, — and from the consideration that errors are the more carefully to be pointed out in proportion to the authority by which they are sanctioned. ■ I have to acknowledge assistance received from several friends who have at various times suggested remarks and alterations. But I cannot aA^oid particularizing the Rev. J. Newman, Fellow of Oriel College, who aciuaily composed a considerable portion of the work as it now stands, from manuscripts not designed for publication, and who is the original author of several pages. Some valuable illustrations of the importance of attending to the ambiguity of the terms used in Political Economy, were furnished by the kindness of my friend and former pupil, Mr. Senior, of Magdalen College, and now Master in Chancery, who preceded me in the office of Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, and afterwards was appointed to the same at King's College, London. They are printed in the Appendix. But the friend to whom it is inscribed has contributed far more, and that, iu the most important parts, than all others together ; so much, indeed, that, though there is in the treatise nothing of his which has not undergone such expansion or modification as leaves me solely responsible for the whole, there is not a little of which I cannot fairly claim to be the Author. Each successive edition has been revised with the utmost care. But though the work has undergone not only the close examination of myself and several friends, but the severer scrutiny of determined opponents, I am happy to find that no material errors have been detected, nor any considerable alterations found necessary. On the utility of Logic many writers have said much in which I cannot coincide, and which has tended to bring the study into unmerited disre- pute. By representing Logic as furnishing the sole instrument for the discovery of truth in all subjects, and as teaching the use of the intellec- tual facuUies in general, they raised expectations which could not be realised, and which naturally led to a re-action. The whole system, whose unfounded pretensions had been thus blazoned forth, came to be commonly regarded as utterly futile and empty : like several of our most valuable medicines, which, when first introduced, were proclaimed, each, as a panacea, infallible in the most opposite disorders ; and which con- sequently, in many instances, fell for a time into total disuse ; though, after a long interval, they were established in their just estimation, and emi;loyed conformably to their real properties. rKEFACE. IX In one of Lord Dudley's (lately published) letters to Bishop Copleston, ?»f the date of 1814, he adduces a presumption against the study of Logic, that it was sedulously cultivated during the dark periods in which the intellectual powers of mankind seemed nearly paralyzed, — when no discoveries were made, and when various errors were wide-spread and deep-rooted : and that when the mental activity of the world revived, and philosophical inquiry flourished and bore its fruits, logical studies fell into decay and contempt. And this I have introduced in the ** Elements of Rhetoric," (Part IL Ch. IIL § 2,) among other examples of st, presump- tion not in itself unreasonable, but capable of being rebutted by a counter- presumption. When any study has been unduly or unwisely cultivated to the neglect of others, and has even been intruded into their province, there is a presumption that a re-action^ will ensue, and an equally excessive contempt, or dread, or disgust, succeed. And in the present instance, the mistaken and absurd cultivation of Logic during Ages ot great intellectual darkness, might have been expected to produce, in a subsequent age of comparative light, an association in men's minds, of Logic, with the idea of apathetic ignorance, prejudice, and adherence to error; so that the legitimate uses, and just value of the science (suppos- ing it to have any) would be likely to be scornfully overlooked. Our ancestors having neglected to raise fresh crops of corn, and contented themselves with vainly threshing over and over the same straw and winnowing the same chaff, it might have been anticipated that their descendants would, for a time, regard the very operations of threshing and winnowing with contempt, and would attempt to grmd corn, straw, and chaff all together. The revival of a study which had for a long time been regarded as an obsolete absurdity, would probably have appeared to many persons, thirty years ago, as an undertaking far more difficult than the introduction of some new study ; — as resembling rather the attempt to restore life to one of the antediluvian fossil-plants, than the rearing of a young seedling into a tree. It is a curious circumstance that the very person to wham the letter just alluded to was addressed should have lived to witness so great a change of public opinion brought about (in a great degree through his own instrumentality^) within the short interval- — indeed within a small portion of the interval — between the writing of that letter and its publi- cation, that the whole ground of the presumption alluded to has been completely cut away. During that interval, the treatise which was with * See " Charge," 1843. 2 See Dedication. X PREFACE. his aid composed, and by his permission inserted in tlie Encyclopaedia, attracted so much attention as to occasion its separate publication, in a volume which has been frequently reprinted, not only in England, but in the United States of America ; where it is in use, I believe, in every one of their Colleges. Add to which, the frequent allusions (compared with what could have been met with twenty or thirty years ago) to the subject of Logic, by writers on various subjects. And moreover several other treatises on the subject, either original works or abridgments, have been making their appearance with continually increased frequency of late years. Some ihdeed of these have little or nothing in common with the present work except the title. But even that very circumstance is so far encouraging, as indicating that the Tiame of this science instead of exciting, as formerly, an almost universal prejudice, is considered as likely to prove a recommendation. Certainly Lord Dudley, were he now living, would not speak of the general neglect and contempt of Logic ; though every branch of Science, Philosophy, and Literature, have flourished during the interval. To explain fully the utility of Logic is what can be done only in the course of an explanation of the system itself. One preliminary observa- tion only (for the original suggestion of which I am indebted to the same friend to whom this work is inscribed) it may be worth while to offer in this place. If it were inquired what is to be regarded as the most appropriate intellectual occupation of MAN, as man, what would be the answer? The Statesman is engaged with political affairs; the Soldier with military ; the Mathematician, with the properties of numbers and magnitudes ; the Merchant, with commercial concerns, ka. ; but in what are all and each of these employed? — employed, I mean, as men; for tliere are many modes of exercise of the faculties, mental as well as bodily, which are in great measure common to us with the lower animals. Evidently, in Reasoning. They are all occupied in deducing, well or 111, Conclusions from Premises; each, concerning the subject of his own particular business. If, therefore, it be found that the process going on daily, in each of so many different minds, is, in any respect, the samet and if the principles on which it is conducted can be reduced to a regular system, and if rules can be deduced from that system, for the better conducting of the process, then, it can hardly be denied that such a system and such rules must be especially worthy the attention, — not of the members of this or that profession merely, but — of every one who is desirous of possessing a cultivated mind. To understand the theory of that which is the appropriate intellectual occupation of Man in general, and to learn to do that well, which every one will and mu^ do, whether PREFACE. ad well or ill, may siirely he cousidered as an essential part of a liberal education. Even supposing that no practical improvement in argumentation resulted from the study of Logic, it would not by any means follow that it is unworthy of attention. The pursuit of knowledge on curious and interest- ing subjects, for its own sake, is usually reckoned no misemployment of time ; and is considered as, incidentally, if not directly, useful to the individual, by the exercise thus afforded to the mental faculties. All who study Mathematics are not training themselves to become Surveyors or Mechanics ; some knowledge of Anatomy and Chemistry is even expected in a man liberally educated, though without any view to his practising Surgery or Medicine. And the investigation of a process which is peculiarly autl universally the occupation of Man, considered as Man, can hardly be reckoned a less philosophical pursuit than those just instanced. It has usually been assumed, however, in the case of the present subject, that a theory which does not tend to the improvement of practice is utterly unworthy of regard ; and then, it is contended that Logic has no such tendency, on the plea that men may and do reason correctly %vithout it: an objection which would equally apply in the case of Gram- mar, Music, Chemistry, Mechanics, «fcc., in all of which systems the practice must have existed previously to the theory. But many who allow the use of systematic principles in other things, are accustomed to cry up Common-Sense as the sufficient and only safe guide in Reasoning. Now by Common-Sense is meant, I apprehend, (when the term is used with any distinct meaning,) an exercise of the judgment unaided by any Art or system of rules : such an exercise as we must necessarily employ in numberless cases of daily occurrence ; in which, having no established principles to guide us, — ^no line of procedure, as it were, distinctly chalked out, — we must needs act on the best extemporaneous conjectures we can form. He who is eminently skilful in doing this, is said to possess a superior degree of Common-Sense. But that Common-Sense is only our second-best guide — that the rules of Art, if judiciously framed, are always desirable when they can be had, is an assertion, for the truth of which I may appeal to the testimony of man- kind in general ; which is so much the more valuable, inasmuch as it may be accounted the testimony of adversaries. For the generality have a strong predilection in favour of Common-Sense, except in those points in which they, respectively, possess the knowledge of a system of rules : but in these points they deride any one who trusts to unaided Common- Sense. A Sailor e.g. Tfillj perhaps, despise the pretensions of medical xii PREFACE. men, and prefer treating a disease by C ommon- Sense : but he would ridicule the proposal of navigating a ship bv Common-Sense, without regard to the maxims of nautical art. A Physician, again, will perhaps contemn Systems of Political-Economy,^ of Logic, or Metaphysics, and insist on the superior wisdom of trusting to Common-Sense in such matters ; but he would never approve of trusting to Common-Sense in the treatment of diseases. Neither, again, would the Architect recom- mend a reliance on Common-Sense alone, in building, nor the Musician, in music, to the neglect of those systems of rules, which, in their respective arts, have been deduced from scientific reasoning aided by experience. And the induction might be extended to every department of practice. Since, therefore, each gives the preference to unassisted Common-Sense only in those cases where he himself has nothing else to trust to, and invariably resorts to the rules of art, wherever he possesses the knowledge of them, it is plain that mankind universally bear their testimony, though unconsciously and often unwillingly, to the preferableness of systematic knowledge to conjectural judgments. There is, however, abundant room for the employment of Common- Sense in the application of the system. To bring arguments, out of the form in which they are expressed in conversation and in books, into the regular logical shape, must be, of course, the business of Common-Sense, aided by practice ; for such arguments are, by supposition, not as yet within the province of Science; else they would not be irregular, but would be already strict syllogisms. To exercise the learner in this operation, I have subjoined in the Appendix, some examples, both of insulated arguments, and (in the later editions) of the analysis of argu- mentative works. It should be added, however, that a large portion of what is usually introduced into Logical treatises, relative to the finding of Arguments, — the different kinds of them, £xr«, — every thing that could be said, — into three classes; 1st, the Simple Term ; 2d, the Proposition ; 3d, the Syllogism ; viz. the hypothe- tical ; for they seem to have had little notion of a more rigorous analysis of argument than into that familiar form. Archytas. We must not here omit to notice the merits of Archytas, to whom we are indebted (as he himself probably was, in a great degree, to older writers) for the doctrines of the Categories. He, however, (as well as the other writers on the subject,) appears to have had no distinct view of the proper object and just limits of the science of Logic ; but to have blended with it metaphysical discussions not strictly connected with it, and to have dwelt on the investigation of the nature of Terms and Propositions, without maintaining a con- stant reference to the principles of Reasoning ; to which all the rest should be made subservient. Aristoy^ * The state, then, in which Aristotle found the science, (if, indeed, it can properly be said to have existed at all before his time,) appears to have been nearly this : the division into Simple Terms, Propositions, and Syllogisms, had been slightly sketched out ; the doctrine of the Categories, and perhaps that of the Opposition of Propositions, had been laid down ; and, as some believe, the ana- lysis of Species into Genus and Differentia had been introduced by Socrates. These, at best, were rather the materials of the system, than the system itself; the foundation of which indeed he distinctly claims the merit of having laid, and which remains fundamentally the same as he left it. It has been remarked, that the logical system is one of those few theories which have been begun and completed by the same indivi- dual. The history of its discovery, as far as the main principles of the science are concerned, properly commences and ends with Aristotle ; and this may perhaps in part account for the subsequent perversions of it. The brevity and simplicity of its fundamental truths (to which point indeed all real science is perpetually tending,) has probably led many to suppose that something much more com- plex, abstruse, and mysterious, remained to be discovered. The vanity, too, by which all men are prompted unduly to magnify their cwn pursuits, has led unpliilosophical minds, not in this case alone, but in many others, to extend the boundaries of their respective scieifces, not by the patient development and just application of the principles of those sciences, but by wandering into irrelevant sub- jects. The mystical employment of numbers by Pythagoras, in matters utterly foreign to arithmetic, is perhaps the earliest instance of the kind. A more curious and important one is the degeneracy of Astronomy into judicial Astrology ; but none is more striking than the misapplication of Logic, by those who have treated of it as **trie Art of rightly employing the Rational Faculties," or who \ 5 3.] INTRODUCTION. 5 have intruded it into the province of Natural Philosophy, and regarded the Syllogism as an engine for the investigation of nature ; while they overlooked the extensive field that was before them within the legitimate limits of the science ; and perceived not the importance and difficulty of the task, of completing and properly filling up the masterly sketch before them. The writings of Aristotle were not only for the most part abso- lutely lost to the world for about two centuries, but seem to have been but little studied for a long time after their recovery. An art, however, of Logic, derived from the principles traditionally preserved by his disciples, seems to have been generally known, and to have been employed by Cicero in his philosophical works; but the pursuit of the science seems to have been abandoned for a long time. As early in the Christian era as the second and third centuries, the Peripatetic doctrines experienced a considerable revival; and we meet wuth the names of Galen, Ammonius, (who seems to have Gaien. taken the lead among the commentators on Aristotle,) Alexander of Akxande"!' Aphrodisias, and Porphyry, as logicians ; but it is not till the close Porphyry, of the fifth century, or the beginning of the sixth, that Aristotle's logical works were translated into Latin by the celebrated Boethius.^Bocthius. Not one of these seems to have made any considerable advances in developing the theory of reasoning. Of the labours of Galen (who added the insignificant fourth Figure to the three recognised by Aristotle) little is known ; and Porphyry's principal work is merely on the predicahles. We have little of the science till the revival of learning among the Arabians, by whom Aristotle's treatises on this as well as on other subjects, were eagerly studied. I 3. Passing by the names of some Byzantine writers of no great Schoolmen, importance, Ave come to the times of the Schoolmen ; whose waste of ingenuity, and frivolous subtlety of disputation, have been often made the subject of complaints, into the justice of which it is unne- cessary here fully to inquire. It may be sufficient to observe, that their fault did not lie in their diligent study of Logic, and the high value they set upon it, but in their utterly mistaking the true nature and object of the science ; and by the attempt to employ it for the purpose of physical discoveries, involving every subject in a mist of words, to the exclusion of sound philosophical investigation.^ Their errors may serve to account for the strong terms in which Bacon Bacon, sometimes appears to censure logical pursuits ; but that this censure was intended to bear against the extravagant perversions, not the legitimate cultivation, of the science, may be proved from his own observations on the subject, in his Advancement of Learning. " Had Bacon lived in the present day, I am inclined to think he would have made his chief complaint against unmethodized inquiry and 2 Born about A. D. 475, and died about ty. Dr. Hampden's Bampton Lectures A.D. 524. furnish the best view that has, perhaps, * 01 the character of the School-dirzm- ever appeared. .6 INTRODUCTION. [§ 3. illogical reasoning. Certainly lie would not have complained of Dialectics as corrupting Philosophy. To guard now against the evils prevalent in his time, would be to fortify a town against bat- tering-rams, instead of against cannon."* Locke. His moderation, however, was not imitated in other quarters. Even Locke confounds in one sweeping censure the Aristotelic theory, with the absurd misapplications and perversions of it in later years. His objection to the science, as unserviceable in the discovery of truth, (which has of late been often repeated,) while it holds good in reference to many (misnamed) logicians, indicates that, with regard to the true nature of the science itself, he had no clearer notions than they have, of the just limits of logical science, as confined to the theory of Reasoning ; and of the distinct character of that operation from the observations and experiments which are essential to the study of Nature. For instance, in chap. xvii. ** on Reason," (which, by the way, he perpetually confounds with Reasoning^) he says, in § 4, "If syllogisms must be taken for the only proper instrument of reason and means of knowledge, it will follow, that before Aristotle there was not one man that did or could know any thing by reason ; and that since the invention of syllogisms there is not one in ten thousand that doth. But God has not been so sparing to men to make them barely two-legged creatures, and left it to Aristotle to make them rational, i.e. those few of them that he could get so to examine the grounds of syllogisms, as to see that in above three- score ways that three propositions may be laid together, there are but fourteen wherein one may be sure that the conclusion is right," &c. *' God has been more bountiful to mankind than so: He has given them a mind that can reason without being instructed in methods of syllogizing," (kc. All this is not at all less absurd than if any one, on being told of the discoveries of modern chemists respecting caloric, and on hearing described the process by which it is conducted through a boiler into the water, which it converts into a gas of sufficient elasticity to overcome the pressure of the atmosphere, poA'ed to riglit reasoning. I real meaning. have seen a Review of a work, which the On seeing such a passage written in the Reviewer characterised as tiie produc- 19th century, who can wonder that in the tion of an able Logician, and which he Middle Ages, Grammar (" Crramarye") there/ore concluded was likely to have was i-egarded as a kind of magical arti intiuence with such as will not reason I 1 4.] INTRODUCTION. 9 For instance, some, he may be told, have maintained that men reason, — or that they may reason, — from a single premiss, without any other being either expressed or understood ; — that men may, and do, reason from one individual case to another, without the intervention of any general [universal] proposition, whether stated or implied; — that the inferences from Induction are not drawn by any process that is, in substance, Syllogistic ; — that the conclusion of a Syllogism is not really inferred from the Premises; — that a Syllogism is nothing but a kind of trap for ensnaring the incautious ; and that it necessarily involves the fallacy of " begging the question;" with other such formidably-sounding objections ; which, when simply spoken of as being afloat, and as maintained by able men, are likely to be supposed far more powerful than they will be found on a closer examination. Of those who speak of a single premiss being sufficient to warrant a conclusion, some, it will be found, were confining their thoughts to such flat and puerile examples as Logical writers are too apt to employ exclusively; as " Socrates is a man; therefore he is a living creature, &c. ;" in which the conclusion had been already stated in the one premiss, to any one who does but understand the meaning of the words; *' living-creature" being a part of what is signified in the very term *' Man." But in such an instance as this; '* He has swallowed a cup of laurel-water, therefore he has taken poison," the inference is one which no one could draw who should be igno- rant — as every body was, less than a century ago, (though using the word in the same sense as now, to signify a "liquor distilled from laurel leaves,") that this liquor is poisonous. Others again, when they speak of reasoning from one individual instance to another, without any universal premiss, mean sometimes, that no such premiss is expressed, (which is the case oftener than not) and that perhaps even the reasoner himself, if possessed of no great command of language, might be at a loss to state it correctly.® And indeed it continually happens that even long trains of reason- ing will flash through the mind with such rapidity that the process 8 It may be added, that in inward soli- or "trapezium," &c. ; or he may " figure tary reasoning, many, and perhaps most to himsell'" a man raising a weight by persons, but especially those not much means of a pole, and may use this con- accustomed to read or speak concerning ception as a general sign, in place of the the subjects that occupy their thoughts, term " lever;" and the terms themselves make use, partly, of signs that are not he may be unacquainted with; in which arbitrary and conventional, but which case he will be at a loss to impart dis- consist of mental conceptions oi'mdxxidwaX tinctly to others his own reasonings; and objects; taken, each, as a i-epresentative in the attempt, will often express liimself of a Class. £.(?. A person practically (as one may frequently observe in practi- conversant with mechanical operations, cal men unused to reading and speaking) but not with discussions of them in words, not only indistinctly, but even erroneous- may form a conception of— in colloquial ly. See below, § 5. Hence, partly, may Ehrase, "figure to himself" — a certain have arisen the belief in those supposed eld or room, with whose shape he is *' abstract ideas" which will be hereafter familiar, and may employ this in his alluded to, and in the possibility of reason- inward trains of thought, as a Sign, to ing without the use of any Signs at all. •^present, for instance, " parallelogram" iO INTRODUCTION. [§ 4. is performed unconsciously, or at least leaves no trace in the memory, any more than the motions of the muscles of the throat and mouth in speaking, or the judgments hy which we decide as to the distances of visible objects:^ so that a conclusion may be supposed to be seized by intuition, which in reality is the result of rapid inference. Some, again, appear to include under the title of *' reasoning" every case in which a person believes one thing in consequence of his believing another thing; however far he may be from having any good grounds to warrant the inference: and they accordingly include those processes which take place in the minds of infants and of brutes; which are apt to associate with the appearance of an object before them the remembered impression of son thing that formerly accompanied it. Such a process is alluded to in the familiar proverbs that *' A burnt child dreads the fire;" or as it is expressed in another form, " The scalded cat fears cold water;" or again in the Hebrew proverb, " He who has been bitten by a serpent is afraid of a rope. " Most logical writers, however, have confined the name of " reasoning" to valid argument; which cannot exist without a universal premiss, implied, if not expressed. For whenever there are not two premises which, taken jointly, do imply, and virtually assert, the conclusion, — the alleged premiss or premises being such that a person may without inconsistency believe them true and yet not believe the conclusion, — then, we have what Logicians have been accustomed to call an apparent, but not real argument. Some, however, have denied that the conclusion is inferred from the universal premiss. But then, they acknowledge that the truth of that premiss is an indispensable condition of such inference: an admission which would satisfy most*Logicians. For if any botanical physiologist, for instance, were to deny that the branches of a tree derive nourishment from the roots, saying that the branches are nourished by the juices of the earth, but admitting that the roots are an indispensable condition, and that if they are destroyed, the branches will wither, this would not be reckoned as substantially any new doctrine. And so also if any one choose to maintain that the conclusion is drawn from the one premiss, by, or through, the other premiss, this would be accounted merely a needless and unim- portant innovation in phraseology. So also when inferences from induction are spoken of as not being — or not necessarily being — substantially Syllogistic, the learner might at first sight be startled and perplexed, till he found it at the same time admitted that we have to decide, in each case of Induction, the question, whether the instances adduced be " suffi- cient" to warrant the inference; — whether it be ** allowable" to draw the conclusion. And the decision of this question in tho » The distance of an obiect having supposed to be directly perceived by the been, till a comparatively late period, eye. I 8 5.] INTRODUCTION. 11 affirmative, — i.e. the decision that the procedure is not a mere random guess, — is, if expressed in words, tlievery premiss necessary to complete the Syllogism. (See B. IV. Ch. I. § 1.) So also it will be seen that the alleged entrapping character of a Syllogism, merely amounts to this; that whoever perceives the validity of an argument, has no mode of escape from the " snare" (so called) except by the way he entered, viz. the premises. He has only the alternative of allowing one of them to be false, or else, the conclusion to be true. And it is a matter of daily occurrence, that a man is undeceived as to some principle he had incautiously admitted, by perceiving what it would lead to. 8 5. Complaints have also been made that Logfic leaves untouched Complaints the greatest difficulties, and those which are the sources of the chief Logic, errors in reasoning; mz. the ambiguity or indistinctness of Terms, and the doubts respecting the degrees of evidence in various Proposi- tions: an objection which is not to be removed by any such attempt as that of Watts to lay down ** rules for forming clear ideas," and, for "guiding the judgment;" but by replying that no art is to be censured for not teaching more than falls within its province, and indeed more than can be taught by any conceivable art. Such a system of universal knowledge as should instruct us in the full meaning or meanings of every term, and the truth or falsity, — certainty or uncertainty, — of every proposition, thus superseding all other studies, it is most unphilosophical to expect, or even to imagine. And to find fault with Logic for not performing this, is as if one should object to the science of Optics for not giving sight to the blind ; or as if (like the man of whom Warburton tells a story in his Div. Leg.) one should complain of a reading-glass for being of no service to a person who had never learned to read. In fact, the difficulties and errors above alluded to are not in the process of Reasoning itself, (which alone is the appropriate province of Logic,) but in the subject-matter about which it is employed. This process will have been correctly conducted if it have conformed to the logical rules, which preclude the possibility of any error creeping in betiveen the principles assumed, and the conclusions we deduce from them. But still that conclusion may be false, if the principles we start from are so ; and the known falsity of a conclusion will often serve (as has been above remarked) to correct a mistake made in the outset. In like manner, no arithmetical skill will secure a correct result to a calculation, unless the data are correct from which we calculate; nor does any one on that account undervalue Arithmetic; and yet the objection against Logic rests on no better foundation. There is in fact a striking analogy in this respect between the two sciences. All Numbers (which are the subject of Arithmetic) must be numbers of some things, whether coins, persons, measures, or any thing else; but to introduce into the science any notice of 12 INTRODUCTION. [J 5. the things respecting which calculations are made, would be evi- dently irrelevant, and would destroy its scientific character: we proceed therefore with arbitrary signs, representing numbers in the abstract. So also does Logic pronounce on the validity of a regularly-constructed argument, equally well, though arbitrary symbols may have been substituted for the Terms; and, consequently, without any regard to the things signified by those Terms. And the possibility of doing this (though the employment of such arbi- trary symbols has been absurdly objected to, even by writers who understood not only Arithmetic but Algebra,) is a proof of the strictly scientific character of the system. But many professed logical writers, not attending to the circumstances which have been just mentioned, have wandered into disquisitions on various branches of knowledge; disquisitions which must evidently be as boundless as human knowledge itself, since there is no subject on which Reason- ing is not employed, and to which, consequently, Logic may not be applied. The error lies in regarding every thing as the proper province of Logic to which it is applicable}^ Many, however, who do not fall altogether into that error, yet censure any logical treatise which, like the present, professes to be wholly conversant about Language; and speak of the science as treating, properly, of the comparison of '* abstract Ideas,'' of which, Language, they say, merely supplies the names. It may be Bufiicient at present to reply, that, supposing there really exist in the mind — or in some minds — certain " abstract ideas," by means of which a train of reasoning may be carried on independently of Common-terms [or Signs of any kind,] — for this is the real point at issue — and that a system of. Logic may be devised, having reference to such reasoning, — supposing this, — still, as I profess not to know any thing of these *' abstract ideas," or of any " Uni- versals" except Signs, or to be conscious of any such reasoning- process, I at least must confine myself to the attempt to teach the only Logic I do pretend to understand. Many, again, who speak slightingly of Logic altogether, on the ground of its being *' con- versant only about words,'' entertain fundamentally the same views as the above; that is, they take for granted that Reasoning may be carried on altogether independently of Language; which they regard (as was above remarked) merely as a means of communicating it to others. And a Science or Art which they suppose to be confined to this office, they accordingly rank very low. Such a view I believe to be very prevalent. The majority of men would probably say, if asked, that the use of Language is peculiar to Man ; and that its office is to express to one another our thoughts and feelings. But neither of these is strictly true. W A similar error is complained of by we find specimens in the arguments of Aristotle, as having taken place with several ot the interlocutors in Cic, de respect to Rhetoric; of which, indeed, Oratore. 1 6.] INTRODUCTION. 13 Brutes do possess in some degree the power of being taught to understand what is said to them, and some of them even to utter sounds expressive of what is passing within them. But they all seem to be incapable of another, very important use of language, which does characterize Man; viz. the employment of " Common- terms" ('* general-terms") formed by Abstraction, as instruments of thought; by which alone a train of Beasoning may be carried on. And accordingly, a Deaf-mute^ before he has been taught a Language, — either the Finger-language, or Reading, — cannot carry on a train of Reasoning, any more than a Brute. He differs indeed from a Brute in possessing the mental capability of employing Language; but he can no more make use of that capability till he is in possession of some System of arbitrary general-signs, than a person born blind from Cataract can make use of his capacity of Seeing, till the Cataract is removed. Hence, it will be found by any one who will question a Deaf- mute who has been taught Language after having grown up, that no such thing as a train of Reasoning had ever passed through his mmd before he was taught. If indeed we did reason by means of those ** abstract ideas*' which some persons talk of, and if the Language we use served merely to communicate with other men, then, a person woidd be able to reason who had no knowledge of any arbitrary Signs. But there are no grounds for believing that this is possible; nor con- sequently, that ** abstract ideas" (in that sense of the word) have any existence at all." § 6. From what has been said, it will be evident that there is hardly any subject to which it is so difficult to introduce the student in a clear and satisfactory manner, as the one we are now engaged in. In any other branch of knowledge, the reader, if he have any 11 There have been some very interest- in the case of Laura Bridgeman) see the ing accounts published, by travellers in operation : nor, in general, can it be America, and by persons residing there, heard; though some few persons have a of a girl named Laura Bridgeman, who habit of occasionally audibly talking to lias been, from birth, not only Deaf-and- themselves; or as it is called, *' thinking Dumb, but also Blind. She lias however aloud." But the Signs we commonly use been taught the finger-language, and in silent reflection are merely mental cow- even to read what is printed in raised ceptions, usually of uttered words : and characters, and also to write. these, doubtless, are such as could be The remarkable circumstance in refer- hardly at all understood by another, even ence to the present subject, is, that when If uttered audibly. For we usually think she is alone, her fingers are generally in a kind of short-hand, (if one may use observed to be movi?ig, though the signs the expression,) like the notes one some- are so slight and imperfect that others times takes down on paper to help the cannot make out what she is thinking of. memory, which consist of a word or two. But if they inquire of her, she will tell —or even a letter,— to suggest a whole them. sentence; so that such notes would be It seems that, having once learnt the unintelligible to any one else. use of Signs, she finds the necessity of It has been observed also that this girl, them as slu Instrument of thought, when when asleep, and doubtless dreaming, has thinking of any thing beyond mere indi- her fingers frequently in motion: beiriif vidual objects of sense. in fact talking in her sleep. See above* And doubtless every one else does the { 4. same ; though in our case, no one can (c& ,K INTRODUCTION. [8 0, DifflcuUy attending abstract pursuits. previous acquaintance with tlie subject, will usually be so far the better prepared for comprehending the exposition of the principles; or if he be entirely a stranger to it, will at least come to the study with a mind unbiassed, and free from prejudices and misconceptions: whereas, in the present case, it cannot but happen, that many who have given some attention to logical pursuits (or what are usually considered as such) will have rather been bewildered by fundament- ally erroneous views, than prepared, by the acquisition of just principles, for ulterior progress; and that not a few who pretend not to any acquaintance whatever with the science, will yet have imbibed either such prejudices against it, or such false notions respecting its nature, as cannot but prove obstacles in their study of it. There is, however, a difficulty which exists more or less in all abstract pursuits; though it is perhaps more felt in this, and often occasions it to be rejected by beginners as dry and tedious; viz. the difficulty of perceiving to what ultimate end — to what practical or interesting application — the abstract principles lead, which are first laid before the student; so that he will often have to work his way patiently through the most laborious part of the system, before he can gain any clear idea of the drift and intention of it. This complaint has often been made by chemical students; who are wearied with descriptions of Oxygen, Hydrogen, and other invisible Elements, before they have any knowledge respecting such bodies as commonly present themselves to the senses. And accord- ingly some teachers of chemistry obviate in a great degree this Analytical objection, by adopting the analytical instead of the synthetical mode synthetical ^^ proccdure, whcu they are first introducing the subject to begin- ' " ners; i.e. instead of synthetically enumerating the elementary substances, — proceeding next to the simplest combinations of these, — and concluding with those more complex substances which are of the most common occurrence, they begin by analyzing these last, and resolving them step by step into their simple elements; thus at once presenting the subject in an interesting point of view, and clearly setting forth the object of it. The synthetical fonn of teaching is indeed sufficiently interesting to one who has made considerable progress in any study; and being more concise, regular, and systematic, is the form in which our knowledge naturally arranges itself in the mind, and is retained by the memory; but the analytical is the more interesting, easy, and natural kind of introduction; as being the form in which the first invention or dis* covery of any kind of system must originally have taken place. It may be advisable, therefore, to begin by giving a slight sketch, in this form, of the logical system, before we enter regularly upon the details of it. The reader will thus be presented with a kind ot imaginary history of the course of inquiry by which that system may be conceived to have occurred to a philosophical mind. procedure. BOOK I. ANALYTICAL OUTLINE OF THE SCIENCE. In every instance in which we reason, in the strict sense of the word, i.e, make use of arguments, (I mean real, i.e. valid arguments,) whether for the sake of refuting an adversary, or of conveying instruction, or of satisfying our own minds on any point, whatever may be the subject we are engaged on, a certain process takes place in the mind which is one and the same in all cases, provided it be correctly conducted. Of course it cannot be supposed that every one is even conscious of this process in his own mind ; much less, is competent to explain the principles on which it proceeds. This indeed is, and cannot but be, the case with every other process respecting which any system has been formed ; the practice not only may exist indepen- dently of the theory, but must have preceded the theory. There must have been Language before a system of Grammar could be devised ; and musical compositions, previous to the Science of Music. This, by the way, wiU serve to expose the futility of the popular objection against Logic, that men may reason very well who know nothing of it. The parallel instances adduced, show that such an objection might be applied in many other cases, where its absurdity would be obvious; and that there is no ground for deciding thence, either that the system has no tendency to improve practice, or that even if it had not, it might not still be a dignified and interesting pursuit. One of the chief impediments to the attainment of a just view of Reasoning the nature and object of Logic, is the not fully understanding, or^fmulfrinall not sufficiently keeping in mind, the sameness of the reasoning- subjects, process in all cases. If, as the ordinary mode of speaking would seem to indicate, Mathematical reasoning, and Theological, and Metaphysical, and Political, is what cannot be determined by Logic, « See Chap. V. § 3. 9 Such a mode of classification resembles that of some grammarians, who, among tlie Genders, enumerate the doubtful genderl 44 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. Singular As for Singular propositions, {viz. those whose subject is either a tiS!^^' proper name, or a common term with a singular sign) they are reckoned as Universals, (see Book IV. Ch. lY. § 2.) because in them we speak of the whole of the subject; e.g. when we say, ** Brutus was a Roman," we mean the whole of Brutus. This is the general rule ; but some Singular-propositions may fairly be reckoned particular; i.e. when some qualifying word is inserted, which indicates that you are not speaking of the whole of the sub- ject; e.g. "Caesar was not wiholly a, tyrant;" **this man is occa- sionally intemperate;" " non omnis moriar." It is not meant that these may not be, and that, the most natur- ally, accounted Universals; but it is only by viewing them in the other light, that we can regularly state the Contradictory to a Singular proposition. Strictly speaking, when we regard such pro- positions as admitting of a variation in Quantity, they are not properly considered as Singular; the subject being, e.g. not Ccesar, but the parts of his character. Distribution It is evident that the subject is distributed in every universal erms. proposition, an(\. never in si, particular : (that being the very differ- ence between universal and particular propositions:) but the distri- bution 01^ non-distribution of the predicate, depends (not on the quantity, but) on the quality, of the proposition; for, if anj part of the predicate agrees with the Subject, it must be affirmed and not denied of the Subject ; therefore, for an Affirmative-proposition to be true, it is sufficient that some part of the predicate agrees with the Subject ; and (for the same reason) for a Negative to be true, it is necessary that the whole of the predicate should disagree with the Subject: e.g. it is true that "learning is useful" though the whole of the term *' useful" does not agree with the term *' learn- ing" (for many things are useful besides learning;) but " no vice is useful," would be false if any part of the term "useful" agreed with the term " vice;" i.e. if you could find any one useful thing which was a vice. And this holds good equally whether the negative proposition be ** universal" or "particular." For to say that " Some X is not Y" (or — which is the same in sense — that " All X is not Y") is to imply that there is no part of the term " Y" [no part of the Class which '«Y" stands /or] that is applicable to the whole without exception, of the term " X;" — in short, that there is some part of the term " X " to which " Y" is wholly inapplicable. Thus, if I say, " some of the men found on that island are not Bailors of the ship that was wrecked there," or, in other words, ** the men found on that island are not, all of them, sailors of the ship, &c." I imply that the term " sailors, cfcc." is wholly inap- plicable to some of the "men on the island;" though it might perhaps be applicable to others of them. Again, if I say " some coin is made of silver," and " some coin Chap. II. § 3.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 45 is not made of silver," (or in other words, that "all coin is not made of silver") in the former of these propositions I imply, that in some portion (at least) of the Class of " things made of silver," is found [or comprehended] "some coin:" in the latter proposition I imply that there is " some coin" which is contained in no portion of the Class of " things made of silver;" or (in other words) which is excluded from the whole of that Class. So that the term " made of silver" is distributed in this latter proposition, and not, in the former. The two practical rules then to be observed respecting distribution, are, 1st, All universal propositions (and no particular) distribute the subject. 2. All negative (and no affirmative) the predicate.'" It may happen indeed, that the whole of the predicate in an affirmative may agree with the subject; e.g. it is equally true, that "all men are rational animals;" and "all rational animals are men;" but this is merely accidental, and is not at all implied in the form of expression, which alone is regarded in Logic. '^ Of Opposition. §3. Two propositions are said to be opposed to each other, when, having the same Subject and Predicate, they differ, in quantity, or quality, or hoth}^ It is evident, that with any given subject and predicate, you may state four distinct propositions, viz. A, E, I, and 0; any two of which are said to be opposed;^^ hence there are four different kinds of opposition, viz. 1st, the two universals (A 10 Hence, it is matter of common re- " All his measures are wise." And niira- mark, that it is difficult to prove a Nega- berless such examples are to be found, tive. At first sight this appears very But it will very often happen that obvious, from the circumstance that a there shall be negative propositions much Negative has one more Term distributed more easily established than certain than the corresponding Afhrmative. But Affirmative ones on the same subject, then, again, a difRculty may be lelt in E.G. That "The cause of animal-heat is accounting for this, inasmuch as any not respiration," is said to have been Negative may be expressed (as we shall established by experiments; hut what the see presently) as an Affirmative, and cause is remains doubtful. See Note to vice versd. The proposition, e.g. that Chap. III. § 5. such a one is not in the Town," might ^ When, however, a Singular Term is \»e expressed by the use of an equivalent the Predicate, it must, of course, be co- term, " he is absent from the Town." extensive with the Subject; as " Romu- The fact is, however, that in every lus was the founder of Rome." In this case where the observation as to the and also in some other cases (see B. I. difficulty of proving a Negative holds § 5.) we judge, not from the/orm of the good, it will be foundthat the proposition eccpression, but from the signification of in question is contrasted with one which the terms, that they are " equivalent" has really a term the less, distributed; or [_'"'' convertible''^] terms. a term of less extensive sense. E.G. It is i' For Opposition of Terms, see Chap, easier to prove that a man has proposed V. wise measures, than that he has never i' In ordinary language however, and proposed an unwise measure, fn fact, in some logical treatises, propositions the one would be to prove that *' Some of which do not differ in Quality (viz. Sub' his measures are wise;" the other, that alterns) are not reckoned as " opposed." A6 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. Contraries, and E) are called contraries to each other; 2d, the two particular, Subcon- traries. Subalterns. Contradic- tories. (I and 0) subcontraries ; 3d, A and I, or E and 0, subalterns; A and 0, or E and I, contradictories. As it is evident, that the truth or falsity of any proposition (its quantity and quality being known) must depend on the matter of it, ■we must hear in mind, that, *' in necessary matter, all affirmatives are true, and negatives false; in impossible matter, vice versa; in contingent matter, all univer sals, false, and particulars true;'' e.g. *' all islands (or some islands) are surrounded by water," must he true, because the matter is necessary: to say, ** no islands, or some — not, (fcc." would have been false: again, *' some islands are fertile;" "some are not fertile," are both true, because it is Con- tingent Matter: put " alV or "no" instead of *' some,'' and the propositions will be false. Hence it will be evident, that Contraries will be both false in Contingent matter, but never both true: Subcontraries, both true in Contingent matter, but never both false: Contradictories, always one true and the other false, &c. with other observations, which will be immediately made on viewing the scheme; in which the four pro- positions are denoted by their symbols, the different kinds of matter by the initials, n, i, c, and the truth or falsity of each proposition [Every X is Y] n. V. i. f. c.f. n. V. i. f. C. Y. [No X is Y] [Some X is Y] [Some X is not Y] Chap. II. § 3.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 47 in each matter, by the letter v. for {verum) true, f. for (/ahum) false. You may substitute for the unmeaning Symbols X, Y, (which stand for the Terms of the above Propositions) whatever significant Terms you will; and on their meaning, of course, will depend the truth or falsity of each proposition. For instance, Naturalists have observed that "animals having horns on the head are universally ruminant;" that, of " carnivorous animals " none are ruminant; and that, of "animals with hoofs," some are ruminant, and some, not. Let us take then instead of ** X," " animals with horns on the head," and for " Y," " rumin- ant:" here, the real connexion of the Terms in respect of their meaning — which Connexion is called the " matter " of a proposition — is such that the Predicate may be affirmed universally of the Subject; and of course the affirmatives (whether Universal or Par- ticular) will be true, and the "negatives " false. In this case the "matter" is technically called "necessary;" inasmuch as we cannot avoid believing the Predicate to be applicable to the Subject. Again, let "X" represent " carnivorous -animal," and " Y '* "ruminant:" this is a case of what is called "impossible matter;** {i.e. where we cannot possibly conceive the Predicate to be applicable to the Subject) being just the reverse of the foregoing; and, of course, both the Affii'matives will here be false, and both Negatives true. And lastly, as an instance of what is called "contingent matter," — i.e. where the Predicate can neither be affirmed universally, nor denied universally, of the Subject, take "hoofed-animal" for "X" and " ruminant " for " Y;" and of course the Universals will both be false, and the Particulars, true: that is, it is equally true that "some hoofed-animals are ruminant," and that " some are not." By a careful study of the above Scheme, bearing in mind and applying the rule concerning matter, the learner will easily elicit all the maxims relating to " Opposition;" as that, in the Subalterns, the truth of the Particular (which is called the subaltemate) follows from the truth of the Universal {subaltemans), and the falsity of the Universal from the falsity of the Particular: that Subalterns differ in quantity alone; Contraries, and also Subcontraries, in quality alone; Contradictories, in both: and hence, that if any proposition is known to be true, we infer that its Contradictory is false; if false, its Contradictory true, &c. " Contradictory-opposition " is the kind most frequently alluded Belief aud to, because (as is evident from what has been just said) to deny, — coincide, or to disbelieve, — a proposition, is to assert, or to believe, its Con- tradictory; and of course, to assent to, or mxxintain a proposition, is to reject its Contradictory. Belief therefore, and Disbelief, are not two different states of the mind, but the same, only considered in reference to two Contradictory propositions. And consequently, F 48 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. Credulity and Incredulity are not opposite habits, but the same; in reference to some class of propositions, and to their contradictories. For instance, he who is the most incredulous respecting a certain person's guilt, is, in other words, the most ready to beheve him not guilty; he who is the most credulous^* as to certain works being within the reach of Magic, is the most incredulous [or "slow of heart to believe "] that they are not within the reach of Magic; and so, in all cases. The reverse of believing this or that individual proposition, is, no doubt, to disbelieve that same proposition: but the reverse of belief generally, is (not disbelief; since that implies belief; but) doubt}^ Of course the learner must remember, as above observed, that the determination of the "matter" is out of the province of Logic. The rules of Opposition merely pronounce on the truth or falsity of each proposition, given, the " matter." Of Conversion. §4. A proposition is said to be converted when its Terms are transposed; %.e. when the Subject is made the Predicate, and the Predicate the Subject. When nothing more is done, this is called simple conversion, riative ^^ No conversion is employed for any logical purpose, unless it be illative ;^^ i.e. when the truth of the converse is implied by the truth of the Exposita, (or proposition given;) e.g. , 1* As the Jews, in the time of Jesus, in neither pronounce that the plaintiff Aas a respect of his works. just title to the property he claims, nor 15 And there may even be cases in as^ain that he has «o^ a just title, nor yet, which doubt itself may amount to the that there is no sufficient evidence to show most extravagant credulity. For instance, Avhether his title is just or not; but we if any one should " doubt whether there disregard the whole question. is any such Country as Egypt," he Hence we may perceive that "private- would be in fact believing this most in- Judg7nent," the riffht, and the d7itp of credible proposition ; that ''''it is possible which have long been warmly debated, for many thousands of persons, uncon- is a thing ujiavoidable, in any matter nected with each other, to have agreed, concerning which one takes an interest, for successive Ages, in bearing witness For if a man resolves that he will impli- to the existence of a fictitious Country, citly receive, e.g. in Religious points, ail without being detected, contradicted, or the decisions of a certam Pastor, Church, suspected." or Party, he has, in so doing, performed All this, though self-evident, is, in one act of private-judgment, which in- practice, frequently lost sight of: the eludes all the rest; just as if a man, more, on account of our emplo;^ing, in distrusting his own skill in the manage- reference to the Christian Religion, the ment of property, should make over his •words ^Believer and C7wbeliever ; " whole estate to trustees ; in doing which whence, unthinking persons are led to he Ms exercised an act of ownership; for take for granted that the rejection of whichact, generally, and for the choice ■ ■ - .- - .. . .^^ . conversion. Christianity implies a less easy belief of such and such particular trustees, he aan its reception. is responsible. (See Essj The only way to be safe from credulity Kingdom of Christ, § 2(j.) on a given subject, is, either to examine i* The reader must not suppose from carefully and dispassionately, and decide the use of the word "illative," that this according to the evidence, or else to conversion is a process of reasoninn: it is withdraw your thoughts from it alto- in fact only stating the same Judgment cetlier. E.G. In some legal trial which in another form, does not concern or interest us, we CiiAP. 11. § 4.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 49 *' Xo virtuous man is a rebel, tlierefore No rebel is a virtuous man." **iSro Christian is an astronomer, therefore No astronomer is a Christian." ^^ ** Some boasters are cowards, therefore Some cowards are boasters." The " conversion " of such a proposition as this, " No one [is happy who] is anxious for change," would be effected by altering the arrangement of the words in brackets, into "who is happy." Strictly speaking, that is not a real "conversion," — but only an *' apparent conversion " — which is not "illative." For, (as has been above said) there is not a mere transposition of the terms, but a new term introduced, when a term which was undistributed in the "exposita," is distributed [taken universally] in the Converse. But as it is usual, in common discourse, to speak of "an unsound argument," — meaning "an apparent-avgwoi^iii, which is in reality not an argument," so, in this case also, it is common to say, for instance, that "Euclid proves first that all equilateral triangles are equiangular, and afterwards he proves the Converse, that all equiangular triangles are equilateral:" or again, to say, " It is true that all money is wealth; but I deny the Converse, (in reality, the apparent-coiiXQY&o) that all wealth is money." Conversion then, strictly so called, — that is, " illative-conversion," — can only take place when no term is distributed in the Converse, which was undistributed in the "Exposita." Hence, since E [Universal-negative] distributes both terms, and I, [Particular-affirmative] neither, these may both be simply-con- verted illatively; as in the examples above. But as A does not distribute the Predicate, its simple-conversion would not be illative; {e.g. from "all birds are animals," you cannot infer that "all animals are birds,") as there would be a term distributed in the Converse, which was not before. We must therefore limit its quantity from universal to particular, and the Conversion will be illative: {e.g. "some animals are birds;") this might be fairly named conversion by limitation; but is commonly called " Conversion per Conversion accidens." E may thus be converted also. But in 0, whether the P^accidens. quantity be changed or not, there will still be a term (the predicate of the converse) distributed, which was not before: you can therefore only convert it illatively, by changing the quality; i.e. considering the negative as attached to the predicate instead of to the copula, and thus regarding It as I. One of the terms will then not be the same Cor.traposl- as before; but the proposition will be equipollent {i.e. convey the ^^""^ 17 When Galileo's persecutors endeav- the same may be said of some opponents cured to bi-inir about tlie former of these, of Geology at the present day. they forgot that it implied the latter. And 50 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. same meaning); e.g. *'some who possess wealtli are not happy:" you may consider ''not-happy'' as the predicate, instead of "happy ;'^ the proposition will then be I, and of course may be simply con- verted; " some who are not happy possess wealth: " or, (as such a proposition is often expressed) "one may possess wealth without being happy." ■'^ This may be named conversion by negation; or as it is commonly called, by contraposition}^ A may also be fairly converted in this way, e.g. ** Every poet is a man of genius; therefore He who is not a man of genius is not a poet:" (or, *' None but a man of genius can be a poet:" or, *' A man of genius alone can be a poet:" or, *' One cannot be a poet without being a man of genius.'*) For (since it is the same thing to affirm some attribute of the sub- ject, or to deny the absence of that attribute) the original proposition [Exposita] is precisely equipollent to this. subj. pred. " No poet is not-a-man-of-genius;" which, being E, may of course be simply converted. Thus, in one of these three ways, every proposition may be illatively converted: viz. E. /, Simply; A, 0, by Negation; A, E, — Limitation. Convertible Note, that as it was remarked that, in some affirmatives, the whole of the Predicate does actually agree with the Subject, so, ■Ambiguity 18 It is worth remarking by the way, that it is as much out of our power to of the words ^^^^ j^ gy^h examples as the above, the conceive a virtuous man who should be a ^|may. words, "may," "can," " cannot," &c. traitor, as to conceive "a Square with must, &c. Y^g^yQ no reference (as they sometimes unequal sides;" that is, a square vvhich is have) to power, as exercised by an agent; not a square. The expression therefore but merely to the distribution or non-dis- is merely a way of stating the Universal- trihution of Terms: or to the confidence proposition [E] " No virtuous man be- or doubtfulness we feel respecting some trays his Country." supposition. iSo again, to say, "a weary traveller in To say, for instance, that " a man who the deserts of Arabia must eagerly drink has the plague may recover," does not when he comes to a Spring," does not mean that " it is in Yns power to recover mean that he is compelled to drink, but if he chooses;" but it is only a form that I cannot avoid believing that he of stating a particular-proposition: [I] will ; — that there is no doubt in my mind, namely, that ''''Some who have the plague In these and many other such instances, recover." And again to say, " there 7nay the words "may," "must," "can," be a bed of coal in this district," means "impossible," &c. have reference, not to merely " The existence of a bed of coal power or absence of power in an agent, in this district— is— a thing which I can- but only to universality or absence of not confidently deny or affirm." universality in the eocpression; or, to So also to say " a virtuous man cannot doubt or absence of doubt in our own betray his Country" [or "it is «wposii6;e mind, respecting what is asserted. See that a virtuous man should betray, &c."] Appendix, No. J, Art. May. does not mean that he lacks the porcer, lojvjo mention is made by Aldrich of (for there is no virtue in not doin^ what this kind of conversion; but it has been is out of one's power) but merely that thought advisable to insert it, as being " not betraying one's country " forms an in frequent use, and also as being em- essentiid part of the notion conveyed by ployed in this treatise for the direct the term " virtuous." We mean in short reduction of Baroko and IJokardo. Chap. III. § 1.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 51 when this is the case, A heing converted simply, the Converse will be true: but still, as its truth does not follow from that of the original proposition ["exposita"] the Conversion is not illative. Many propositions in mathematics are of this description: e.g, ** All equilateral triangles are equiangular;" and "All equiangular triangles are equilateral." Though both these propositions are true, the one does not follow from the other; and mathematicians accordingly give a distinct proof of each. As the simple converse of A can then only be true when the sub- ject and predicate are exactly equivalent (or, as they are called, convertible terms); and as this must always be the case in a just definition, so the correctness of a definition may be tried by this test. E.G. *' A good government is tliat which has the happiness of the governed for its object;" if this be a right definition it will follow that " a government which has the happiness of the governed for its object is a good one." But to assert a proposition, and to add, or imply, that it is a just definition, is to make, not one asser- tion, but two. Chap. III. — Of Arguments. §1. The third operation of the mind, viz. reasoning, [or "discourse"] expressed in words, is argument; and an argument stated at full length, and in its regular form, is called a syllogism. The third part of liOgic therefore treats of the syllogism. Every Argument^ syiiogismv consists of two parts; that which is proved; and that hy means of which it is proved. The former is called, before it is proved, the question; ichen proved, the conclusion, [or inference;] that which is used to prove it, if stated last (as is often done mcomrnon discourse,) is called the reason, and is introduced by " because,'' or some other causal conjunction; e.g. " Caesar deserved death, because he was a tyrant, and all tyrants deserve death." If the Conclusion be stated last (which is the strict logical form, to which all Reasoning may be reduced) then, that which is employed to prove it is called the premises,'^ and the Conclusion is then introduced by some illative conjunction, as "therefore," e.g. 20 I mean, in the strict technical sense; conclusion is established by the Argu- for in popular use the word Argument is ment:^^ i.e. Premises.— See Appendix, often employed to denote the latter ot No. I. Art. Arrjume/d. these two parts alone: e.g. "This is an 21 Both the premises tosrether are some- Arguvient to prove so and so;" "this times called the a«toede«^ 52 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. ** All tyrants deserve death : Cresar was a tyrant; tJierefore lie deserved death. "^ Definition of Since, then, an argument is an expression in which "from some- Arguuient. ^/^^'^^^ i^^^ down and granted as true [i.e. the Premises) something else {i.e. the Conclusion) beyond this must he admitted to he true, as following necessarily \resulting^ from the other ;'^ and since Logic is wholly concerned in the use of language, it follows that a Syllo- gism (which is an argument stated in a regular logical form) must Definition of be "an argument so expressed, that the conclusiveness of it is Syllogism, jjianifest from the mere force of the expression,'' i.e. without con- sidering the meaning of the terms: e.g. in this Syllogism, "Every Y is X, Z is Y, therefore Z is X:" the Conclusion is inevitable, whatever terms X, Y, and Z respectively are understood to stand for. And to this form all legitimate Arguments may ultimately be brought. One circumstance which has misled some persons into the notion that there may be Reasoning that is not, substantially, syllogistic, is Necessary _ this; that in a Syllogism we see the Conclusion following certainly conclusions^ \_^^ nccessarily] from the Premises; and again, in any apparent-syllo- gism which on examination is found to be (as we have seen in some of the examples) not a real one [not " valid"] the Conclusion does not follow at all; and the whole is a mere deception. And yet we often hear of Arguments which have some weight, and yet are not quite decisive; — of Conclusions which are rendered prohahle, but not absolutely certain, &c. And hence some are apt to imagine that the conclusiveness of an Argument admits of degrees; and that sometimes a conclusion may, probably and partially, — though not certainly and completely, — follow from its Premises. This mistake arises from men's forgetting that the Premises themselves will very often be doubtful; and then, the Conclusion also will be doubtful. As was shown formerly, one or both of the Premises of a perfectly _ 22 It may be observed tbat the defini- not always, employs the term "syllogism" tion here given of an argument, is in the in the very sense to which I have confined common treatises of Logic laid down as it: viz. to denote an argument stated in the definition of a syllogism; a word regular logical form; as e.g. in a part of which I have confined to a more restricted his work (omitted in the late editions) in X sense. There cannot evidently be any which he is objecting to a certain pre- argument, whether regularly or irregu- tended syllogism in the work of another larly expressed, to wliich tlie definition writer, he says, " valet certear^/M^new/M/w; given by Aldrich, for instance, would syllogismus tamen est falsissinms," &c. not apply; so that he appears to employ Now (waiving the exception that might "syllogism" as synonymous with" argu- be taken at this use ot ^'' falsissimus," ment." But besides that it is clearer and nothing being, strictly, true or false, but more convenient, when we have these a, proposition) \t is x)\a\n that he limits the two words at hand, to employ them in word "syllogism" to the sense in which the two senses respectively which we it is here defined, and is conseciuently ■want to express, the truth is, that in so inconsistent with his own definition of doinjj I have actually conformed to it. Aldnch's practice: for he generally, if Chap. III. § 2.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUJVI. 53 valid Syllogism may be utterly false and absm-d: and then, the Conclusion, though inevitably, following from them, may be either true or false, we cannot tell which. And if one or both of the Premises be merely probable, we can infer from them only a pro- hahle Conclusion; though the conclusiveness, — that is, the connexion between the Premises and the Conclusion — is perfectly certain. For instance, assuming that *' every month has 30 days" (which is palpably false) then, from the minor-premise that " April is a month," it follows (which happens to be true) that " April has 30 days:" and from the minor premiss that ** February is a month,'* it follows that " February has 30 days;" which is false. In each case the conclusiveness of the Argument is the same; but in every case, when we have ascertained the falsity of one of the Premises, we know nothing (as far as that argument is concerned) of the truth or falsity of the Conclusion. When however we are satisfied of the falsity of some Conclusion, ■we may, of course, be sure that (at least) one of the Premises is false; since if they had both been true, the Conclusion would have been true. And this — which is called the *' indirect'^ mode of proof — is often employed (even in Mathematics) for establishing what we maintain: that is, we prove the falsity of some Proposition (in other words, the timth of its contradictory) by showing that if assumed as a Premiss, along with another Premiss known to be true, it leads to a Conclusion manifestly false. For though, from a false assumption, either falsehood or truth may follow, from a true assumption, truth only can follow. §2. The Rule or Maxim (commonly called " dictum de omni et nullo*^) Aristotle's by which Aristotle explains the validity of the above Argument ^^'^^"'"* (every Y is X, Z is Y, therefore Z is X), is this: whatever is predi- cated of a term distributed, whether affirmatively or negatively, may he predicated in like manner of every thing contained under it. Thus, in the examples above, X is predicated of Y distributed, and Z is contained imder Y {i.e. is its Subject;) therefore X is predicated of Z: so " all tyrants," &c. (§1.) This rule may be ultimately apphed to all arguments; (and their validity ultimately rests on their con- formity thereto) but it cannot be directly and immediately applied to all even of pure categorical syllogisms ; for ' the sake of brevity, therefore, some other Axioms are commonly applied in practice, to avoid the occasional tediousness of reducing all syllogisms to that form in which Aristotle's dictum is apphcable.^^ 23 Instead of following the usual ar- applies to only one of them, I have pur- mneement, in laying down first the sued what appears a simpler and more Canons wliieh apply to all the figures of philosophical arrangement, and more categorical syllogisms, and then going likely to impress on the learner's mind a back to the dictum of Aristotle" which just view of the science: viz. 1st, to give 54 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. Canons of We will speak first of pure categorical syllogisms; and the syllogisms.' Axioms or Canons by which their validity is to be explained: viz. first, if two terms agree with one and the same third, they agree with each other: secondly, if one term agrees and another disagrees with one and the same third, these two disagree with each otJier. On the former of these Canons rests the validity of affirmative conclusions; on the latter, of negative; for no categorical syllogism can be faulty which does not violate these Canons; none correct which does: hence on these two Canons are built the rules or cautions which are to be observed with respect to syllogisms, for the purpose of ascer- taining whether those Canons have been strictly observed or not. 1st. Every syllogism has three, and only three terms: viz. the middle-term, and the two terms (or extremes, as they are commonly called) of the Conclusion [or Question]. Of these, 1st, the subject of the Conclusion is called the m,inor-term; 2d, its predicate, the major-term; and 3d, the middle-term, (called by the older logicians ** Argumentum,") is that with which each of them is separately compared, in order to judge of their agreement or disagreement with each other. If therefore there were two middle-terms, the extremes {or terms of conclusion) not being both compared to the same, could not be conclusively compared to each other. 2d. Every syllogism has three, and only three propositions; viz. 1st, the major-premiss (in which the major term is compared with the middle:) 2d, the minor-premiss (in which the minor-term is compared with the middle;) and 3d, the Conclusion, in which the Minor-term is compared with the Major.^ 3d. Note, that if the middle-term is ambiguous, there are in reality two middle-terms, in sense, though but one in sound. An ambiguous MidcUe-term is either an equivocal term used in different senses in the two premises : [e.g. ** Light is contrary to darkness; Feathers are light; therefore Feathers are contrary to darkness:") or a term not distributed: for as it is then used to stand for a part only of its significates, it may happen that one of the Extremes may have been compared with one part of it, and the other with another part of it ; e.g. the rule (Aristotle's Dictum) which ap- every kind of argument which is of a plies to the most clearly and regularly-con- syllogistic character, and accordingly, structed argument, the Syllogism in the directly cognizable by the rules of Logic, first Figure, to which all reasoning may being enumerated in natural order, be reduced: then, the canons applicable 24 Jn some logical treatises the Major to a.\\ caiegoricals ; then, those belonging premiss is called simply '''' Propositio-^* to the hppot helicals ; and lastly, to treat and the Minor '■'■ AssumpHo." In ordi- of the Sorites; which is improperly nary discourse, the word " Principle" ia placed by Aldrich before the hypotheti- often used to denote the Major-premiss, cals. By this plan the province of strict and " Reason," the Minor. Logic is extended as tar as it can be; Chap. III. § 2.] ^ SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 55 *' White Is a colour, Black is a colour; therefore Black is white." Again, ** Some animals are beasts. Some animals are birds; therefore Some birds are beasts." •* The middle-term therefore must he distributed once, at least, in the premises; {i.e. by being the Subject of an Universal, or Predicate of a Negative, Chap. II. § 2,) and once is sufficient; since if one extreme has been compared to a part of the middle-term, and another to the whole of it, they must have been both compared to the same. 4th. iVb term must he distributed in the conclusion which was not distributed in one of the premises ; for that (which is called an illicit process, either of the Major or the Minor term) would be to employ the whole of a term in the Conclusion, when you had employed only a part of it in the Premiss; and thus, in reality, to introduce a fourth term : e.g. ** All quadrupeds are animals, A bird is not a quadruped; therefore It is not an animal." — Illicit process of the major. Again, ** What is related in the Talmud is unworthy of credit: Miraculous stories are related in the Talmud; therefore Miraculous stories are unworthy of credit." If this conclusion be taken as A, there will be an "illicit process of the Minor-term;" (since every one would understand the Minor-premiss as particular) but a particular conclusion may fairly be inferred. In the case of an iUicit-process of the Major, oil the contrary, the premises do not warrant any conclusion at all. 5th, From negative premises you can infer nothing. For in them the Middle is pronounced to disagree with both extremes; not, to agree with both; or, to agree with one, and disagree with the other; therefore they cannot be compared together; e.g. " A fish is not a quadruped;" " A bird is not a quadruped," proves nothing. 6th. If one premiss he negative, the conclusion' must he negative; for in that premiss the middle-term is pronounced to disagree with one of the Extremes, and in the other pvemiss (which of course is affirmative by the preceding rule) to agree wuth the other extreme; therefore the Extremes disagreeing with each other, the Conclusion is negative. In the same manner it may be shown, that to prove a negative conclusion one of the Premises must be a negative. 5Q SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. ^^By these six rules all categorical Syllogisms are to be tried; and from tliem it will be eviderxt; 1st, that nothing can he proved from two particular Premises ; (since you will then have either the middle Term undistributed, or an illicit process. For if each premiss were I, there would be no distribution of any term at all: and if the premises were I and 0, as *' Some animals are sagacious; Some beasts are not sagacious : Some beasts are not animals." there would be but one term — the predicate of — distributed ; and supposing that one to be the Middle, then, the conclusion (being of course negative, by rule 6th) would have its predicate, — the Major- term — distributed, which was undistributed in the premiss. And, for the same reason, 2dly, that if one of the Premises be particular, the Conclusion must be particular ; e.g. ** All who fight bravely deserve reward ; Some soldiers fight bravely;" you can only infer that ** Some soldiers deserve reward:" for to infer a universal Conclusion would be an " illicit-process of the Minor." But from two universal Premises you cannot always infer a imiversal Conclusion; e.g. " All gold is precious; All gold is a mineral ; therefore Some mineral is precious." And even when we can infer a imiversal, we are always at liberty to infer a particular; since what is predicated of all may of course be predicated of some.^* Of Moods. §3. When we designate the three propositions of a syllogism In their order, according to their respective ** Quantity" and *' Quality" 25 Others have given twelve rules, which of the Logical-writers summed up the I found might more conveniently be foregoing rules, were, reduced to six. No syllogism can be " Distribus Medium, nee quartus ter- faulty which violates none of these six minus adsit ;^' rules. It is much less perplexing to a ** Vtraqtie nee prcemissa negans, nee learner not to lay down as a distinct rule, parficularis ;" that, e.g. against particular premises: ** Sedetur partem Conclusiodderiorem;'''' which is properly a resM^^ of the foregoing; {i.e. the Particular being regarded since a syllogism with two particular as inferior to the Universal ; and premises would offend against either It. the Negative, to the Affirmative) 3. or R. 4. " Et non distribuat nisi cum Prcemissa^ ^ The memorial-lines in which some negetve." Chap. III. § 4.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 57 (indicated by tlieir symhols) we are said to determine the mood of the syllogism. E.G. The example just above, "all gold, &e." is in tiie Mood A, A, I. As there are four kinds of propositions, and three propositions in each syllogism, all the possible ways of combining these four, (A, E, I, 0,) by threes, are sixty-four. For, any one of these four may be the major-premiss; each of these four majors may have four different minors ; and of these sixteen pairs of premises, each may have four different conclusions. 4x4 (= 16) X 4 = 64. This is a mere arithmetical calculation of the Moods, without any regard to the logical rules ; for many of these Moods are inadmissible in practice, from violating some of those rules ; e.g. the Mood E, E, E, must be rejected as having negative premises; I, 0, 0, for particular premises; and many others for the same faults ; to which must be added I, E, 0, for an "illicit-process of the major," in every Figure ; since the Conclusion, being negative, would distribute the Major-term, while the Major-premiss, being I, would distribute no term. By examination then of all, it will be found that, of the sixty-four there remain but eleven Moods which can be used in a legitimate syllogism, viz. A, A, A, A, A, I, A, E, E, A, E, 0, A, I, I, A, 0, 0, E, A, E, E, A, 0, E, I, 0, I, A, I, 0, A, 0. Of Figure, §4. The Figure of a syllogism consists in the situation of the Middle- term with respect to the Extremes of the Conclusion, \i.e. the major and minor term. ] When the Middle-term is made the subject of the major premiss, and the predicate of the minor, that is called the first Figure; which is far the most natural and clear of all, as to this alone Aristotle's dictum may be at once applied. In the Second- Figure the Middle-term is the predicate of both premises: in the Third, the subject of both: in the Fourth, the predicate of the Major premiss, and the subject of the Minor. This Figure is the most awkward and unnatural of all, being the very reverse of the first. Note, that the proper order"^ is to place the Major premiss ^r5^ and the Minor second; but this does not constitute the Major and Minor premises ; for that premiss (wherever placed) is the Major, which contains the major te^-m. and the Minor, the minor (v. R. 2. § 2.) Each of the allowable moods mentioned above will not be allowable in every Figure ; since it may violate some of the foregoing rules, in 27 Proper, i.e. in a Treatise on Logic or intelligent, fall into the strange misap- in a logical analysis ; not, necessarily in prehension alluded to. The proper col- ordinary discourse. This remark may location of plants in a botanical herba- appear superfluous, but that I have rium, and in a flower-garden, and again, known a writer, generally acute a^d on a farm, would be widely different. 58 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. one Figure, thoiigli not in another: e.g. I, A, I, is an allowable mood in the third Figure ; but in the first it would have an undis- tributed middle.^^ So A, E, E, would in the first Figure have an illicit process of the major., but is allowable in the second ; and A, A, A, which in the first Figure is allowable, would in the third have an illicit process of the minor: all which maj be ascertained by trying the different Moods in each figure, as per scheme. Let X represent the Major term, Z the Minor, Y the Middle. 1st Fig. 2d Fig. 3d Fig. 4th Fig. Y, X, X,Y, Y, X, X, Y, Z, Y, Z, Y, Y, Z, Y, Z, Z, X, Z, X, z,x, Z, X. The Terms alone being here stated, the quantity and quality of each Proposition (and consequently the Mood of the whole Syllo- gism) is left to be filled up : {i.e. between Y and X, we may place either a negative or affirmative Copula : and we may prefix either a universal or particular sign to Y.) By applying the Moods then to each Figure, it will be found that each figure will admit six Moods only, as not violating the rules against undistributed middle, and against illicit process: and of the Moods so admitted, several (though valid) are useless, as having a particular Conclusion, when a uni- versal might liave been drawn; e.g. A, A, I, in the first Figure, *' All human creatures are entitled to liberty; All slaves are human creatures; therefore i^ome slaves are entitled to liberty." Of the twenty-four Moods, then, (six in each Figure,) five are for this reason neglected: for the remaining nineteen, logicians have devised names to distinguish both the Mood itself, and the Figure in which it is found; since when one Mood {i.e. one in itself, without regard to Figure) occurs in two diff'erent Figures, (as E, A, E, in the first and second) the mere letters denoting the mood would not inform us concerning ih^ figure. In these names, then, the three vowels denote the propositions of which the Syllogism is composed: the consonants (besides their other uses, of which hereafter) serve to keep in mind the Figure of the Syllogism. p. -^ jbArbArA, cElArEnt, dArll, fErlOque °* * ( prions. 2* E.G. Some restraint is salutary: all restraint is unpleasant: something T I A unpleasant is salutary. Again : Some herbs are fit for food : nightshade is an I herb: some nightshade is fit for food. Chap. III. § 4.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 59 T.. o (cEsArE, cAmEstrEs, fEsfInO, bArOkO/' Ei£?. 2. ■< \ ' ' ' ftertia, dArAptI, dIsAmIs, dAtlsI, fEl- Fig. 3. \ AptOn, bOkArdO/" fErlsO, babet : I quarta insuper addit. ^. . jbrAmAntIp, cAmEnEs, dImArlS;, fEsA- ^^' \ PO, frEsIsOn. By a careful study of these mnemonic lines (which must he committed to memory) you will perceive that A can only he proved in the First-Figure, in which also every other proposition may he proved; that the Second proves only negatives: the Third only particulars: that the First-Figure requires the major-premiss to he universal, and the minor, affirmative, d to steal or to forbear: but the fnte," or " is/aise." Quystion really is, whai things are forbid- Chap. IV. § 2.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 67 It will often happen tliat several of the Propositions which are thus stated in a single sentence, may require, each, to he distinctly stated and proved : e.g. the Advocate may have to prove, first tlie fact, that *' John killed Thomas;" and then, the character of the act, that *' the kiHing- was wilful and mahcious." See Praxis, at the end of the vol. See also Elements of Rhetoric, Part I. Ch. III. §5. Of Hypothetkals. §2. A Hypothetical^ Proposition is defined to be ttco or more cafe- goricals muted hy a Copula [conjunction]: and the diff'ercnt kinds of Hypothetical Propositions are named from their respective conjunctions; mz. conditional, disjunctive, causal, (fee. When a liypothetical conclusion is inferred from a hypothetical Premiss, so that the force of the Reasoning does not turn on the hypothesis, then the Hypothesis (as in Modals) must be considered as part of one of the Terms; so that the Reasoning will be, in effect, categorical: e.g. predicate. " Every conqueror is either a hero or a villain: Csesar Avas a conqueror; therefore predicate. He was either a hero or a villain.'^ *' Whatever comes from God is entitled to reverence; subject. If the Scriptures are not wholly false, they must come from God ; If they are not wholly false, they are entitled to reverence." But when the Reasoning itself rests on the hypothesis (in which way a categorical Conclusion may be drawn from a hypothetical Premiss,) this is what is called a hypotJietical Syllogism; and rules have been devised for ascertaining the validity of such Arguments at once, without bringing them into the categorical form. (And note, that in these Syllogisms, the hypothetical Premiss is called the major, and the categorical one the minor.) They are of two kinds, conditional and disjunctive. 38 Compound, according to some writew. 68 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. Of Conditionals, §3. A Conditional^ Proposition has in it an illative force; i.e. it contains two, and only two categorical Propositions, whereof one results from the other [or follows from it,] e.g. antecedent. " If the Scriptures are not wholly false, consequent. they are entitled to respect." That from which the other results is called the Antecedent; that which results from it, the Consequent [consequens ;) and the con- nexion between the two (expressed by the word "if'*) the Conse- quence [consequentia.) The natural order is, that the Antecedent should come before the Consequent; but this is frequently reversed : e.g. "The husband- man is well off if he knows his own advantages." (Virg. Geor.) Every Conditional-proposition maybe considered as an Universal- affirmative, whether the members of which it consists be Universal or Particular, Negative or Affirmative. And the truth or falsity of a Conditional-Proposition depends entirely on tlic consequence: eg> "if Logic is useless, it deserves to be neglected;" here both Antecedent and Consequent are false: yet the whole Proposition is true; i.e. it is true that the Consequent /o/Zoits from the Antecedent. •' If Cromwell was an Englishman, he was an usurper," is just the reverse case: for though it is true that " Cromwell was an English- man," and also that " he was an usurper," yet it is not true that the latter of these Propositions depends on the former ; the whole Proposition, therefore, is false, (or at least absurd, — see next section) though both Antecedent and Consequent are true. It is to be observed, however, that a false, or at least nugatory, Conditional-Proposition of this kind, r>iz.: in which each member is a true categorical, — is such, that, though itself absurd, no false conclusion can be drawn from it ; as may be seen from the instance just given. A Conditional Proposition, in short, may be considered as an assertion of the validity of a certain Argument ; since to assert that an argument is valid, is to assert that the Conclusion necessarily results from the Premises, whether those Premises be true or not. The meaning, then, of a Conditional Proposition, — which is, that the antecedent being granted^ the consequent is granted, may be con- so Called Hypothetical by those writers who use the word Comi^ound to denote wliat I have called Hypothetical. Chap. IV. 5 3.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 69 sidered in two points of view: first, '* if the Antecedent he true, the Consequent must be true ;" hence the first rule ; the antecedent being granted, the consequent may he inferred: secondly, '* if the Antecedent were true, the Consequent would be true;" hence the second rule; the consequent heing denied, the antecedent may he denied; for the Antecedent must in tkat case be false ; since if it were true, the consequent (which is granted to be false) would be true also. E.G. '* If this man has a fever, he is not fit to travel ;" here if you grant the antecedent, the first rule applies, and you infer the truth of the Consequent ; " he has a fever ; therefore he is not fit to travel." If Constructive A is B, C is D ; but A is B, therefore C is D ; and this is called a destructive. covs'ructive Conditional Syllogism. But if you deny the consequent (i.e. grant its contradictory) the second rule applies, and you infer the contradictory of the antecedent; " he is fit to travel; therefore he has not a fever;" this is the destructive Conditional Syllogism. If A is B, C is D; C is not D, therefore A is not B. Again, " If the crops are not bad, corn must be cheap," for a major; then, ** but the crops are not bad, therefore corn must be cheap," is Constructive. " Corn is not cheap, therefore the crops are bad," is Destructive. " If every increase of population is desirable, some misery is desirable; but no misery is desirable; therefore some increase of population is not desirable," is Destructive. But if you affirm the consequent or deny the antecedent^ you can infer nothing ; for the same Consequent may follow from other Antecedents: e.g. in the example above, a man may be unfit to travel from other disorders besides a fever ; therefore it does not follow, from his being unfit to travel, that he has a fever ; or (for the same reason) from his not having a fever, that he is not unfit to travel. And it is to be observed that these fallacies correspond respec- Fallacies in tively with those mentioned in treating of Categorical Syllogisms, and In ' The assertion of the Consequent, and inferring thence the truth of JoTj^!*^^*^*^*^ the Antecedent, answers to the fallacy of ''undistributed-Middle," correspond. or to that of ** negative-premises." JE.G. *' He who has a fever is unfit to travel;" (or, ** is not fit to travel.") . " This man is unfit" (or, " is not fit") " to travel; therefore he has a fever." The fallacy again of denying the Antecedent, and thence inferring the Contra- dictory of the Consequent, corresponds either to that of negative- premises, or to " iUicit-process of the Major," or that of introducing, palpably, *' more than three terms." E.G. *' He who has a fever is unfit to travel; this man has not a fever," ka.^^ There are, then, two, and only two, kinds of Conditional Syllo- gisms ; the constructive, founded on the first rule, and answering to dit-ect Reasoning ; and the destructive, on the second, answering to indirect; being in fact a mode of throwing the indirect form of 40 Virtually, all these fallacies do really amount to the introduction of a fourth term. See § 2. Ch. III. 70 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. reasoning into the direct: e.g. If C be not the centre of the circle, some other point must be ; which is impossible : therefore C is the centre. (Euclid, B. III. Pr. 1.) Conversion ^nd note, that a Conditional Proposition maj (like the categorical tiouuis.'" A) be converted by negation; i.e. you may take the contradictory of the conseqiicfit, as an antecedent, and the contradictory of the antece- dent, as a consequent: e.g. " If this man is fit to travel, he has not a fever." By this conversion of the major Premiss, a Constructive Syllogism may be reduced to a Destructive, and vice versa. (See § 6. Ch. III.) 0/ Disjunctives. §4. A Disjunctive Proposition is one that consists of two or more categoricals, connected by the conjunctions ** either" and " or," the force of which is, to state an alternative; i.e. to imply that some one of the categoricals thus connected must be true: e.g. "either A is B, or C is D" will not be a true proposition unless one of the two members of it be true. On the other hand, one of the members may be true, and yet they may have no such natural connexion together as to warrant their being proposed as an alternative ; as " either Britain is an island, or a triangle is a square." Such a proposition would rather be called nugatory and absurd, than false ; since no false conclusion could be deduced from it ; as was remarked in the last section con- cerning such a Conditional as this might be reduced to: e.g. *' If Britain is not an island," &c. Such propositions are often collo- quially uttered in a kind of jest. If, therefore, one or more of these categoricals be denied [i.e. granted to be false) you may infer that the remaining one, or (if several) some one of the remaining ones, is true. B.G. " Either the world is eternal, or the work of chance, or the work of an intelli- gent Being; it is not eternal, nor the work of chance, therefore it is the work of an intelligent Being." *' It is either spring, summer, autumn, or winter ; but it is neither spring nor summer ; therefore it is either autumn or winter." Either A is B, or C is D ; but A is not B, therefore C is D. Observe, that in these examples (as well as in most others) it is implied not only that one of the members (the categorical Proposi- tions) must be true, but that only one can be true ; so that, in such cases, if one or more members be affirmed, the rest may be denied; Exclusive [the members may then be called exclusive:] e.g. "It is summer, di^unctives. ^}^(.j.gfQj.e it is neither spring, autumn, nor winter;" '* either A is B, or C is D ; but A is B, therefore C is not D." But this is by no means universally the case ; e.g. " Virtue tends to procure us either the esteem of mankind, or the favour of God:" here both members always affirmatiire. Chap. IV. § 5.] SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. 71 are true, and consequently from one being affirmed we are not authorized to deny the other. Of course we are left to conjecture in each case, from the context, whether it is meant to be implied that the members are or are not *' exclusive." It is evident that a disjunctive Syllogism may easily be reduced nisjunctivei to a conditional, by taking as an Antecedent the contradictory of one eonditionaL or more of the members : e.g. if it is not spring or summer, it is either autumn or winter, &c. It is to be observed of Hypothetical [compound] Propositions, Hypotheti- whether Conditional or Disjunctive, that they are always affirmative: propositions i.e. it is always affirmed, not denied, that the connexion between the several categorical members, denoted, respectively, by the conjunc- tions employed, does exist. Accordingly, the contradiction of any hypothetical proposition is not made by a hypothetical. If I assert that " if A is B, C is D," you might deny that, by saying " it does not follow that if A is B, C must be D;" or in some such expression. So the contradiction of this, "either A is B or C is D," would be "h J two categorical negatives; "neither is A, B, nor is C, D:" or, it is possible that neither A is B, nor C, D. The conjunctions "neither" and "nor," it should be observed, do not correspond in their nature with "either " and "or;" since these last are disjunc- tive, which the others are not. The Dilemma, §5, is a complex hind of Conditional Syllogism. The account usually given of the Dilemma in Logical treatises is singularly perplexed and unscientific. And it is remarkable that all the rules they usually give respecting it, and the faults against which they caution us, relate exclusively to the Subject-matter: as if one were to lay down as rules respecting a Syllogism in Barbara, "1st. Care must be taken that the major Premiss be true: 2dly. that the minor Premiss be true !" *. Most, if not all, writers on this point either omit to tell us whether the Dilemma is a kind of conditional, or of disjunctive argument; or else refer it to the latter class, on account of its having one disjunctive Premiss ; though it clearly belongs to the class of Con- ditionals. 1st. If you have in the major Premiss several antecedents all with the same consequent, then, these Antecedents, being (in the minor) disjunctively granted [i.e. it being granted that some one of them is true,) the one common consequent may be inferred, (as in the case of a simple Constructive Syllogism:) e.g. if A is B, C is D; and if X is Y, C is D; but either A is B, or X is Y: therefore C is D. "If the blest in heaven have no desires, they will be perfectly content : Diiemiuas. 72 SYNTHETICAL COMPENDIUM. [Book II. SO they will, if their desires are fully gratified; but either they will have no desires, or have them fully gratified ; therefore they will be cKAictive P^^'^^^% content." Note, in this case, the two Conditionals which Dilemma, make up the major Premiss may be united into one Proposition by means of the word ''whether:'' e.g. ** whether the blest, &c. have no desires, or have their desires gratified, they will be content." ?o ™tJuctive '^^' ^^* ^^ *^^^ several antecedents have each a different consequent. Dilemma, then the Antecedents, being, as before, disjunctively granted, you can only disjunctively infer the consequents: e.g. if A is B, C is D; and if X is Y, E is F; but either A is B, or X is Y; therefore either C is D, or E is F. ** If iEschines joined in the pubhc rejoicings, he is inconsistent; if he did not, he is unpatriotic: but he either joined, or not: therefore he is either inconsistent or unpatriotic."*^ This case, as well as the foregoing, is evidently constructive, tha^"aTln*\ In the Destructive form, whether you have one Antecedent with properly Several Consequents, or several Antecedents, either with one, or ' with several Consequents; in all these cases, if you deny the whole of the Consequent, or Consequents, you may in the conclusion deny the whole of the Antecedent or Antecedents : e.g. " If the world were eter- nal, the most useful arts, such as printing, &c. would be of unknown antiquity: and on the same supposition, there would be records long prior to the Mosaic; and likewise the sea and land, in all parts of the globe, might be expected to maintain the same relative situa- tions now as formerly : but none of these is the fact : therefore the world is not eternal." Again, " If the world existed from eternity, there would be records prior to the Mosaic; and if it were produced by chance, it would not bear marks of design : there are no records prior to the Mosaic: and the world does bear marks of design: therefore it neither existed from eternity, nor is the work of chance." These are sometimes called Dilemmas, but hardly differ from simple conditional Syllogisms; two or more being expressed together. Nor is the case different if you have one antecedent with several consequents, which consequents you disjunctively deny; for that comes to the same thing as wholly denying^them ; since if they be not all true, the one antecedent must equally fall to the ground ; and the Syllogism will be equally simple: e.g. ** If we admit the popular objections against Political Economy, we must admit that it tends to an excessive increase of wealth; and also, that it tends to impoverishment: but it cannot do both of these; {i.e. either not the one, or, not the other) therefore we cannot admit the popular objections," &c.; which is evidently a simple Destructive. The true Dilemma is, "a conditional Syllogism with several*^ antecedents in the major ^ and a disjunctive minor;'* hence, See Book IV. Chap. V. § 2. and Append. Art. " Same." 90 SUPPLEMENT TO CHAP. I. [Book II. distinct [i.e. separate] enumeration of several things signified by one common name." This operation is directly opposite to generalization, (which is performed by means of " Abstraction ;") for as, in that, you lay aside the differences by which several tilings are distinguished, so as to call them all by one common name, so, in Division, you add on the Differences, so as to enumerate them by their several distinct names. Thus, " mineral" is said to be divided into " stones, metals," &c.; and metals again into " gold, iron," (fee; and these are called the Parts [or members] of the division. Loiricai "Division," in its primary sense, means separating from each metapiiori- otlicr (either actually, or in enumeration) the parts of which some ^^n^-i° really-existing single object consists : as when you divide " an animal" (that is, any single animal) into its several members ; or again, into its "bones, muscles, nerves, blood-vessels," &c. And so, with any single Vegetable, &c. Now, each of the parts into which you thus "physically" (as it is called) divide " an animal," is strictly and properly a " part," and is really less than the whole : for you could not say of a bone, for instance, or of a limb, that it is " an Animal." But when you " divide" — in the secondary sense of the word (or, as it is called, " metaphysically") — " Animal," that is, the Genus ** Animal," into Beast, Bird, Fish, Reptile, Insect, &c. each of the parts [or " members"] is metaphorically called a " part," and is, in another sense, more than the whole [the Genus] that is thus divided. For you may say of a Beast or Bird that it is an " Animal ; ' ' and the term " Beast" implies not only the term " Animal," but something more besides; namely, whatever "Difference" chara/i' terizes " Beast," and separates it from " Bird," " Fish," &c. And so also any Singular-term [denoting one individual] implies not only the whole of what is understood by the Species it belongs to, but also more : namely, whatever distinguishes that single object from others of the same Species : as " London" implies all that is denoted by the term " City," and also all that distinguishes that individual-city. The " parts" ["members"] in that figurative sense with which we are now occupied, are each of them less than the wJiole, in another sense ; that is, of less comjDreliensive signification. Thus, the Singular-term " Romulus" embracing only an individual-king, is less extensive than the Species "King;" and that, again, less extensive than the Genus " Magistrate," &c. An " /^dividual" then is so called from its being incapable of being (in this figurative sense) divided. And though the two senses of the word " Division" are easily distinguishable when explained, it is so commonly employed in each sense, that through inattention, confusion often ensues. We speak as famiharly of the " division" of Mankind into the Chap. V. § 5.] SUPPLEMENT TO CHAP. I. 91 several races of *' Europeans, Tartars, Hindoos, Negroes," '* The maxim of ' abundans cautela which are put forth from time to time nocet nemini' is by no means a safe one under the authority of" Orders in Coun- if applied without'limitation. Itissome- cil," are illegal, and at variance with the times imprudent (and some of our "Act of Uniformity;" inasmuch as in Divines have, I think, committed this that Act (prefixed to our Prayer-books) imprudence) to attempt to 'make assur- not only is conformity to the Book ance doubly sure' by brinp-ing forward of Common-prayer enjoined, and no confirmatory reasons, which, though in authority to make alteiations or addi- themselves perlectly fair, may be inter- tions to the service recognised, but there preted unfairly, by'representing tlieai as is an Exception, which, it is maintained, an acknowledged indispensable founda- provesthe rule : the King in Council being tion ;— by assuming for instance, that an expressly authorized to insert and alter appeal to such and such of the ancient from time to time the " names of such of Fathers or Councils, in confirmation of the Royal-family as are to be prayed some doctrine or practice, is to be under- for :" which plainly implies that no other stood as an admission that it would fall to alterations made by that authority were the ground if not so confirmed."— iCiw^jf- contempiated as allowable. See "Ap- do/«o/C%ns<, Essay II. § 23, note. 100 SUPPLEMENi TO CHAP. I. [Book II. Acr-identai It often happens that one or more of the above rules is violated stlnc^* through men's proneness to introduce into their definitions, along mistaken for -with, or instead of, essential circumstances, such as are in the strict sense, accidental. I mean, that the notion they attach to each term, and the explanation they would give of it, shall embrace some circumstances, generally, hut not always, connected with the thing they are speaking of ; and which might, accordingly, (by the strict account of an " Accident") be ** absent or present, the essential character of the subject remaining the same." A definition framed from such circumstances, though of course incorrect, and likely at some time or other to mislead us, will not unfrequently obtain recep- tion, from its answering the purpose of a correct one, at a particular time and place. ** For instance, the Latin word Iferidies, to denote the soutfiern quarter, is etymologically suitable (and so would a definition founded on that etymology) in our hemisphere; while in the other, it would be found just the reverse. Or if any one should define the North Pole, that which is * inclined towards the sun,' this would, /or half the year, answer the purpose of a correct definition ; and would be the opposite of the truth for the other half. " Such glaring instances as these, which are never likely to occur in practice, serve best perhaps to illustrate the character of such mistakes as do occur. A specimen of that introduction of accidental circumstances which I have been describing, may be found, I think, in the language of a great number of writers, respecting Wealth and Value ; who have usually made Labour an essential ingredient in their definitions. Now it is true, it so happens, by the appointment of Providence, that valuable articles are in almost all instances obtained by Labour ; but still, this is an accidental, not an essential circumstance. If the aerolites which occasionally fall, were diamonds and pearls, and if these articles could be obtained in no other way, but were casually picked up, to the same amount as is now obtained by digging and diving, they would be of precisely the same value as now. In this, as in many other points in Political Economy, men are prone to confound cause and effect. It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men dive for them because they fetch a high price. "^ W Pol. Econ. Lect. IX. pj). 251—253. BOOK III. OF FALLACIES. Introduction, Although sundry instances of Fallacies have been from time to time noticed in the foregoing Books, it will be worth while to devote a more particular attention to the subject. By a Fallacy is commonly understood, ** any unsound mode of ^.?|!"\*'^'* • 1 • if ^ J 1 • X- J X 1 <*^ Fallacy, argumg, winch appears to demand our conviction, and to be decisive of the question in hand, when in fairness it is not." Con- sidering the ready detection and clear exposure of Fallacies to be both more extensively important, and also more difficult, than many are aware of, I propose to take a Logical view of the subject ; referring the different Fallacies to the most convenient heads, and giving a scientific analysis of the procedure which takes place in each. After all, indeed, in the practical detection of each individual Fallacy, much must depend on natural and acquired acuteness ; nor can any rules be given, the mere learning of which will enable us to apply them with mechanical certainty and readiness : but still we shall find that to take correct general views of the subject, and to be familiarized with scientific discussions of it, will tend, above all things, to engeiider such a haUt of mind^ as will best fit us for practice. Indeed the case is the same with respect to Logic in general. Scarcely any one would, in ordinary practice, state to himself either his own or another's reasoning, in Syllogisms in Barbara at full length ; yet a familiarity with Logical principles tends very much (as all feel, who are really well acquainted with them) to beget a habit of clear and sound reasoning. The truth is, in this, as in many other things, there are processes going on in the mind (when we are practising any thing quite familiar to us) with such rapidity as to leave no trace in the memory ; and we often apply principles which did not, as far as we are conscious, even occur to us at the time. It would be foreign, however, to the present purpose, to investi- J"ngu"™*J* gate fully the manner in which certain studies operate in remotely former producing certain effects on the mind : it is sufficient to establish the ^"^^^"^ fad, that habits of scientific analysis (besides the intrinsic beauty aud dignity of such studies) lead to practical advantage. It is oa 102 OF FALLACIES. [Book III. Logical principles therefore that I propose to discuss the subject of Fallacies ; and it may, indeed, seem to have been unnecessary to make any apology for so doing, after what has been formerly said, generally, in defence of Logic ; but that the generality of Logical writers have usually followed so opposite a plan. Whenever they have to treat of any thing that is beyond the mere elements of Logic, they totally lay aside all reference to the principles they have been occupied in establishing and explaining, and have recourse to a loose, vague, and popular kind of language ; such as would be the best suited indeed to an exoterical discourse, but seems strangely incongruous in a professed Logical treatise. What should we think of a Geometrical writer, who, after having gone through tne Elements, with strict definitions and demonstrations, should, on proceeding to Mechanics, totally lay aside all reference to scientific principles, — all use of technical terms, — and treat of the- subject in undefined terms, and with probable and popular argu- ments ? It would be thought strange, if even a Botanist, when addressing those whom he had been instructing in the principles and the terms of his system, should totally lay these aside when he came to describe plants, and should adopt the language of the vulgar. Surely it affords but too much plausibility to the cavils of those who scoff at Logic altogether, that the very writers who profess to teach it should never themselves make any application of, or reference to, its principles, on those very occasions, when, and when only, such application and reference are to be expected. If the principles of any system are well laid down, — if its technical language is judiciously framed, — then, surely, those principles and that language will afford (for those who have once thoroughly learned them) the best, the most clear, simple, and concise method of treating any subject connected with that system. Yet even winters generally acute, in treating of the Dilemma and of the Fallacies, have very much forgotten the Logician, and assumed a loose and rhetorical style of writing, without making any application of the principles they had formerly laid down, but, on the contrary, sometimes departing widely from them.^ The most experienced teachers, when addressing those who are familiar with the elementary principles of Logic, think it requisite, not indeed to lead them, on each occasion, through the whole detail of those principles, when the process is quite obvious, but always to put them on the road, as it were, to those principles, that they may plainly see their own way to the end, and take a scientific 1 Aldrich (and the same may be said of dictione," and "extra dictionem,") he several other writers) is far more con- observes of one or two of these last, that fused in his discussion of Fallacies than in they are not properly called Fallacies, as any other part of his treatise; of which not being Syllogisms faulty in form; this one instance may serve: after having (Syllogisimi forma peccantes:") as if any distinguished Fallacies into those in the one, that was such, could be " Fallacia ewpressiotit and those in the matter (" in extra dictionem." Intro.] OF FALLACIES. 103 riew of tlie siiLject: in the same manner as matliematlcal writers avoid indeed the occasional tediousness of going all through a very simple demonstration, which the learner, if he will, may easily supply ; hut yet always speak in strict mathematical language, and with reference to mathematical principles, though they do not always state them at full length. I would not profess, therefore, any more than they do, to write (on subjects connected with the science) in a language intelligible to those who are ignorant of its first rudiments. To do so, indeed, would imply that one was not taking a scientific view of the subject, nor availing one's-self of the principles that had been established, and the accm-ate and concise technical language that had been framed. The rules already given enable us to develop the principles on Mistakes as which all reasoning is conducted, whatever be the Subject-matter of Logic of it, and to ascertain the validity or fallaciousness of any apparent argument, as far as the form of expression is concerned ; that being alone the proper province of Logic. But it is evident that we may nevertheless remain liable to be deceived or perplexed in Argument by the assumption oi false or doubtful Premises, or by the employment of indistinct or ambiguous Terms; and, accordingly, many Logical writers, wishing to make their systems appear as perfect as possible, have undertaken to give rules " for attaining clear ideas," and for "guiding the judg- ment;" and fancying or professing themselves successful in this, have consistently enough denominated Logic, the " Art of using the Reason;" which in truth it would be, and would nearly super- sede all other studies, if it could of itself ascertain the meaning of every Term, and the truth or falsity of every Proposition; in the same manner as it actually can, the validity of every Argument, And they have been led into this, partly by the consideration that Logic is concerned about the *' three Operations" of the mind — simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Reasoning; not observing that it is not equally concerned about all : the last Operation being alone its appropriate province ; and the rest being treated of only in reference to that. The contempt justly due to such pretensions has most unjustly Discredit fallen on the Science itself; much in the same manner as Chemistry uporf Logic was brought into disrepute among the unthinking, by the extravagant pretensions of the Alchymists. And those Logical writers have been censured, not (as they should have been) for making such professions, but for not fulfilling them. It has been objected, especially, that the rules of Logic leave us still at a loss as to the most important and difficult point in reasoning ; viz. the ascertaining the sense of the terms employed, and removing their ambiguity: a complaint resembling that made (according to a story told by Warburton,^ and before alluded to) by a man who found fault 2 In his Div. Leg. 104 OF FALLACIES. [Book III. with all the reading-glasses presented to him by the shopkeeper ; the fact being that he had never learnt to read. In the present case, the complaint is the more unreasonable, inasmuch as there neither is, nor ever can 2^osslUy he, any such system devised as will effect the proposed object of clearing up the ambiguity of Terms. It is, however, no small advantage, that the rules of Logic, though they cannot, alone, ascertain and clear up ambiguity in any Term, yet do point out in which Term of an argument it is to be sought for : directing our attention to the 7niddle-Term, as the one on the ambiguity of which a Fallacy is likely to be built. It will be useful, however, to class and describe the different kinds of ambiguity which are to be met with ; and also the various ways in which the insertion of false, or, at least, unduly assumed. Premises, is most likely to elude observation. And though the remarks which will be offered on these points may not be considered as strictly forming a part of Logic, they cannot be thought out of place, when it is considered how essentially they are connected with the application of it. §1. Division of The division of Fallacies into those in the words (IN DICTIONE,) FaUacies. ^^^ ^^^^^ .^ ^^^ MATTER (EXTRA DICTIONEM) has not been, by any writers hitherto, grounded on any distinct principle: at least, not on any that they have themselves adhered to. The confounding together, however, of these two classes is highly detrimental to all clear notions concerning Logic ; being obviously allied to the prevailing erroneous views which make Logic the art of employing the intellectual faculties in general, having the discovery of truth for its object, and all kinds of knowledge for its proper subject-matter ; with all that train of vague and groundless specu- lations which have led to such interminable confusion and mistakes, and afforded a pretext for such clamorous censures. It is important, therefore, that rules should be given for a division of Fallacies into Logical and Non-logical, on such a prin- ciple as shall keep clear of all this indistinctness and perplexity. If any one should object, that the division about to be adopted is in some degree arbitrary, placing under the one head. Fallacies which many might be disposed to place under the other, let him consider not only the indistinctness of all former divisions, but the utter impossibility of framing any that shall be completely secure from the objection urged, in a case where men have formed such various and vague notions from the very want of some clear prin- ciple of division. Nay, from the elliptical form in which all reasoning is usually expressed, and the peculiarly involved and oblique form in which Fallacy is for the most part conveyed, it must of course be often a matter of doubt, or rather, of arbitrary choice, not only to which genus each kind of fallacy should be referred, but even to i 2.1 OF FALLACIES. 105 which kind to refer any one individuat Fallacy. For, since, in any indetermi- Argument, one Premiss is usually suppressed, it frequently happens, character of in the case of a Fallacy, that the hearers are left to the alternative ^^'ai^acies. of supplying either a Premiss which is not true, or else, one which does not prove the Conclusion. E.G. If a man expatiates on the distress of the country, and thence argues that the government is tyrannical, we must suppose him to assume either that " every distressed country is under a tyranny," which is a manifest false- hood, or, merely that " every country under a tyranny is distressed," which, however true, proves nothing, the Middle-term heing undistributed. Now, in the former case, the Fallacy would he referred to the head of *' extra dictionem ;" in the latter to that of "in dictione." Which are we to suppose the speaker meant us . to understand ? Surely just whichever each of his hearers might happen to prefer : some might assent to the false Premiss ; others, allow the unsound Syllogism ; to the Sophist himself it is indif- ferent, as long as they can hut he brought to admit the Conclusion. Without pretending, then, to conform to every one's mode of speaking on the subject, or to lay down rules which shall be in themselves (without any call for labour or skill in the person who employs them) readily applicable to, and decisive on, each individual case, I shall propose a division which is at least perfectly clear in its main principle, and coincides, perhaps, as nearly as possible, with the established notions of Logicians on the subject. §_2. In every Fallacy, the Conclusion either does, or does n/^t follow Lo?!cai from the Premises. Where the Conclusion does not follow from the '^' *"^'* Premises, it is manifest that the fault is in the Beasoning, and in that alone; these, therefore, we call Logical Fallacies,* as being properly, violations of those rules of Reasoning wliich it is the province of Logic to lay down. Of these, however, one kind are more purely Logical, as exhibiting their fallaciousness by the bare form of the expression, without any regard to the meaning of the Terms: to which class belong: 1st. Undistributed Middle; 2d. Illicit Process; 3d. Negative Premises, or Affirmative Conclusion from a Negative Premiss, and vice versa: to which may be added 4th. those which have palpably {i.e. expressed) more than three Terms. The other kind may be most properly called semi-logical; viz. all Semi-Loei- the cases of ambiguous middle-Term except its non-distribution: for ^^ though in such cases the conclusion does not follow, and though the rules of Logic show that it does not, as soon as the ambiguity of the middle-Term is ascertahied, yet the discovery and ascertainment of this ambiguity requires attention to the soise of tlie Term, and 3 In the samfe manner as we call that a criminal court in which crimes are judged. 106 OP FALLACIES. [Book III. ramiliarity ■with a term distinct from clear apprehen- sion of its meaning. Material Fallacies. knowledge of the Subject-matter; so that here, Logic teaches us not Jioiv to find the Fallacy, but only where to search for it, and on what principles to condemn it. Accordingly it has been made a subject of bitter complaint against Logic, that it presupposes the most difficult point to be already accomphshed, viz. the sense of the Terms to be ascertained. A similar objection might be urged against every other art in existence; e.g. against Agriculture, that all the precepts for tlie cultivation of land presuppose the possession of a farm ; or against Perspective, that its rules are useless to a blhid man. The objection is indeed peculiarly absurd when urged against Logic, because the object which it is blamed for not accomplishing cannot possibly be within the province of any ojie art whatever. Is it indeed possible or conceivable that there should be any method, science, or system, that should enable one to know the full and exact meaning of every term in existence? The utmost that can be done is to give some general rules that may assist us in this work; which is done in the first two chapters of Book IL* Nothing perhaps tends more to conceal from men their imperfect conception of the meaning of a term, than the circumstance of their being able fully to comprehend a process of reasoning in wliich it is involved, M^ithout attaching any distinct meaning at all to that term; as is evident when X Y Z are used to stand for Terms, in a regular Syllogism. Thus a man may be familiarized wdth a term, and never find himself at a loss from not comprehending it ; from which he will be very likely to infer that he does comprehend it, when perhaps he does not, but employs it vaguely and incorrectly; which leads to fallacious Reasoning and confusion. It must be owned, however, that many Logical writers have, in great measure, brought on them- selves the reproach in question, by calling Logic '* the right use of Reason," laying down *' rules for gaining clear ideas," and such-like d'hu^aviix, as Aristotle calls it; [Jxliet. Book I. Chap. II.) §3. The remaining class [viz. where the Conclusion does follow from the Premises) may be called the Material, or Non-logical Fallacies : of these there are two kinds ;^ 1st. when the Premises are such as ought not to have been assumed; 2d. when the conclusion is not the one required, but irrelevant; which Fallacy is commonly called 'Hgnoratio denchi,'' because your Argument is not the **elenchus " [i.e. proof of the contradictory) of your opponent's assertion, which it should be; but proves, instead of that, some other proposition resembling it. * The very author of the object" on says, " This (the comprehension of the meaning of g:eneral lerms) is a study which every individual must carry on for himself; and of which no rules of Logic (how useful soever they may he in direct- ing our labours) can supersede the neces- sity." D. Stewart, Phil. Vol. II. Chap. II. s. 2. « For it is manifest that the fault, if there be any, must be either 1st. in the Premises, or 2dly. in the Conclusion^ or 3dly. in the Connexion between them. 5 4.] OF FALLACIES. 107 Hence, since Logic defines what Contradiction is, some may choose rather to range this with the Logical Fallacies, as it seems, so far, to come mider the jurisdiction of that Art. Nevertheless, it is per- haps better to adhere to the original division, both on account of its clearness, and also because few would be inclined to apply to the Fallacy in question the accusation of being inconclusive, and conse- quently "illogical" reasoning; besides which, it seems an artificial and circuitous way of speaking, to suppose in all cases an opponent and a contradiction; the simple statement of the matter being this, — I am required, by the circumstances of the case, (no matter why) to prove a certain Conclusion ; I prove, not that, but one which is likely to be mistaken for it;^in this lies the Fallacy. It might be desirable therefore to lay aside the name of "ignoratio If^^^^y^*^ elenchi,'^ but that it is so generally adopted as to require some mention to be made of it. The other kind of Fallacies in the Matter will comprehend (as far as the vague and obscure language of Logical writers will allow us to conjecture) the fallacy of ''nx)n causa Non causa pro causa,'' and that of " petitio jyrincijm.'' Of these, the former is ^^° causa. by them distinguished into " a non vera pro vera,'' and " a non tali pro tali;'^ this last would appear to mean arguing from a case nx)t parallel as if it were so; which, in Logical language, is, having the suppressed Premiss false; for it is in that the parallelism is affirmed; and the '' non vera pro vera" will in like manner signify the expressed Premiss being false; so that this Fallacy will turn out to be, in plain terms, neither more nor less than falsity (or unfair assumption) of a Premiss. The remaining kind, " petitio prindpii," ["begging the question,"] Begging the takes place when one of the Premises (whether true or false) is either ^"^^ ^^"* plainly equivalent to the conclusion, or depends on that for its own reception. I have said " one of the Premises," because in all correct reasoning the two Premises taken together must imply and virtually assert the conclusion. It is not possible, however, to draw a precise line, generally, between this Fallacy and fair argument; since, to one person, that might be fair reasoning, which would be, to another, "begging the question;" inasmuch as, to the one, the Premiss might be more evident than the Conclusion; while, by the other, it would not be admitted, except as a consequence of the admission of the conclusion. The most plausible form of this Fallacy is arguing Arguing ia in a circle; and the greater the circle the harder to detect. §4. There is no Fallacy that may not properly be included under some of the foregoing heads : those which in the Logical treatises are separately enumerated, and contradistinguished from these, "being in reality instances of them, and therefore more properly enumerated in the subdivision thereof; as in the scheme annexed: — 108 OF FALLACIES. [Book IIL r ^ Si ^ 9 1-5 93 3 c U ^ 3 O c-S- .2 3 13 £ c s s a fi g,^« .=> 3 ^ a ^Ji .i?.3 s 2 o 2 fco L.O • t> a bo cS .S &C^ *S .S <» 1^ l-^i £^? ■|c£ a «j;.2 -rSi w — is §^ oo-^ bO U IS 's^ O^ .o a> c« S Logiea trictly, in \ot follow If cm 01 ^ 05 « .!S| :it- |3i S«^ L fe .1^ S2 »0 3 S S ■a P. esj <1> '■! ( 5,] OF FALLACIES. 10^ §5. On each of the Fallacies which have heen thus enumerated and distinguished, I propose to offer some more particular remarks ; hut hefore I proceed to this, it will he proper to premise two general ohservations, 1st. on the importance, and 2d. the difficulty, of detect- ing and describing Fallacies. Both have heen already shghtly alluded to ; hut it is requisite that they should here he somewhat more fully and distinctly set forth. 1st. It seems hy most persons to he taken for granted that a J^.^gTectin* Fallacy is to he dreaded merely as a weapon fashioned and wielded Fallacies. hy a skilful sophist ; or, if they allow that a man may with honest intentions slide into one unconsciously, in the heat of argument, still they seem to suppose that where there is no dispute, there is no cause to dread Fallacy ; whereas there is much danger, even in what may he called solitary reasoning, of sliding unawares into some Fallacy, hy which one may he so far deceived as even to act upon the conclusion thus obtained. By "solitary reasoning" I mean the case in which one is not seeking for arguments to prove a given question, hut labouring to elicit from one's previous stock of know- ledge some useful inference.^ To select one from innumerable examples that might he cited, influence of and of which some more will occur in the subsequent part of this thought*. essay; it is not improbable that many indiiferent sermons have heen produced by the ambiguity of the word *' plain.'' A young divine perceives the truth of the maxim, that **for the lower orders one's language cannot be too plain:'' [i.e. clear and perspicuous, so as to require no learning nor ingenuity to understand it,) and when he proceeds to practice, the word "plain" indistinctly flits before him, as it were, and often checks him in the use of ornamerds of style, such as metaphor, epithet, antithesis, (kc, which are opposed to ** plainness" in a totally different sense of the word; being by no means necessarily adverse to perspicuity, but rather, in many cases, conducive to it ; as may be seen in several of the clearest of our Lord's discourses, which are the very ones that are the most richly adorned with figurative language. So far indeed is an ornamented style from being unfit for the vulgar, that they are pleased with it even in excess. Yet the desire to be "plain," combined with that dim and confused notion which the ambiguity of the word produces in such as do not separate in their minds, and set before themselves, the two meanings, often causes them to write in a dry and bald style, which has no advantage in point of perspicuity, and is least of all suited to the taste of the vulgar. The above instance is not drawn from mere conjecture, but from actual experience of the fact. Another instance of the strong influence of words on our ideas may '^ See the diapter on " inferring and proving," (Book IV. Ch. III.) in the Disser- tation on tiie Province of Reasoning. 110 OF FALLACIES. [Book lU. be adduced from a widely different subject : most persons feel a certain degree of surprise on first bearing of tlie result of some late experi- ments of tbe Agricultural-Chemists, by which they have ascertained that universally what are called heavy soils are specifically th© lightest ; and vice versa. Whence this surprise ? for no one ever distinctly believed the established names to be used in the literal and primary sense, in consequence of the respective soils having been weighed together ; indeed it is obvious on a moment's reflection that tenacious day-soils (as w^ell as muddy roads) are figuratively called heavy, from the difficulty of ploughing, or passing over them, which produces an effect like that of bearing or dragging a heavy weight ; yet still the terms "light" and "heavy," though used figuratively, have most undoubtedly introduced into men's minds something of the ideas expressed by them in their primitive sense. The same words, when applied to articles of diet, have produced important errors ; many supposing some article of food to be light of digestion from its being specifically light. So true is the ingenious observation of Hobbes, that " words are the counters of wise men, and the money of fools." " Men imagine," says Bacon, *' that their minds have the command of Language ; but it often happens that Language bears rule over their mind." Some of the weak and absurd arguments which are often urged against Suicide may be traced to the influence of words on thoughts. When a Christian moralist is called on for a direct Scnpturol precept against suicide, instead of replying that the Bible is not meant for a complete code of laws, but for a system of motives dindi principles, the answer frequently given is, "thou shalt do no murder ;^^ and it is assumed in the arguments drawn from Reason, as well as in those from Revelation, that Suicide is a species of Murder ; vijZ. because it is called Belf-murder; and thus, deluded by a name, many are led to rest on an unsound argument ; which, like all other fallacies, does more harm than good, in the end, to the cause of truth. Suicide, if any one considers the nature and not the name of it, evidently wants the most essential characteristic of murder, viz. the hurt and injury done to one's neighbour, in depriving him of life, as well as to others by the insecurity they are in conse- quence liable to feel. And since no one can, strictly speaking, do injustice to himself, he cannot, in the literal and primary acceptation of the words, be said either to rob or to murder himself. He who deserts the post to which he is appointed by his great Master, and presumptuously cuts short the state of probation graciously allowed him for " working out his salvation," (whether by action or by patieni endurance,) is guilty indeed of a grievous sin, but of one not tlie least analogous in its character to murder. It impHes no inliumanity. It is much more closely allied to the sin of wasting life in indolence, or in trifling pursuits, — that life which is bestowed as a seed-time for the harveat of immortality. What is called in familiar phrase, §5.3 OF FALLACIES. Ill "killing time," is, in truth, an approach, as far as it goes, to the destruction of one's own life : for *' Time is the stuff life is made of." " Time destroyed Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt."— Young J More especially deserving of attention is the influence of Analogical Errors Terms in leading men into erroneous notions in Theology ; where the the^u"se of' most important terms are analogical ; and yet they are continually Jerm^^^*^*^ employed in Reasoning, Avithout due attention (oftener through want of caution than by unfair design) to their analogical nature ; and most of the errors into which theologians have fallen may he traced, in part, to this cause. ^ In speaking of the importance of refuting Fallacies, (under which Twofold name I include, as will be seen, any false assumption employed as a any faLe Premiss) this consideration ought not to be overlooked ; that an assumption, unsound Principle, which has been employed to establish some mischievously false Conclusion, does not at once become harmless, and too insignificant to be worth refuting, as soon as that Conclusion is given up, and the false Principle is no longer employed for that particular use. It may equally well lead to some other no less mis- chievous result. ** A false premiss, according as it is combined with this, or with that, true one, wdll lead to two different false conclusions. Thus, if the principle be admitted, that any important religious errors ought to be forcibly suppressed, this may lead either to per- secution on the one side, or to latitudinarian indifference on the other. Some may be led to justify the suppression of heresies by the civil sword ; and others, whose feelings revolt at such a procedure, and who see persecution reprobated and discountenanced by those around themj may be led by the same principle to regard religious errors as of little or no importance, and all religious persuasions as equally acceptable in the sight of God."* It ought however to be observed on the other hand, that such Over- effects are often attributed to some fallacy as it does not in fact pro- the effect uf duce. It shall have been perhaps triumphantly urged, and repeated faiS,cie8. again and again, and referred to by many as irrefragable ; and yet shall have never convinced any one ; but have been merely assented to by those already convinced. To many persons any two well-sounding phrases, which have a few words the same, and are in some manner connected with the same subject, will serve for Premiss and Conclu- sion : and when we hear a man profess to derive conviction from 7 It is surely wiser and safer to confine thing that can be urged ; to snatch up the ourselves to such arguments as will bear first weapon that comes to hand; ("furor the test of a close examination, than to arma mmistrat;") without waiting to resort to such as may indeed at the first consider what is TRUE, glance be more specious and appear 8 gee the notes to Ch, V. § 1 of theDia- stronger, but which, when exposed, will sertation subjoined, toooftenleaveamanadupetotne fallacies 5> See Essays, 3d Series, Ch. Y. { 2. on the opposite side. But it is especially p. 228. the error of controversialists to urge every 112 OF FALLACIES. [Book IIL such arguments, we are naturally disposed to regard his case as hopeless. But it will often happen that in reality his reasoning faculties shall have been totally dormant ; and equally so perhaps in another case, where he gives his assent to a process of sound reasoning, leading to a conclusion which he has already admitted. *' The puerile fallacies which you may sometimes hear a man adduce on some subjects, are perhaps in reality no more his own than the sound arguments he employs on others ; he may have given an indolent unthinking acquiescence to each ; and if he can be excited to exertion of thought, he may be very capable of dis- tinguishing the sound from the unsound." ^° Thus much, as to the extensive practical influence of Fallacies, and the consequent high importance of detecting and exposing them. §6. DiflRcuity of 2dly. The second remark is, that while sound reasoning is ever FaiSef. the more readily admitted, the more clearly it is perceived to be such, Fallacy, on the contrary, being rejected as soon as perceived, will, of course, be the more likely to obtain reception, the more it is obscured and disguised by obliquity and complexity of expression. It is thus that it is the most likely either to slip accidentally from the careless reasoner, or to be brought forward deliberately by the Sophist. Not that he ever wishes this obscurity and complexity to be perceived ; on the contrary, it is for his purpose that the expres- sion should appear as clear and simple as possible, while in reality it is the most tangled net he can contrive. Fallacies Thus, whercas it is usual to express our reasoning elliptically, so eiiipilcai ^ that a Premiss (or even two or three entire steps in a course of language, argument) which may be readily supplied, as being perfectly obvious, shall be left to be understood, the Sophist in like manner suppresses what is not obvious, but is in reality the weakest part of the argument : and uses every other contrivance to withdraw our attention (his art closely resembling the juggler's) from the quarter where the fallacy lies. Hence the uncertainty before mentioned, to which class any individual Fallacy is to be referred : and hence it is that the difficulty of detecting and exposing Fallacy, is so much greater than that of comprehending and developing a process of sound argument. It is like the detection and apprehension of a criminal in spite of all his arts of concealment and disguise ; when this is accomplished, and he is brought to trial with all the evidence of his guilt produced, his conviction and punishment are easy ; and this is precisely the case with those Fallacies which are given as examples in Logical treatises ; they are in fact already detected, by being stated in a plain and regular form, and are, as it Averc, only brought up to receive sentence. Or again, fallacious reasoning may » Pol. Econ. Lect. I. p. 15 5 6] OF FALLACIES. 113 be compared to a perplexed and entangled mass of accounts, which it requires much sagacity and close attention to clear up, and display in a regular and intelligible form ; though when this is once accomplished, the whole appears so perfectly simple, that the unthinking are apt to imdervalue the skill and pains which have been employed upon it. Moreover, it should be remembered, that a very long discussion ^o^^^^'f^^^ is one of the most effectual veils of Fallacy. Sophistry, like poison, lengthy is at once detected, and nauseated, when presented to us in a con- ^^"^"^^^o"* centrated form ; but a Fallacy which when stated barely, in a few sentences, would not deceive a child, may deceive half the world, if diluted in a quarto volume. For, as in a calculation, one single figure incorrectly stated will enable us to arrive at any result what- ever, though every other figure, and the whole of the operations, be correct, so, a single false assumption in any process of reasoning, though every other be true, will enable us to draw what conclusion we please ; and the greater the number of true assumptions, the more likely it is that the false one will pass unnoticed. But when you single out one step in the course of the reasoning, and exhibit it as a Syllogism with one Premiss true and the other false, the sophistry is easily perceived. I have seen a long argument to prove that the potato is not a cheap article of food ; in which there was an elaborate, and perhaps correct, calculation of the produce per acre, of potatoes, and of wheat, — the quantity lost in bran — expense of grinding, dressing, kc, and an assumption slipped in, as it were incidentally, that a given quantity of potatoes contains hut one-tenih part ofnvirUive matter equal to bread: from all which (and there is probably but one groundless assertion in the whole) a most trium- phant result was deduced." To use another illustration ; it is true in a course of argument, as in Mechanics, that "nothing is stronger than its weakest part;" and consequently a chain which has ons faulty link will break ; but though the number of the sound links adds nothing to the strength of the chain, it adds much to the chance oi the faulty one's escaping observation. In such cases as I have been alluding to, one may often hear it observed that " there is a great deal of truth in what such a one has said:" i.e. perhaps it is all true, except one essential '. point. To speak, therefore, of all the Fallacies that have ever been Error of enumerated as too glaring and obvious to need even being men- au'rafiacies tioned, because the simple instances given in logical treatises, and detectloru °* 11 This, however, gained the undoubt- unblushing assertors of falsehood seem to iiig assent of a Review by no means have a race of easy believers provided on friendly to the author, and usually noted purpose for their use : men \vho will not more for scepticism than for ready indeed believe the best established truths assent! "All things," says an apocry- of religion, but are ready to believe any phal writer, "are double, one against thing else, another, and nothing is made in vain :" 114 OF FALLACIES. [Book IH. there stated in the plainest and consequently most easily detected form, are such as would (in that form) deceive no one ; — this, surely, shows extreme weakness, or else unfairness. It may readily he allowed, indeed, that to detect individual Fallacies, and bring them under the general rules, is a harder task than to lay down those general rules ; hut this does not prove that the latter office is trifling or useless, or that it does not essentially conduce to the performance of the other. There may be more ingenuity shown in detecting and arresting a malefactor, and convicting him of the fact, than in laying down a law for the trial and punishment of such persons ; hut the latter office, i.e. that of a legislator, is surely neither unnecessary nor trifling. It should he added that a close observation and Logical analysis of Fallacious arguments, as it tends (according to what has been already said) to form a habit of mind well suited for the practical detection of Fallacies ; so, for that very reason, it will make us the more careful in making allowance for them : i.e. to bear in mind how much men in general are liable to be influenced by them. £J. G.Arefuled argument ought to go for nothing, (except where there is some ground for assuming that no stronger one could be adduced :)^^ but in fact it will generally prove detrimental to the cause, from the Fallacy which wiU be presently explained. Now, no one is more likely to be practically aware of this, and to take precautions accordingly, than he who is most versed in the whole theory of Fallacies ; for the best Logician is the least likely to calculate on men in general being such. §7. 0/ Fallacies inform, enough perhaps has already been said in the preceding Compendium : and it has been remarked above, that it is often left to our choice to refer an individual Fallacy to this head or to another. It may be worth observing, however, that to the present class we may the most conveniently refer those Fallacies, so common in practice, of supposing the Conclusion false, because the Premiss is false, or because the Argument is unsound ; and of inferring the truth of the Premiss from that of the Conclusion. E.G. If any one argues for the existence of a God, from its being universally believed, a man might perhaps be able to refute the argument by producing an instance of some nation destitute of such belief; the argument ought then (as has been observed above) io go for nothing: but many would go further, and think that this refutation had disproved the existence of a God; in which they would be guilty >» See Essay II. on Kingdom of Christ, § 22, note. §8.] OF FALLACIES. 115 of an illicit process of the Major-term: viz. *' whatever is univer- sally believed must be true ; the existence of a God is not univer- sally believed; therefore it is not true." Others again, from being convinced of the truth of the Conclusion, would infer that of the Premises ; which would amount to the Fallacy of an undistributed Middle: viz. "what is universally believed is true; the existence of a God is true; therefore it is universally believed. " Or, these Fallacies might be stated in the hypothetical form ; since the one evidently proceeds from the denial of the Antecedent to the denial of the Consequent; and the other from the establishing of the Consequent to the inferring of the Antecedent ; which two Fallacies will usually be found to correspond respectively with those of Illicit process of the major, and Undistributed Middle. Fallacies of this class are very much kept out of sight, being ''*^ 26. § 12.] OF FALLACIES. 131 other:" the loradicdl conckision which they draw, is, that all charity may be dispensed with. As men are apt to forget that any two circumstances (not natm'ally connected) are more rarely to be met with combined than separate, though they be not at all incompatible; so also they are apt to imagine, from finding that they are rarely combined, that there is an incompatibility ; e.g. if the chances are ten to one against a man's possessing strong reasoning powers, and ten to one against exquisite taste, the chances against the combination of the two (supposing them neither connected nor opposed) will be a hundred to one. Many, therefore, from finding them so rarely united, will infer that they are "in some measure incompatible ; which Fallacy may easily be exposed in the form of Undistributed middle : " qualities unfriendly to each other are rarely combined ; excellence in the reasoning powers, and in taste, are rarely combined ; therefore they are qualities unfriendly to each other. § 12. The other kind of ambiguity arising from the context, and which Faiiacfa is the last case of Ambiguous middle that I shall notice, is the **fallacia accidentis: " together with its converse, "fallacia a dido secundum quid ad didum simpliciter; " in each of which the Middle- Term is used, in one Premiss to signify something considered simply, in itself, and as to its essence ; and in the other Premiss, so as to , ,^ imply that its Accidents are taken into account with it : as in the y-*-^ ■ '^ well-known example, " what is bought in the^ market is eaten; raw meat is bought in the market; therefore raw meat is eaten." Here the Middle has understood in conjunction with it, in the Major- Premiss, " The converse fallacy is treated of buted to him by some one likely to be below in § 18. pretty well-informed: let the probability When there really are several distinct of the Conclusion, as deduced from one and independent arguments, not incom- of these arguments by itself, be supposed patible, and not connected, each separ- | ^nd, in the other case f ; then the op- ately provmg the probability ot the same . ' , , .,• • -n v. i.- i conclusion, we compute, from our esti- ^^^'^^ probabihties will be, respectively, mate of the degree of probability of each, -f and t; which multiplied together give the joint [cumulafivel force of them, by |2 ^ ^^^ probability against the Con- the same sort ot calculation as the above, ^.jusion ; i.e. the chance that the work only reversed: viz. as, in the ca^e oi two ^lay noi be his, notwithstanding those probable premises the conclusion is not i-easons for believing that it is: and con- estabhslied except on the supposition ot sequently the probability in favour of their being both true, so, in the case of ^, \ ^ , • -n i. 23 , « - two (and the like holds good with any that Conclusion will be ^5; or nearly *.• number) distinct and independent indi- Observe however that, in some cases, cations of the truth of some proposition, a perfectly distinct argument arises from unless both of them fail, the proposition the combination of certain circumstances, must be true: we therefore multiply which have, each separately, no force at together the fractions indicating the pro- all, or very little, towards estabhshing a bability of /ai7z«-e of each,— the chances conclusion which yet may be inferred, o^atV/sMt;— and the result being the total perhaps with a moral certainty, from chances against the establishment of the that combination, when those circum- conclusion by these arguments, this stances are such that the chances are very fraction being deducted from unity, the great against their accidental concur- remainder gives the probability for it. rence. jB.O.When two or more pei-sons, E.G. A certain book is conjectured to be undeserving of credit, coincide (where by such and such an author, partly, 1st. collusion would be impossible) in a full from its resemblance in style to his known and circumstantial detail of some trans- works, partly (2dly) from its being attri- action. (See Rhet. Part. I. Ch. H. § 4.) • See Postscript. HO OF FALLACIES. [Book III. Combina- tion of this Fallacy with the foregoing. Sophist lias drawn, answer, practically, tlie same purpose as the one he ought to have estabhshed. I say, " practically the same pur- pose," because it will very often happen that some emotion will be excited — some sentiment impressed on the mind — (by a dexterous employment of this Fallacy) such as shall bring men into the disposition requisite for your purpose, though they may not have assented to, or even stated distinctly in their own minds, the pro- jposition which it was your business to establish.^ Thus if a Sophist has to defend one who has been guilty of some serious offence, which he wishes to extenuate, though he is unable distinctly to prove that it is not such, yet if he can succeed mmaJcing the audience laugh at some casual matter, he has gained practically tha same point. So also if any one has pointed out the extenuating circumstances in some particular case of offence, so as to show that it differs widely from the generality of the same class, the Sophist, if he find himself unable to disprove these circumstances, may do away the force of them, by simply referring the action to that very class, which no one can deny that it belongs to, and the very name of w^hich will excite a feeling of disgust sufficient to counteract the extenuation ; e.g. let it be a case of peculation ; and that many mitigating circumstances have been brought forward which cannot be denied, the sophistical opponent will repl}^ *' Well, but after all, the man is a rogue, and there is an end of it;" now in reality this was (by hypothesis) never the question ; and the mere assertion of what was never denied, ougld not, in fairness, to be regarded as decisive; but practically, the odiousness of the word, arising in great measure from the association of those very circumstances which belong to most of the class, but which we have supposed to be absent in this particular instance, excites precisely that feeling of disgust, which in effect destroys the force of the defence. In like manner we may refer to this head, all cases of improper appeals to the pas- sions, and every thing else which is mentioned by Aristotle as extraneous to the matter in hand {l^a rov 'Trpu.yfiurog.) In all these cases, as has been before observed, if the fallacy we are now treating of be employed for the apparent establishment, not of the ultimate Conclusion, but (as it very commonly happens) of a Premiss, {i.e. if the Premiss required be assumed on the ground that some proposition resembling it has been proved) then there will be a combination of this Fallacy with the last mentioned. For instance, instead of proving that ** this Prisoner has com- mitted an atrocious fraud," you prove that ** the fraud he is accused of is atrocious:" instead of proving (as in the well-known tale of Cyrus and the two coats) that " the taller boy had a right to force the other boy to exchange coats with him," you prove that **the « See Rhetoric, Part II. 5 lo.l OF FALLACIES. 141 exchange m'OuW have been advantageous to both:" Instead of prov- ing mat '• a man has not a right to educate his children or to dispose of lAs* property, in the way he thinks best,'' you show that the way in which he educates his children, or disposes of his property is not really the best: instead of proving that *' the poor ought to be reheved in this Avay rather than in that," you prove that " the poor ought to be relieved:'' instead of proving that " an irrational-agent — whether a brute or a madman — can never be deterred from any act by apprehension of punishment," (as for instance, a dog, from sheep- biting, by fear of being beaten) you prove that '* the beating of one dog does not operate as an example to other dogs," &,g. and then you proceed to assume as premises, conclusions different from what have really been established. A good instance of the employment and exposure of this Fallacy occurs in Thucydides, in the speeches of Cleon and Diodotus con- cerning the Mitylenseans : 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 m judgment, but in deliberation; of which the proper end is expedie'ticy. And to prove that they had a right to put them to death, did not prove this to be an advisoLle step. It is evident, that ignoi^aiio elenchi may be employed as well for This fallacy the apparent refutation of your opponent's proposition, as for the ?efutatior. apparent establishment of your own ; for it is substantially the same thing, to prove what was not denied, or to disprove what was not asserted. The latter practice is not less common ; and it is more offensive, because it frequently amounts to a personal affront, in attributing to a person opinions, &c. which he perhaps holds in abhorrence. Thus, when in a discussion one party vindicates, on the ground of general expediency, a particular instance of resistance to Government in a case of intolerable oppression, the opponent may gravely maintain, that "we ought not to do evil that good may come:" a proposition which of course had never been denied; the point in dispute being " whether resistance in this particular case were doing evil or not." Or again, by way of disproving the assertion of the " 7igM of private-judgment in religion," one may hear a grave argument to prove that "it is impossible every one can be right in his judgment." In these examples, it is to be remarked, (as well as in some given just above,) that the Fallacy of petitlo principli is combined with that of ignoratio elenchi ; which is a very common and often successful practice ; viz. the Sophist proves, or disproves, not the proposition which is really in question, but one which is so dependent on it as to proceed on the supposition that it is already decided, and can admit of no doubt ; by this means his ** assumption of the point in question" is so indirect and oblique, that it may easily escape notice ; and he thus estabhshes, practi- 142 OF FALLACIES. [Book III, tuiii ad houunem, Technical analysis or personal argument, cally, his Conclusion, at tlie very moment he is witlidrawivg y'.ur attention from it to another question. E.G. An advocate will prove, and dwell on the high criminality of a certain act, and the propriety of severely punishing it; assuming (instead of proving) the commission. There are certain kinds of argument recounted and named hy Logical writers, which we should by no means universally call Fallacies ; but which luhen unfairly used, and so far as they are fallacious, may very well be referred to the present head ; such as the " argumentumad hominem,'' ["or personal argument,"] " argil- mentum ad verecundiam/' " argumentum ad populum," &c. all of them regarded as contradistinguished from '' argumentum ad rem ;'^ or, according to others (meaning probably the very same thing) *' ad judicium.'' These have all been described in the lax and popular language before alluded to, but not scientifically: the " argumentum ad hominem,'' they say, *' is addressed to the peculiar circumstances, character, avowed opinions, or past conduct of the individual, and therefore has a reference to him only, and does not bear directly and absolutely on the real question, as the ' argumen- tum ad rem' does:" in like manner, the ''argumentum ad verecun- diam" is described as an appeal to our reverence for some respected authority, some venerable institution, &c. and the ''argumentum ad popidum," as an appeal to the prejudices, passions, (7/caZ Discoveries;" since whatever is Logical estabhshed by Reasoning must have been contained and virtually ^^''^^"®* asserted in the Premises. In answer to this, I would say, that they certainly do belong to the latter class, relcdively to a person who is in 2^ossession of tfie data: but to him Avho is not, they are New Truths of the other class. For it is to be remembered, that the words ** Discovery" and "New Truths" are necessarily relative. There may be a proposition which is to one person completel}'" A-?io?/;?z; to another {viz. one to whom it has never occurred, though he is in possession of all the data from which it may be proved) it will be (when he comes to perceive it, by a process of instruction) what we have called a Logical Discovery: to a third {viz. one who is ignorant of these data) it will be absolutely iinkrtown, and will have been, when made known to him, a perfectly and properly New Truth, — a piece of information, — a Physical Discovery, as we have called it.^^ To the Philosopher, therefore, who arrives at the Discovery by reasoning from his observations, and from established principles combined with them, the Discovery is of the former class ; to the multitude, probably of tlie latter; as tliey will have been most likely not possessed of all his data. § 3. It follows from what has been said, that in pure Mathematics, ciiaracter of and in such Ethical propositions as we were lately speaking of, we truths, do not allow the possibility of any but a Logical Discovery : i.e. no proposition of that class can be true, which was not implied in the Definitions and Axioms we set out with, which are the first prin- ciples. For since the propositions do not profess to state any fact, the only truth they can possess, consists in conformity to the original principles. To one, therefore, wdio knows these principles, such propositions are Truths already implied ; since they may be M Polit. Econ. Lect. IX. p. 236. fully convinced of any thing that is not 1' It may be worth while in this place true, he is mistaken in supposing himself to define what is properly to be called to know it; lastly, if two persons are each Knoioledge: it implies three things; 1st, fully confident, one that the moon is in- firm belief, 2dly, oi what is true, 3dly, on habited, and the other that it is not, sufficient (jrounds. If any one, e.Q. is in (though one of these opinions must be do^ibt respecting one of Eu(riid's demon- true) neither of them could properly be strations, he cannot be said to kno^v the said to knoiv the truth, since he cannot proposition proved by it; if, again, he is have sufficient j^rot/ of it. 166 ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING. [Book IV. developed to him by Reasoning, if he is not defective in the dis- cursive faculty ; and again, to one who does not understand those principles [i.e. is not master of the Definitions) such propositions are, so far unmeaning. On the other hand, propositions relating to matters of fact, may he, indeed, implied in what he already knew ; (as he who knows the climate of the Alps, the Andes, &c. ersons. of all the Premises from which they are deduced; but being, to the multitude^ who are unacquainted with many of those Premises) strictly " New Truths," hence it is, that men in general give to the general facts, and to them, most peculiarly, the name of Dis- coveries; for to themselves they are such, in the strictest sense ; the Premises from which they were inferred being not only originally unknown to them, but frequently remaining unknown to the voy last. E.G. The general conclusion concerning cattle, which Bake- well made known, is what most Agriculturists (and many others also) are acquainted with ; but the JPremises he set out with, viz. the facts respecting this, that, and the other, individual ox, (the ascertainment of which facts was his first Discovery,) these are what few know, or care to know, with any exact particularity. Chap. II. § 4.] ON THE PROVINCE OF REASON'ING. 169 And it may be added, tliat these discoveries of particular facts, obseryation wliicli are tlie immediate result of observation, are, in themselves, experiment uninteresting and insignificant, till they are comhined so as to lead to a grand general result. Those who on each occasion watched the motions, and registered the times of occupation, of Jupiter's satellites, little thought, perhaps, tliemselves, what important results they Avere preparing the way for.^^ So that there is an additional cause which has confined the term Discovery to these grand general conclusions ; and, as was just observed, they are, to the generality of men, perfectly New Truths in the strictest sense of the word; not being implied in any previous knowledge they possessed. Very often it will happen, indeed, that the conclusion thus drawn will amount only to a probable conjecture; which con- jecture will dictate to the inquirer such an experiment, or course of experiments, as will fully establish the fact. Thus Sir H. Davy, from finding that the flame of hydrogen gas was not communicated through a long slender tube, conjectured that a shorter but still slenderer tube would answer the same purpose ; this led him to try the experiments, in which, by continually shortening the tube, and at the same time lessening its bore, he arrived at last at the wire- gauze of his safety-lamp. It is to be observed also, that whatever credit is conveyed by the word " Discovery," to him who is regarded as the author of it, is well deserved by those who skilfully select and combine known Truths {especially such as have been long and generally known) so as to elicit important, and hitherto unthought-of, conclusions. Theirs is the master-mind: — xo-^iTtKroutic'^^ (p^ovmi;: whereas men of very inferior powers may sometimes, by immediate observation, discover perfectly new facts, empirically ; and thus be of service in furnishing materials to the others ; to whom they stand in the same relation (to recur to a former illustration) as the brickmaker or stonequarrier to the architect. It is peculiarly creditable to Adam Smith, and to ]\Ialthus, that the data from which they drew such important Conclusions had been in every one's hands for centuries. As for Mathematical Discoveries, they (as we have before said) must always be of the description to which we have given the name of " Logical Discoveries; " since to him who properly comprehends the meaning of the Mathematical terms (and to no other are the Truths themselves, properly speaking, intelligible) those results are implied in his previous knowledge, since they are logically deducible therefrom. It is not, however, meant to be implied, that Mathema- tical Discoveries are effected by pure Reasoning, and by that singly. For though there is not here, as in Physics, any exercise of judg- ment as to the degree of evidence of the Premises, nor any experi- ments and observations, yet there is the same call for skill in the 15 Hence, Bacon m-^ci as to pursue Truth, without always requiring to perceive its practical application. 170 ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING, [Book IV. Jperations connected with Reasoning. MatTiemati- cal and other Keasoning. selection and combination of tlie Premises in such a manner as shall be best calculated to lead to a new, — that is, unperceived and unthought-of — C onclusion . In following, indeed, and talcing in a demonstration, nothing is called for but pure Reasoning ; but the assumption of Premises is not a part of Reasoning, in the strict and technical sense of that term. Accordingly, there are many who can follow a Mathematical demonstration, or any other train of argument, who would not succeed well in framing one of their own.^* §5. For both kinds of Discovery then, the Logical, as well as the Physical, certain operations are requisite, beyond those which can fairly be comprehended under the strict sense of the word " Rea- soning." In the Logical, is required a skilful selection and combina- tion of known Truths: in the Physical, we must employ, in addition (generally speaking) to that process, observation and experiment. It will generally happen, that in the study of nature, and, univer- sally, in all that relates to matters of fact, both kinds of investigation will be united: i.e. some of the facts or principles you reason from as Premises, must be ascertained by observation; or, as in the case of the safety-lamp, the ultimate Conclusion will need confirmation from experience ; so that both Physical and Logical Discovery will take place in the course of the same process. We need not, therefore, wonder, that the two are so perpetually confounded. In Mathematics, on the other hand, and in great part of the discus- sions relating to Ethics and Jurisprudence, there being no room for any Physical Discovery whatever, we have only to make a skilful use of the propositions in cm* possession, to arrive at every attainable result. The investigation, however, of the latter class of subjects differs in other points also from that of the former. For, setting aside the circumstance of our having, in these, no question as to facts, — no room for observation, — there is also a considerable difference in what may be called, in both instances, the process of Logical inves- tigation; the Premises on which we proceed being of so different a nature in the two cases. To take the example of Mathematics, the Definitions, which are the principles of our Reasoning, are very few, and the Axioms still fewer ; and both are, for the most part, laid down, and placed before the student in the outset; the introduction of a new Definition or Axiom, being of comparatively rare occurrence, at wide intervals, and with a formal statement ; besides which, there is no room for doubt concerning either. On the other hand, in all Reasonings which regard matters of fact, we introduce almost at every step, JO Hence, the Student niust not confine ment, if he will truly become a Mathe- himself to this passive kind of employ- matician. Chap. ir. §5.] ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONINa. 171 fresh and fresh propositions (to a very great number) which had nofc been elicited in the course of our Reasoning, but are taken for granted; viz. facts, and Laws of Nature, which are here the principles of our Reasoning, and maxims, or " elements of belief," which answer to the axioms in Mathematics. If, at the opening of a Treatise, for example, on Chemistry, on Agriculture, on Political- Economy, &c. the author should make, as in Mathematics, a formal statement of all the propositions he intended to assume as granted, throughout the whole work, both he and his readers would be astonished at the number; and, of these, many would be only probable, and there would be much room for dcubt as to the degree of probability, and for judgment in ascertaining that degree. Moreover, Mathematical axioms are always employed precisely in the same simple form; e.g. the axiom that " the things equal to the same are equal to one another," is cited, whenever there is need, in those very words ; whereas the maxims employed in the other class of subjects, admit of, and require, continual modifications in the application of them. E.G. " The stability of the laws of Nature,'* which is our constant assumption in inquiries relating to Natural- philosophy, appears in many different shapes, and in some of them does not possess the same complete certainty as in others ; e.g. when, from having always observed a certain sheep ruminating, we infer, that this individual sheep will continue to ruminate, we assume that " the property which has hitherto belonged to this sheep will remain unchanged;" when we infer the same property of all sheep, we assume that **the property which belongs to this individual belongs to the whole species;" if, on comparing sheep with some other kinds of horned animals, ^'^ and finding that all agree in ruminating, we infer that " all horned animals ruminate," we assume that " the whole of a genus or class are likely to agree in any point wherein many species of that genus agree :" or in other words, " that if one of two properties, kc. has often been found accompanied by another, and never without it, the former will be universally accompanied by the latter:" now all these are merely diiferent forms of the maxim, that "nature is uniform in her operations," which, it is evident, varies in expression in almost every different case where it is applied, and the application of which admits of every degree of evidence, from perfect moral certainty, to mere conjecture. ^^ The same may be said of an infinite number of principles and maxims appropriated to, and employed in, each particular branch of study. Hence, all such reasonings are, in comparison of Mathe- matics, very complex; requiring so much more than that does, beyond the process of merely deducing the conclusion logically from the premises : so that it is no wonder that the longest Mathematical 17 Fix. havinAINETAI f^iv ofjcoiut TtK erx*}/^ecTi r^i ^pecrviyepiocs roSt ri e-rjju.ecivii)/, erctv ii^y;, cttdpaivoi, r, 'Cuov' OT MHN TE AAH0E2- iXXa /axXXov HOION TI (rr,fz,xini. X. r. X. Aristotle, Caleg. § 3. See Appendix, Art. " Same." There is however a continual danger of sliding into Realism inadvertenUy, unless one is continually on the watch against it: of which Aristotle as well as many other writers not deliberately holding the doc- trine, furnish instances. ^ See 13ook II. Chap. V. § 1. Chap. V. § 1.] ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING. 183 by us, but must be sometliing real, unalterable, and independent of our thoughts. Caesar or Socrates, for instance, it may be said, must belong — different as they may be — to the Species Man, and can belong to no other ; and the like, with any individual Brute, or Plant : e.g. a horned and a hornless sheep every naturalist would regard as belonging to the same Species. On the other hand, if any one utters such a proposition as " this apple-tree is a codlin ;" — " this dog is a spaniel ;" — '* Argus was a mastiff," to what head of Predicables would such a Predicate be referred ? Surely our logical principles would lead us to answer, that it is the ^loecies; since it could hardly be called an Accident, and is manifestly no other Predicable. And yet every Naturalist would at once pronounce that Mastiff is no distinct Species, but only a variety of the Species Dog. This, however, does not satisfy our inquiry as to the head of Predicables to which it is to be referred. It should seem at first sight as if one needed, in the case of organized Beings, an additional head of predicables to be called "Variety" or **Race." The solution of the difficulty is to be found in the consideration of the peculiar technical sense [or *' second intention"] of the word "Species" when applied to organized Beings: in which case it is specie^ always applied (when we are speaking strictly, as naturalists) to guished by such individuals as are supposed to be descended from a common ^J^*^*^^^** stock, or which might have so descended ; viz. which resemble one variety, another (to use M. Cuvier's expression) as much as those of the same stock do. Now this being a point on which all (not merely Naturalists) are agreed, and since it is a fact, (whether an ascer- Questions of tained fact or not) that certain individuals are, or are not, thus qu^esUons o/ connected, it follows, that every question whether a certain individual »rrange- Animal or Plant belongs to a certain Species or not, is a question not of mere arrangement, but of fact. But in the case of questions respecting Genus, it is otherwise. If, e.g. two Naturalists differed, in the one placing (as Linnasus) all the Species of Bee under one Genus, which the other subdivided (as later writers have done) into several genera, it would be evident that there was no question of fact debated between them, and that it was only to be considered which was the more convenient arrangement. If, on the other hand, it were disputed whether the African and the Asiatic Elephant are distinct Species, or merely Varieties, it would be equally manifest that the question is one of fact ; since both would allow that if they are descended (or might have descended) from the same stock, they are of the same Species ; and if otherwise, of two : this is the fact, which they endeavour to ascertain, by such indications as are to be found. For it is 'to be further observed, that this fact being one which can seldom be directly known, the consequence is, that the marks by which any Species of Animal or Plant is known, are not the very ]84 ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING. [Book IV. Mark by •which a Species is known not always the DiU'erentia. A-rbipuity of the words *' dame,'* **Oiie."&c. Differentia wliicli constitutes that Species. Now, in the case of tiiiorganized Beings, these two coincide ; the marks by which a Diamond, e.g. is distinguished from other minerals, heing the very Differentia that constitutes the Species Diamond. And the same is the case in the Genera even of organized Beings: the Linnsean Genus "fehs," e.g. (when considered as a Species, i.e. as falhng under some more comprehensive Class) is distinguished from others under the same Order, by those very marks which constitute its Differentia. But in the *' Infimse Species" (according to the view of a Naturalist) of plants and animals, this, as has been said, is not the case ; since here the Differentia which constitutes each Species includes in it a circumstance which cannot often be directly ascer- tained [viz. the being sprung from the same stock), but which we conjecture, from certain circumstances of resemblance ; so that the marks by which a Species is known, are not in truth the whole of the Differentia itself, but indications of the existence of that Differentia ; viz. indications of descent from a common stock. There are a few, and but a few, other Species to which the same observations will in a great degree apply: I mean in which the Differentia which constitutes the Species, and the marh by which the Species is known, are not the same : e.g. " Murder:" the Differentia of which is that it be committed "with malice aforethought;" this cannot be directly ascertained ; and therefore we distinguish murder from any other homicide by circumstances of preparation, &c., which are not in reality the Differentia, but indications of the Differentia ; i.e. grounds for concluding that the malice did exist. Hence it is that Species, in the case of organized Beings, and also in a few other cases, have the appearance of being some real things, independent of our thoughts and language. And hence, naturally enough, the same notions have been often extended to the Genera also, and to Species of other things: so that men have a notion that each individual of every description truly belongs to some one Species and no other : and each Species, in like manner, to some one Genus ; whether we happen to be right or not in the ones to which we refer them. Few, if any indeed, in the present day avow and maintain this doctrine: but those who are not especially on their guard, are perpetually sliding into it unawares. Nothing so much conduces to the error of Realism as the trans- ferred and secondary use of the words **same,"^^ "one and the same," "identical," &c. when it is not clearly perceived and care- fully borne in mind, that they are employed in a secondary sense, and that, more frequently even than in the primary. Suppose e.g. a thousand persons are thinking of the Sun: it is evident it is one and the same individual object on whith all these so See Appendix, No. I. Art. " Same." Chap. V. § 1.] ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING. 185 minds are employed. So far all is clear. But suppose all these persons are thinking of a Triangle ;— not any individual triangle, but Triangle in general ; — and considering, perhaps, the equality of ita angles to two right angles : it would seem as if, in this case also, their minds were all employed on " one and the same" object: and this object of their thoughts, it may be said, cannot be the mere word Triangle, but that which is meant by it : nor again, can it be every thing that the word will apply to : for they are not thinking of triangles, but of one thing. Those who do not maintain that this *' one thing" has an existence independent of the human mind, are in general content to tell us, by way of explanation, that the object of their thoughts is the abstract " idea" of a triangle f an explana- tion which satisfies, or at least silences many ; though it may be doubted whether they very clearly understand what sort of a thing an " idea" is; which may thus exist in a thousand different minds at once, and yet be *' one and the same.*' The fact is, that " unity" and " sameness" are in such cases employed, not in the primary sense, but, to denote perfect similarity. When we say that ten thousand different persons have all '* one and the same" Idea in their minds, or, are all of " one and the same" Opinion, we mean no more than that they are all thinking exactly alike. When we say that they are all in the ** same" posture, we mean that they are iiM placed alike: and so also they are said all to have the " same" disease, when they are all diseased alike. One instance of the confusion of thought and endless logomachy Logomachy which may spring from inattention to this ambiguity of the words from this *' same," (fcc. is afforded by the controversy arising out of a sermon aJ^biguity. of Dr. King (Archbishop of Dublin), published about a century ago. He remarked (without expressing himself perhaps with so much guarded precision as the vehemence of his opponents rendered needful) that " the attributes of the Deity [mz. Wisdom, Justice, kc.) are not to be regarded as the same with those human qualities which bear the same names, but are called so by resemblance and analogy only." For this he was decried hy Bishop Berkeley and a host of other objectors, down to the present time, as an Atheist, or little better. *' If the divine attributes," they urged, "are not precisely the same in kind (though superior in degree) with the human qualities which bear the same name, w^e cannot imitate the Deity as the Scriptures require ; — we cannot know on what prin- ciples we shall be judged: — we cannot be sure that God exists at all;" with a great deal more to the same purpose; all of which would have been perceived to be perfectly idle, had the authors but recollected to ascertain the meaning of the principal word employed. For, 1st, when any two persons (or other objects) are said to have the ** same'' quality, accident, &c. what we predicate of them 37 Conceptualists is a name sometimes tion (if it can be called an explanation); applied to those who adopt this explana- to which class Locke is referred. 186 ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING. [Book IV. Sameness is evidently a certain resemblance, and nothing else. One man e.g. res" nfbiance does not feel another s sickness ; but they are said to have the aiid analogy, a same" disease, (not in the sense in which two men may he killed by the same cannon-ball, but) if they are precisely similar in respect of their ailments : and so also they are said to have the same com- plexion, if the hue and texture of their skins be alike. 2dly, Such qualities as are entirely relative, which consist in the relation borne by the subject to certain other things, — in these, it is manifest, the only resemblance that can exist, is, resemblance of relations, i.e. ANALOGY. Courage, e.g. consists in the relation in which one stands^ towards dangers ; Temperance or Intemperance, — towards bodily pleasures, &c. When it is said, therefore, of two courageous men, that they have both the same quality, the only meaning this expression can have, is, that they are, so far, completely analogous in their characters ; — having similar ratios to certain similar objects. In short, as in all qualities, sameness can mean only strict resem- blance, so, in those which are of a relative nature, resemblance can mean only analogy. Thus it appears, that Avhat Dr. King has been flo vehemently censured for asserting respecting the Deity, is literally true even with respect to men themselves ; viz. that it is only by Analogy that two persons can be said to possess the same virtue, or other such quality. 3dly, But what he means, is, plainly, that this analogy is far less exact and complete in the case of a comparison between the Deity and his creatures than between one man and another ; which surely no one would venture to deny. But the doctrine against which the attacks have been directed, is self-evi- dent, the moment we consider the meaning of the term employed.^^ • In the Introduction and Notes to the last edition of Archbishop ■■ King's Discourse, I have considered the matters in debate more fully; but this slight notice of them has been introduced in this place, as closely connected with the present subject. §2. Origin The Origin of this secondary sense of the words, " same," ** one," ambiguity ** identical," (fee. (an attention to which would clear away an incalcu- ot^'same," lable mass of confused Reasoning and Logomachy,) is easily to be traced to the use of Language and of other signs, for the purposes of reasoning and of mutual communication. If any one utters the " one single" word "triangle," and gives "one single" definition of it, each of the persons who hears him forms a certain notion in his own mind, not differing in any respect from that of each of the rest. They are said therefore to have all "one and the same" notion, because, resulting from, and corresponding with, (that which is, in the primary sense) "one and the same" expression; and there is 38 Ey tS ixttv irus rpii, Arist. ' principles, in the Notes to his " Four ^ See J)r. Copleston's excellent Ana- Discourses." lysis and Defence of Archbishop King's Chap. V. § 2.] ON THE PROVINCE OF REASONING. 187 said to be " one single" idea of every triangle (considered merely as a triangle) because one single name or definition is equally applicable to each. In like manner, all the coins struck by tiie same single die, are said to have *'one and the same" impression, merely because the (numerically) "one" description which suits one of these coins will equally suit any other that is exactly like it. The expression accordingly which has only of late begun to prevail, *' such and such things are of the same description,'' is perhaps the most philosophical that can be employed. It is not intended to recommend the disuse of the words ** same," *' identical," (kc. in this transferred sense; which, if it were desirable, w^ould be utterly impracticable; but merely, a steady attention to the ambiguity thus introduced, and watchfulness against the errors thence arising. " It is with words as with inoney. Those who know the value of it best are not therefore the least liberal. We may lend readily and largely ; and though this be done quietly and without ostentation, there is no harm in keeping an exact account in our private memorandum-book of the sums, the persons, and the occasions on which they were lent. It may be, we shall want them again for our own use ; or they may be employed by the borrower for a wrong purpose ; or they may have been so long in his possession that he begins to look upon them as his own. In either of which cases it is allowable, and even right, to call them in."*^ The difficulties and perplexities which have involved the questions respecting personal-identity, among others, may be traced principally to the neglect of this caution. I mean that many waiters have sought an explanation of the primary sense of identity [viz. personal) by looking to the secondary. Any grown man, e.g. is, in the primary sense the same person he was when a child : this sameness is, I conceive, a simple notion, which it is vain to attempt explaining by any other more simple ; but when philosophers seek to gain a clearer notion of it by looking to the cases in which sameness is predicated in another sense, viz. similarity, such as exists between several individuals denoted by a common name, (as when we say that there are growing on Lebanon some of the same trees with which the Temple was built ; meaning, cedars of that species) this is surely as idle as if we were to attempt explaining the primary sense, e.g. of "rage" as it exists in the human mind, by directing our attention to the " rage" of the sea. Whatever personal identity does consist in, it is plain that it has no necessary connexion w^ith similarity ; since every one would be ready to say, " When I WAS a child I thought as a child, — I spake as a child, — I understood as a child ; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." But a full consideration of this question would be unsuitable to tlie subject of the present work. 40 " Logic Vindicated." Oxford, 1809. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. No. I. ON CERTAIN TERMS WHICH ARE PECULIARLY LIABLE TO BE USED AMBIGUOUSLY. LIST OF WORDS EXPLAINED IN THE FOLLOWING APPENDIX, Identical. — Sec One, xxvii, . Sincerity, 8ame. Sincere. xi. Impossibility, xii. Indifference. xxviii, . Tendency. Therefore,- xiii. Law. See Why. xiv. May. xxix, . Truth. XV. Necessary. XXX . Why. xvi. Old. A\ hence. xvii. One. See Why. xviii. Pay. xix. Person. Value. XX. Possible. AVealth. xxi. Preach. Labour. xxii. Priest. Capital. xxiii. Reason, Rent. xxiv. Rej?eneratio£i. Wajres. XXV. Same. Protits. xxvi. Sin. i. Argument. ii. Authority. Can.— 5'ee May, Mtist. Capable. — See Possi- ble, Impossible, Necessary, iii. Case. Cause.— .See Reason, Why. iv. Certain. V. Church, vi. Election, vii. Expect. ^ riii. Experience. A Falsehood.— -See Truth. ix. God. X. Gospel. Hence.— .S'ee Reason, Why. It has appeared to me desirable to illustrate the importance of attending to the ambiguity of terms, by a greater number of instances than could have been com-eniently either inserted in the context or introduced in a note, without too much interrupting the course of the dissertation on Fallacies. I have purposely selected instances from various subjects, and some, from the most important ; being convinced that the disregard and contempt with which logical studies are usually treated, may be traced, in part, to a notion, that the science is incapable of use- ful application to any matters of real importance, and is merely calculated to afford an exercise of ingenuity on insignificant truisms; — syllogisms to prove that a horse is an animal, and dis- tinctions of the different senses of ** canis " or of " gallus ; " — a mistake which is likely to derive some countenance (however un- fairly) from the exclusive employment of such trifling exemplifications. The words and phrases which may be employed as ambiguous Middle-terms are of course imiamerable : but it may be, in several P 192 AMBIGUOUS TERMS. [Afp.I. respects, of service to tlie learner, to explain the ambiguity of a few of those most frequently occurring in the most important discussions, and whose double meaning has been the most frequently overlooked ; and this, not by enterino; into an examination of oil the senses in which each term is ever employed, but of those only which are the most liable to be confounded together. It is worth observing, that the words whose ambiguity is the most frequently overlooked, and is productive of the greatest amount of confusion of thought and fallacy, are among the com- monest, and are those of whose meaning the generality consider there is the least room to doubt. ^ It is indeed from those very circumstances that the danger arises ; words in very common use are both the most liable, from the looseness of ordinary discourse, to slide from one sense into another, and also the least likely to have that ambiguity suspected. Familiar acquairdance is per- petually mistaken for accurate knowledge.^ It may be necessary here to remark, that inaccuracy not unfre- quently occurs in the employment of the very phrase, " such an author uses such a word in this, or that sense," or ''means so and so, by this word." We should not use these expressions (as some have inadvertently done) in reference, necessarily, to the notion which may exist, in the author's mind, of the object in question ; — his belief or opinion respecting the thing he is speaking of; — for the notions conveyed to others by the word, may often (even according to the writer's own expectation) fall short of this. He may be convinced, e.g. that " the moon has no atmospl^re," or that " the Spartans were brave;" but he cannot suppose that the terms *' moon " or "Spartan" imply [connote] any such thing.^ xSior again, should we regard the sense in which they understand him, as necessarily his sense, (though it is theirs) of the word employed ; since they may mistake his meaning: but we must consider what sense it is likely he ex]Dected and intended to convey, to those to whom he addressed himself. And a judicious writer will always expect each word to be understood, as nearly as the context will allow, in the sense, or in one of the senses, which use has established; except so far as he may have given some different explanation. But there are many who, from various causes, fre- quently fail of conveying the sense they design. And it may be added, that there are, it is to be feared, some persons in these days who design to convey different senses by the same expression, to different men ; — to the ordinary reader, and to the initiated ; — reserving to themselves a back-door for evasion when charged with any false teaching, by pleading that they have been misunderstood ** in consequence of the reader's not being aware of the peculiar sense in which they use words!" 1 See Book Tir. § 10. s See Note to last Essay, 3d Series; an4» « See Pol. Econ. Lect. IX. also 13ook IV. Ch. IV. i'Z. Apr. I.] AMBIGUOUS TERMS. 193 It is but fair perliaps to add this warning to my readers ; tliat one \^'lio takes pains to ascertain and explain the sense of the words employed in any discussion, whatever care he may use to show that what he is inquiring after, is, the received sense, is yet almost sure to he charged, by the inaccurate, and the sophistical, with attempt- ing to introduce some new sense of the words in question, in order to serve a purpose. i. ARGUMENT, in the strict logical sense, has been defined in Argument the foregoing treatise ; (Compendium, Book II. Ch. III. § 1:) in that sense it includes (as is there remarked) the Conclusion as well iis the Premises : and thus it is, that we say a Syllogism consists of 'hree propositions ; viz. the Conclusion which is proved, as well as those by which it is proved. Argumentum is also used by many logical writers to denote the middle term. But in ordinary discourse. Argument is very often used for the Premises alone, in contradistinction to the Conclusion; e.g. "the Conclusion which this Argument is intended to establish is so and 30." It is also sometimes employed to denote what is, strictly speaking, a, course or series of such arguments ; when a certain Conclusion is 3stabUshed by Premises, which are themselves, in the same disser- tation, proved by other propositions, and perhaps those again, by others ; the whole of this dissertation is often called an Argument to prove the ultimate conclusion designed to be established ; though in fact it is a train of Arguments. It is in this sense, e.g. that we 5peak of " Warburton's Argument to prove the divine legation of ^Ioses," ien, in his day, one of the ablest Defen- fessedly Arian, gave such an exposition dtjra of the Church's doctrine, against the of their doctrine as amounts virtually to App. I.] AMBIGUOUS TERMS. 215 What was precisely the notion which these Latin Fathers intended Person, to convey, and how far it approached the classical signification of the word *' Persona," it may not he easy to determine. But we must presume that they did not intend to employ it in what is, now, the ordinary sense of the word Person; hoth because " Persona" never, I believe, bore that sense in pure Latinity, and also because it is evident that, in that sense, " three divine Persons" would have been exactly equivalent to "three Gods;" a meaning which the orthodox always disavowed. It is probable that they had nearly the same view with which the Greek theologians adopted the word Hypostasis ; which seems calculated to express ** that which stands under {i.e. is the Subject of) Attributes." They meant, it may be presumed, to guard against the suspicion of teaching, on the one hand, that there are three Gods, or three Parts of the one God ; or, on the other hand, that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are no more than three names,'-^ all, of the same signification; and the}'' employed accordingly a term which might serve to denote, that, (though divine Attributes belong to all and each of these, yet) there are Attributes of each, respec- tively, which are not so strictly applicable to either of the others, as such ; as Avhen, for instance, the Son is called especially the ** Redeemer," and the Holy Spirit, the *' Comforter or Paraclete,"^ &c. The notion thus conveyed is indeed very faint., and imperfect ; but is perhaps for that very reason, (considering what Man is, and what God is,) the less likely to lead to error. One may convey to a blind man a notion of seeing, correct as far as it goes, and instructive to him, though very imperfect: if he form a more fvdl and distinct notion of it, his ideas will inevitably be incorrect. — See Essay VII. § 5, Second Series. ^^ . It is perhaps to be regretted that our Divines, in rendering the Latin "Persona," used the word Person, whose ordinary sense, in the present day at least, differs in a most important point from the theological sense, and yet is not so remote from it as to preclude all mistake and perplexity. If " Hypostasis," or any other com- pletely foreign term had been used instead, no idea at all would Tri theism. I beg to be understood how- For some very important remarks on ever as not demanding an imphcit defer- that si<,niification, see Hinds's History, ence for his, or for any other human and also a Sermon on the Name Emmaii- authority, however eminent. We are uel in the vol. I lately published, taught to " call no man Master, on earth." 2i English readers are not usually aware But the reference to Dr. Wallis may that the title of " Paraclete" is ever dis- serve both to show the use of the word tinctly applied to Christ in Scripture, as it in his days, and to correct the notion, is in IJohn ii. 1, because it is there trans- should any have entertained it, that the lated "advocate" instead of "comforter." views of the subject here taken are, in 25 Jt is worth observing, as a striking our Church, any thing novel. instance of the little reliance to be placed ^ It is possible that some may have on etymology as a guide to the meanmg used this expression in the very sense of a word, that " Hypostasis," "Substan- r.ttachedby others to the word "Person;" tia," and " Understanding," so widely Ifcd, in a great degree, by the peculiar ditferent in their sense, correspond iu their significatiou of "Name" iu Scripture, etymology. 216 AMBIGUOUS TERMS. [App. I. Person. have been conveyed except that of the explanation given ; and thus the danger at least of being misled by a word, would have been . avoided. ^^ Our Reformers however did not introduce the word into their Catechism; though it has been (I must think, injudiciously) employed in some popular expositions of the Catechism, without any explanation, or even allusion to its being used in a peculiar sense. As it is, the danger of being not merely not understood, but msunderstood, should be guarded against most sedulously, by all who wish not only to keep clear of error, but to inculcate important truth ; by seldom or never employing this ambiguous word without some explanation or caution. For if we employ, without any such care, terms which we must be sensible are likely to mislead, at least the unlearned and the unthinking, we cannot stand acquitted on the plea of not having directly inculcated error. I am persuaded that much heresy, and some infidelity, may be traced in part to the neglect of this caution. It is not wonderful that some should be led to renounce a doctrine, which, through the ambiguity in question, may be represented to them as involving a self-contradiction, or as leading to Tritheism ; — that others should insensibly slide into this very error ; — or that many more (which I know to be no uncommon case) should, for fear of that error, deliberately, and on principle, keep the doctrine of the Trinity out of their thoughts, as a point of speculative belief, to which they have assented once for all, but which they find it dangerous to dwell on ; though it is in fact the very Faith into which, ^^ by our Lord's appointment, we are baptized. Nor should those who do understand, or at least have once understood, the ambiguity in question, rest satisfied that they are thenceforward safe from all danger in that quarter. It should be remembered that the thoughts are habitually influenced, through the force of association, by the recurrence of the ordinary sense of any word to the mind of those who are not especially on their guard against it. See " Fallacies," § 5. The correctness of a formal and deliberate Confession of Faith, is not always, of itself, a sufficient safeguard against error in the hahitual imjjressions on the mind. The Romanists flatter themselves that they are safe from Idolatry, because they distinctly acknowledge the truth, that "God only is to be served;'' viz. with "Latria;" though they allow Adoration, ("hyperdulia" and "dulia") to the Virgin and other Saints, — to Images, — and to Relics : to which it has been justly replied, that supposing this distinction correct in itself, it would be, in practice, nugatory ; since the mass of the people 2<5 1 wish it to be observed, that it is the circumstance is rather an advantage.— 5*65 ambUjuity of the word Person which Essay VI. (Second Series) § 4, Note. renders it objectionable; not, its being 27 j,v to e»j,««, " /w/o the Name;" not nowhere employed in Scripture in the in the Name." Matt, xxviii. 19. technical sense of theologians; for this Afp. I.] AMBIGUOUS TERJVIS. 217 must soon (as experience proves) lose sight of it entirely in their rersoa. hahitual devotions. Nor again is the habitual acknowledgment of One God, of itself a sufficient safeguard ; since, from the additional ambiguities of *' One " and "Unity," (noticed in a preceding Article) we may gradually fall into the notion of a merely figurative Unity ; such as unity of substance merely, (see a preceding Article) — Unity of purpose, — concert of action, kc, such as 4s often denoted by the phrase " one mind." See "Same," in this Appendix, and "Dissertation," Book IV. Ch.^V. When, however, I speak of the necessity of explanations, the reader is requested to keep in mind, that I mean, not explanations of the nature of the Deity, but of our own use of words. On the one hand we must not content ourselves with merely saying that the whole subject is mysterious and must not be too nicely pried into ; while we neglect to notice the distinction between divine revelations, and human explanations of them; — between inquiries into the mysteries of the divine nature, and into the mysteries arising from tlie ambiguities of language, and of a language, too, adopted by uninspired men. For, whatever Scripture declares, the Christian is bound to receive implicitly, however unable to understand it : but to claim an uninquiring assent to expressions of man's framing, (however judiciously framed) without even an attempt to ascertain their meaning, is to fall into one of the worst errors of the Komanists. On the other hand, to require explanations of what God is in Himself, is to attempt what is beyond the reach of the human faculties, and foreign from the apparent design of Scripture-revela- tion ; which seems to be, chiefly, if not wholly, to declare to us, (at least to insist on among the essential articles of faith,) with a view to our practical benefit, and to the influenchig of our feelings and conduct, not so much the intrinsic nature of the Deity, as, what He is and does, relatively to us. Scripture teaches us (and our Church- Catechism directs our attention to these points) to "believe in God, who, as the Father, hath made us and all the world, — as the Son, halh redeemed us and all mankind, — as the Holy Ghost, sanctifieth us, and all the elect people of God.^ And this distinction is, as I have said, pointed out in the very form of Baptism. Nothing, indeed, can be more decidedly established by Scripture, — nothing- more indistinctly explained (except as far as relates to us) than the doctrine of the Trinity;^ nor are we perhaps capable, with oui* present faculties, of comprehending it more fully. In these matters, our inquiry, — at least our first inquiry, — should 23 Hawkin's Manual, p. 12. Word of God is to be rightly understood: 29 Compare together, for instance, such Luke i. 35, and John xiv. 9; John xiv. passages as the following* for it is by 16,18,26, Matt, xxviii. 19, 20; John xvi. cowjoanX^ Scripture with Scripture, no't 7, Colos. ii. 9; Phil. i. 19, 1 Cor. vi. 19; by dwelling on insulated texts, that the Matt. x. 20, and John xiv. 23. SIS AMBIGUOUS TERMS. [App. I. PerMn. always Tdg, what is revealed: nor, if any one refuses to adopt as an article of faith, this or that exposition, should he be understood as necessarily maintaining its falsity. For we are sure that there must be many truths relative to the Deity, which we have no means of ascertaining : nor does it follow that even every truth which can be ascertained, must be a part of the essential faith of a Christian. And as it is wise to reserve for mature age, such instructions as are unsuitable to a puerile understanding, so, it seems the part of a like wisdom, to abstain, during this our state of childhood, from curious speculations on subjects in which even the ablest of human minds can but " see by means of a glass, darkly," On these, the Learned can have no advantage over others ; though we are apt to forget that any mysterious point inscrutable to Man, as Man, — sur- passing the utmost reach of human intellect, — must be such to the learned and to the ignorant, to the wise and to the simple, alike ; — that in utter darkness, the strongest sight, and the weakest, are on a level. ** Sir, in these matters," (said one of the most eminent of our Reformers, respecting another mysterious point,) " I am so fearful, that I dare speak no further, yea almost none otherwise, than as the Scripture doth as it were lead me by the hand. And surely it is much better thus to consult Scripture, and take it for a guide, than to resort to it merely for confirmations, containec^ in detached texts, of the several parts of some System of Theology, which the student fixes on as reputed orthodox, and which is in fact made the guide which he permits to '* lead him by the hand;" while passages culled out from various parts of the Sacred Writings in subserviency to such system, are formed into what may be called an anagram of Scripture : and then, by reference to this system as a standard, each doctrine or discourse is readily pronounced Ortho- dox, or Socinian, or Arian, or Sabellian, or Nestorian, &c. ; and all this, on the ground that the theological scheme which the student has adopted, is supported by Scripture. The materials indeed are the stones of the Temple ; but the building constructed with them is a fabric of human contrivance. If instead of this, too common, procedure, students w^ould fairly search the Scriptures with a view not merely to defend their opinions, but to form them, — not merely for arguments, but for truth, — keeping human expositions to their own proper purposes [See Essay VI. First Series,] and not allowing these to become, practically, a standard, — if, in short, they were as honestly desirous to be on the side of Scripture, as they naturally are to have Scripture on their side, how much sounder, as well as more charitable, would their conclusions often be ! With presumptuous speculations, such as I have alluded to, many theologians, even of those who lived near, and indeed during, the Apostolical times, seem to have been alike chargeable, widely as they differed in respect of the particular explanations adopted by each: Arr. I.] AMBIGUOUS TERMS. 219 " Unus utrique Person. Error; sed variis illudit partibus." And it is important to remember, — wliat "\ve are very liable to lose sight of — the circumstance, that, not only there arose grievous errors during the time of the Apostles, and consequently such -were likely to exist in the times immediately following, but also that when these insinred guides were removed, there was no longer the same infallible authority to decide what was error. In the absence of such a guide, some errors might be received as orthodox, and some sound doctrines be condemned as heterodox. The Gnostics^ introduced a theory of JEons, or successive emana- tions from the divine *' Pleroma" or Fulness; one of whom was Christ, and became incarnate in the man Jesus.^^ The Sabellians are reported to have described Christ as bearing the same relation to the Father, as the illuminating {(^ariariKoy) quality does to the Sun; while the Holy Ghost corresponded to the warming quality {doc'h'Trou) : or again, the Three as corresponding to the Body, Soul, and Spirit, of a man ; or again, to Substance, — Thought or Reason, — and Will or Action. The Arians again represented the Son and the Holy Spirit, as created Beings, but with a certain imparted divinity. The Nestorians and Eutychians gave opposite, but equally fanciful and equally presumptuous explanations of the Incarnation, «kc. (kc. Nor were those who were accounted orthodox, altogether exempt from the same fault of presumptuous speculation. "Who," says Chrysostom, "was he to whom God said, Let us make man? who but he the Son of God?" And Epiphanius, on the same passage, says, " This is the language of God to his W^ord." Each of these writers, it may be observed, in representing God (under that title) as addressing Himself to the Son as to a distinct Being previously to the birth of Jesus on earth, approaches very closely to the Arian view. And Justin Martyr, in a similar tone, expressly speaks of God as " One, not in nuraber, but in judgment or designs. "^^ I will not say that such passages as these may not be so interpreted as to exclude every form of tritheism ; but it is a dangerous thing, to use (and that, not in the heat of declamation, but in a professed exposition) language of such a nature that it is a mere chance whether it may not lead into the most unscrlptural errors. If the early writers had not been habitually very incautious in this point, that could hardly have taken place which is recorded respecting the council held at Rimini, (a.d. 360) in which a Confes- 30 Of these, and several other ancient intomany different sects, teaching various heretics, we have no accounts but those modifications of the same absurdities. — of their opponents; which however we See Buiion's Bam2)fon Lectures. may presume to contain more or less of 32 Ourcs •y.ycecpi.ui os &ih, tm-ce * approximation to what was usually main- 'fm roZ rk ^a-vra. -re y.act^nt . He who bears arms at the command of the mao^Istrate does 246 EXAMPLES. [App.ir. wliat is lawful for a Christian: the Swiss in the French service, and the British in the American service, bore arms at the command the magistrate : therefore they did what was lawful for a Christian. 59. If Lord Bacon is right, it is improper to stock a new colony "with the refuse of Jails : hut this we must allow not to be improper, if our method of colonizing New South Wales be a wise one ; if this be wise, therefore, Lord Bacon is not right. 60. Logic is indeed worthy of being cultivated, if Aristotle is to "be regarded as infallible: but he is not: Logic therefore is not worthy of being cultivated. 61. All studies are useful which tend to advance a man in life, or to increase national and private wealth : but the course of studies pursued at Oxford has no such tendency : therefore it is not useful. 62. If the exhibition of criminals, publicly executed, tends to heighten in others the dread of undergoing the same fate, it may be expected that those soldiers who have seen the most service, should have the most dread of death in battle ; but the reverse of this is the case : therefore the former is not to be believed. 63. If the everlasting favour of God is not bestowed at random, and on no principle at all, it must be bestowed either with respect to men's persons, or with respect to their conduct: but " God is no respecter of persons:" therefore his favour must be bestowed with respect to men's conduct. [Sumner's Apostolical Preaching.] 64. If transportation is not felt as a severe punishment, it is in itself ill-suited to the prevention of crime: if it is so felt, much of its severity is wasted, from its taking place at too great a distance to affect the feelings, or even come to the knowledge, of most of those whom it is designed to deter ; but one or other of these must be the case : therefore transportation is not calculated to answer the purpose of preventing crime. 65. War is productive of evil: therefore peace is Hkely to be productive of good. 66. Some objects of great beauty answer no other perceptible purpose but to gratify the sight : many flowers have great beauty ; and many of them accordingly answer no other purpose but to gratify the sight. 67. A man who deliberately devotes himself to a life of sensuality is deserving of strong reprobation: but those do not deliberately devote themselves to a life of sensuality who are hurried into excess by the impulse of the passions : such therefore as are hurried into excess by the impulse of the passions are not deserving of strong reprobation. [Arist. Eth. B. VII.] 68. It is a difficult task to restrain all inordinate desires: to conform to the precepts of Scripture implies a restraint of aU inordinate desires : therefore it is a difficult task to conform to the precepts of Scripture. ^ 69. Any one who is candid will refrain from condemning a book App. II.] EXAMPLES. 247 without reading it : some Reviewers do not refrain from this : there- fore some Reviewers are not candid. 70. If any objection that can be urged would justify a change of established laws, no laws could reasonably be maintained : but some laws can reasonably be maintained: therefore no objection that can be urged will justify a change of established laws. 71. If any complete theory could be framed, to explain the establishment of Christianity by human causes, such a theory would have been proposed before now ; but none such ever has been pro- posed : therefore no such theory can be framed. 72. He who is content with what he has, is truly rich : a covetous man is not content with what he has : no covetous man therefore is truly rich. 73. A true prophecy coincides precisely with all the circumstances of such an event as could not be conjectured by natural reason : this is the case with the* prophecies of the Messiah contained in the Old Testament: therefore these are true prophecies. 74. The connexion of soul and body cannot be comprehended or explained ; but it must be believed : therefore something must be believed which cannot be comprehended or explained. 75. Lias lies above Red Sandstone ; Red Sandstone lies above Coal: therefore Lias lies above Coal. 76. Cloven feet being found universally in horned animals, we may conclude that this fossil animal, since it appears to have had cloven feet, was horned. 77. All that glitters is not gold: tinsel glitters: therefore it is not gold. 78. A negro is a man : therefore he who murders a negro murders a man. 79. Meat and drink are necessaries of life: the revenues of Vitellius were spent on Meat and Drink : therefore the revenues of Vitellius were spent on the necessaries of life. 80. Nothing is heavier than Platina: feathers are heavier than nothing: therefore feathers are heavier than Platina. 81. The child of Themistocles governed his mother: she governed her husband ; he governed Athens ; Athens, Greece ; and Greece, the world : therefore the child of Themistocles governed the world. 82. He who calls you a man speaks truly : he who calls you a fool, caUs you a man: therefore he who calls you a fool speaks truly. 83. Warm countries alone produce wines: Spain is a warm country : therefore Spain produces wines. 84. It is an intensely cold climate that is sufficient to freeze Quick- silver : the climate of Siberia is sufficient to freeze Quicksilver : there- fore the climate of Siberia is intensely cold. 85. Mistleto of the oak is a vegetable excrescence which is not a plant; and every vegetable excrescence which is not a plant, is 248 EXAMPLES. [App. II. possessed of magical virtues : therefore Mistleto of the oak is pos- sessed of magical virtues. SQ. If the hour-hand of a clock he any distance (suppose a foot) before the mmute-hand, this last, though moving twelve times faster, can never overtake the other ; for while the minute-hand is moving over those twelve inches, the hour-hand will have moved over one inch : so that they will then he an inch apart ; and while the minute-hand is moving over that one inch, the hour-hand will have moved over -^^ inch, so that it will still be a-head ; and again, while the minute-hand is passing over that space of tV inch which now divides them, the hour-hand will pass over ^l^ inch ; so that it will still he a-head, though the distance between the two is dimin- ished ; (kc. (kc. (fee, and thus it is plain we may go on for ever: therefore the minute-hand can never overtake the hour-hand. [This is one of the sophistical puzzles noticed by Aldrich (the moving bodies being Achillea and a Tortoise;) but he is not happy in his attempt at a solution. He proposes to remove the difficulty by demonstrating that, in a certain given time, Achilles would overtake the Tortoise: as if any one had ever doubted that. The very problem pro- posed is to surmount the difficulty of a seeming demonstration of a thing palpably impossible; to show that it is palpably impossible, is no solution of the problem. I have heard the present example adduced as a proof that the pretensions of Logic are futile, since (it was said) the most perfect logical demonstration may lead from true premises to an absurd conclusion. The revei-se is the truth; the example before us furnishes a confirmation of the utility of an acquaintance with the syllogistic form: in which form the pretended demonstration in question cannot possibly be exhibited. An attempt to do so will evince the utter want of connexion between the premises and the conclusion.] 87. Theft is a crime : theft was encouraged by the laws of Sparta : therefore the laws of Sparta encouraged crime. 88. Every hen comes from an egg: every egg comes from a hen: therefore every egg comes from an egg. 89. Jupiter was the son of Saturn : therefore the son of Jupiter was the grandson of Saturn. 90. All cold is to be expelled by heat : this person's disorder is a cold : therefore it is to be expelled by heat. 91. Wine is a stimulant: therefore in a case where stimulants are hurtful, wine is hurtful. 92. Opium is a poison : but physicians advise some of their patients to take opium: therefore physicians advise some of their patients to take poison. 93. What we eat grew in the fields : loaves of bread are what we eat: therefore loaves of bread grew in the fields. 94. Animal-food may be entirely dispensed with : (as Is shown by the practice of the Brahmins and of some monks ;) and vegetable- food may be entirely dispensed with (as is plain from the example of the Esquimaux and others;) but all food consists of animal-food and vegetable-food : therefore all food may be dispensed with. 95. No trifling business will enrich those engaged in it : a mining speculation is no trifling business: therefore a mining speculation will enrich those engaged in it. 96. He who is most hungry eats most: lie who eats least is most app.ii.] examples. » 249 hungry : therefore he who eats least eats most. [See Aldrich's Com- pendium: Fallacise: where this is rightly solved.] 97. Whatever body is in motion must move either in the place where it is, or in a place where it is not : neither of these is possible : therefore there is no such thing as motion. [In this instance, as well as in the one lately noticed, Aldrich mistakes the character of the difficulty; which is, not to prove the truth of that which is self-evident, but to explain an apparent demonstration militating against that which nevertheless no one ever doubted. He says in this case, ^'' solvitur ambulando ;" but (pace tanti viri) this is no solution at all, but is the very thing which constitutes the difficulty in question; for it is precisely because we know the possibility of motion, that a seeming proof of its impossibility produces perplexity.— &e Introduction.] 5 98. All vegetables grow most in the increase of the moon : hair is a vegetable: therefore hair grows most in the increase of the moon. 99. Most of the studies pursued at Oxford conduce to the improve- ment of the mind : all the works of the most celebrated ancients are among the studies pursued at Oxford : therefore some of the works of the most celebrated ancients conduce to the improvement of the mind. 100. Some poisons are vegetable: no poisons are useful drugs: therefore some useful drugs are not vegetable. 101. A theory will speedily be exploded, if false, which appeals to the evidence of observation and experiment : Craniology appeals to this evidence : therefore, if Craniology be a false theory, it will speedily be exploded. [Let the probability of one of these premises be ip ; and of the other 1 : Query. What is the probability of the conclusion, and which are the terms ?] ^ 102. Wilkes was a favourite with the populace; he who is a favourite with the populace must understand how to manage them : he who understands how to manage them, must be Avell acquainted with their character: he who is well acquainted with their char- acter, must hold them in contempt : therefore Wilkes must have held the populace in contempt. 103. To discover whether man has any moral sense, he should be viewed in that state in which all his faculties are most fully developed; the civilized state is that in which all man's faculties are most fully developed : therefore, to discover whether man has any moral sense, he should be viewed in a civilized state. 104. Revenge, Robbery, Adultery, Infanticide, &c., have been countenanced by public opinion in several countries : all the crimes we know of are Revenge, Robbery, Adultery, Infanticide, &c. : therefore, all the crimes we know of have been countenanced by public opinion in several countries. [Paley's Moral Philosophy.] 105. No soldiers should be brought into the field who are not well qualified to perform their part. None but veterans are well qualified to perform their part. None but veterans should be brought into the field. 106. A monopoly of the sugar-refining business is beneficial to sugar-refiners : and of the corn-trade to corn-growers : and of the 250 EXAMPLES. [App. II. silk -manufacture to silk- weavers, &lc. &c.; and tlius eacli class of men are benefited by some restrictions. Now all these classes of men make up the whole community : therefore a system of restric- tions is beneficial to the community. [See Chap. III. § ii.] 107. There are two kinds of things which we ought not to fret about : what we can help, and what we cannot. [To be stated as a Dilemma.] 108. He who believes himself to be always in the right in his opinion, lays claims to infallibility: you always believe yourself to be in the right in your opinion : therefore you lay claim to infalli- bility. 109. No part of mankind can ever have received divine instruction in any of the arts of life: because the Israelites, who are said to have had a revelation made to them of religion, did not know, in the times of Solomon, that the circumference of a Circle differs from the treble of the Diameter. 110. The Epistle attributed to Barnabas is not to be reckoned among the writings of the Apostolic Fathers ; because, if genuine, it is a part of Scripture, and, if spurious, it is the work of some forger of a later age. 111. If the original civilization of Mankind was not the work of a divine Instructor, some instance may be found of a nation of Bavages having civihzed themselves. [Pol. Econ. Lect. V.] 112. The Law of Moses prohibited theft, murder, &lc. But that Law is abolished: therefore theft, murder, Tiori, from the nature of the case, that they were likely to suffer : [because they were preachers of a religion unexpected and unwelcome: 1. to the Jews; and 2. to the Gentiles.^ ] 2d. From piv/ane testimony. 3d. From the testimony of Christian Writings. [And here comes in the proof of one of the premises of this last argument ; viz. the proof of the credibility, as to this point at least, of the Christian Writings.] These arguments are cumulative; i.e. each separately goes to establish the probability of the one common conclusion, that ** the first propagators of Christianity suffered." By similar arguments it is shown that their suflferings were such as they voluntarily exposed themselves to. 6 As Paul expresses it, "to the Jews, a stumUing-Uocle ; and to the Greeks, foolishness.''* _, 256 PRAXIS OF LOGICAL ANALYSIS. [App. III. II. It is proved that " What they suffered for was a miraculous story." by 1st. The nature of the case ; They could have had nothing but miracles on which to rest the claims of the new religion. 2d. By allusions to miracles, particularly to the ResuiTcction, both in Christian and in profane Writers, as the evidence on which the religion rested. The same course of argument goes to show that the miracles in attestation of which they suffered were such as they professed to have witnessed. These arguments again are cumulative. III. It is proved that ** The miracles thus attested are what we call the Christian miracles:" in other words, that the story was, in the main, that which we have now in the Christian Scriptures ; by § 1st. The nature of the case; viz. that it is improbable the original story should have completely died away, and a sub- stantially new one have occupied its place ; § 2d. by The incidental allusions of ancient writers, both Chris- tian and profane, to accounts agreeing with those of our Scrip- tures, as the ones then received ; § 3d. by The credibihty of our Historical Scriptures: This is established by several distinct arguments, each separately tending to show that these books were, from the earliest ages of Christianity, well known and carefully preserved among Christians: viz. § i. They were quoted by ancient Christian writers. § ii. with peculiar respect. § iii. Collected into a distinct volurae, and § iv, distinguished by appropriate names and titles of respect. § V. Publicly read and expounded, and § vi. had commentaries, &c. written on them : § vii. Were received by Christians of different sects ; he. &c.' The latter part of the first main proposition, branches off into two; viz. 1st., that the early Christians submitted to new rules of conduct; 2d, that they did so, in consequence of their belief in miracles wrought before them. Each of these is established in various parts of the above courso of argument, and by similar premises ; viz. the nature of the case, — the accounts of heathen writers, — and the testimony of the Chris- tian Scriptures, &c. The Major premiss, that ** Miracles thus attested are worthy of credit," (which must be combined with the former, in order to ' For some important remarks respect- persons, See " Hinds on Inspiration," ing the different ways in whicli this part pp. 30—46. of the argument is presented to different App. III.] PRAXIS OF LOGICAL ANALYSIS. 257 establish tlie conclusion, that " the Christian miracles are worthy of credit,") is next to be established. Previously to his entering on the second main proposition, (whic^ I have stated to be the Converse by negation of this Major premiss,) he draws his conclusion (Ch. X. Part I.) from the Minor premiss, m combination with the Major, resting that Major on § 1st. The a- priori improbability that a false story should have been thus attested : viz. ** If it be so, the religion must be true.® These men could not be deceivers. By only not bearing testimony, they might have avoided all these suiferings, and have lived quietly. Would men in such circumstances pretend to have seen wliat they never savr; assert facts which they had no knowledge of; go about lying, to teach virtue ; and, though not only convinced of Christ's being an impostor, but having seen the success of his imposture in his cruci- fixion, yet persist in carrying it on ; and so persist, as to bring upon themselves, for nothing, and with a full knowledge of the conse- quence, enmity, and hatred, danger and death? " § 2d. That no /aZse story of Miracles is likely to be so attested, is again proved, from the premiss that " no false story of miracles ever Jias been so attested;" and this premiss again is proved in the form of a proposition which includes it ; viz. that " No other miraculous story whatever is so attested." § This assertion again, bifurcates; viz. it is proved respecting the several stories that are likely to be, or that have been adduced, as parallel to the Christian, that either 1 §. They are not so attested; or 2 §. They are not properly miraculous; i.e. that admitting the veracity of the narrator, it does not follow that any miracle took place ; as in cases that may be explained hj false percqj- lions,— -accidents, s ^^ S O fl ?< ro M _« a Ph 2 ^ « cJ -►3 ,J=3 P^«4-. -^ K OJ •loo «" .-^ © C fl > eS c3 c — 11 2la-§§g|o;;g- -- ^> rt M o «i 0) rt^ — 5co25rt«M'*j;wr S3 .2 to-W-a ? S M W QQ ■^ >— oj-~ ei^ fS S S-^ «^--2 ■I ?c'2'< S ?3 = E "