applied to such an object, any expressions of censure you could employ might lose their force; employing them, you would seem to be running on in the track of self-contradiction and nonsense. "But improvement means something new, and so does innovation. Happily for your purpose, innovation has contracted a bad sense; it means something which is new and bad at the same time. Improvement, it is true, in indicating something new, indicates something good at the same time; and therefore, if the thing in question be good as well as new, innovation is not a proper term for it. However, as the idea of novelty was the only idea originally attached to the term innovation, and the only one which is directly expressed in the etymology of it, you may still venture to employ the word innovation, since no man can readily and immediately convict your appellation of being an improper one upon the face of it. "With the appellation thus chosen for the purpose of passing condemnation on the measure, he by whom it has been brought to view in the character of an improvement, is not (it is true) very likely to be well satisfied: but of this you could not have had any expectation. What you want is a pretence which your own partisans can lay hold of, for the purpose of deducing from it a colourable warrant for passing upon the improvement that censure which you are determined, and they, if not determined, are disposed and intend to pass on it. "Of this instrument of deception, the potency is most deplorable." 1 Not only should we avoid the question-begging fallacy in our own arguments, but we should be on the watch for it in the arguments of those whose conclusions we oppose. If we can show that a so-called argument is mere assumption, and this we can often do by stating it in syllogistic form, — we have done all that is necessary for its refutation. To argue beside the point is to try to prove something which is not the proposition in dispute, but which 1 Jeremy Bentham: The Book of Fallacies, part iv. chap. i. beside the reasoner either mistakes for it or wishes others to mistake for it. To prove a man's cleverness Arguing as a writer when the question is whether the point. he has business ability, to prove a man's success as a soldier when the question is whether he has ability in civil affairs, to prove a man's gift for extemporaneous speaking when the question is whether he is a statesman, is to argue beside the point. The variety of this fallacy known as argumentum ad hominem and that known as argumentum ad populum are thus explained by Professor Jevons: "An attorney for the defendant in a lawsuit is said to have handed to the barrister his brief marked 'No case; abuse the plaintiff's attorney.' Whoever thus uses what is known as argumentum ad hominem, that is, an argument which rests, not upon the merit of the case, but the character or position of those engaged in it, commits this fallacy [that of arguing beside the point]. If a man is accused of a crime it is no answer to say that the prosecutor is as bad. If a great change in the law is proposed in Parliament, it is an Irrelevant Conclusion to argue that the proposer is not the right man to bring it forward. Every one who gives advice lays himself open to the retort that he who preaches ought to practise, or that those who live in glass houses ought not to throw stones. Nevertheless there is no necessary connection between the character of the person giving advice and the goodness of the advice. "The argumentum ad populum is another form of Irrelevant Conclusion, and consists in addressing arguments1 to a body of people calculated to excite their feelings and prevent them from forming a dispassionate judgment upon the matter in hand. It is the great weapon of rhetoricians and demagogues." "2 A subtle form of arguing beside the point is the 30-called "fallacy of confusion," which consists in using a term in one sense in one part of the argu 1 Query as to the position of this word. 2 W. S. Jevons: Elementary Lessons in Logic, lesson xxi. ment and in another sense in another part. Some fallacies of this sort are nothing but verbal puzzles, which, however useful in sharpening the wits of students of logic, have no place in a treatise on rhetoric. Others are too dangerous to be passed by without notice. Such are those mentioned by Mill in the following passage: : "The mercantile public are frequently led into this fallacy by the phrase scarcity of money.' In the language of commerce, 'money' has two meanings: currency, or the circulating medium; and capital seeking investment, especially investment on loan. In this last sense, the word is used when the 'money market' is spoken of, and when the 'value of money' is said to be high or low, the rate of interest being meant. The consequence of this ambiguity is, that as soon as scarcity of money in the latter of these senses begins to be felt, as soon as there is difficulty of obtaining loans, and the rate of interest is high, it is concluded that this must arise from causes acting upon the quantity of money in the other and more popular sense; that the circulating medium must have diminished in quantity, or ought to be increased. I am aware that, independently of the double meaning of the term, there are in the facts themselves some peculiarities, giving an apparent support to this error; but the ambiguity of the language stands on the very threshold of the subject, and intercepts all attempts to throw light upon it. "Another word which is often turned into an instrument of the fallacy of ambiguity is theory. In its most 1 proper acceptation, theory means the completed result of philosophical induction from experience. In that sense, there are erroneous as well as true theories, for induction may be incorrectly performed; but theory of some sort is the necessary result of knowing any thing of a subject, and having put one's knowledge into the form of general propositions for the guidance of practice. In this, the proper sense of the word, theory is the explanation of practice. In another and a more vulgar sense, theory means any mere fiction of the imagination, endeavouring to conceive how a thing 1 See pages 158, 159. may possibly have been produced, instead of examining how it was produced. In this sense only are theory and theorists unsafe guides.1 Another example may be taken from a recent work on education: "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free' is a good line and a sound maxim, surviving the attack made on it by the parodist; 2 yet it will not pass muster as an argument. Freemen' is used in a political sense, and political freedom is different from natural freedom or moral freedom. In plain prose, the ruler of freemen should be restrained by law, or else their freedom is at the mercy of his caprice; but if restrained by law, he does not seem at first sight to be free. Yet the line is a good one in spirit; for the second 'free' may be taken to mean freehearted or free from passion - morally free, in fact. Such a play upon words is ornamental, and need not be illusory; but it ought not to pass unchallenged." 8 Thus, the Induction. The generalizations from which we reason in deduction are themselves the products of INDUCTION. general assertion that all men are mortal, which forms the first premiss in our typical example of deductive reasoning, is itself derived from known instances of death. The general assertion, however, goes much further than the particulars on which it is based, for it includes not only all men who have died. but all who live. So, too, the conclusion that, because the law of gravitation holds true in relation to all the bodies we know, it also holds true throughout the physical universe, is more than the sum of the particulars known. Induction, then, adds to our knowledge; but 1 J. S. Mill: A System of Logic, book v. chap. vii. sect. i. 2 "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.' 3 W. Johnson: On the Education of the Reasoning Faculties; in "Essays on a Liberal Education," edited by F. W. Farrar, essay viii. 4 See page 341. the knowledge so added is to a certain extent guess-work, for it rests on the supposition that what is true of all known members of a class is true of all unknown members of the same class. based on causal An induction based on observation of all individuals of a class is beyond question; for in such an induction the Induction general conclusion can be nothing but the sum connection. of the particulars enumerated. It is, however, rarely possible to observe all individuals of a class. The next best thing is to base an inference from the known to the unknown on an argument derived from the relation of cause and effect. A familiar example is the induction that where there is smoke there is fire. The strength of the argument lies in the causal connection between fire and smoke. In the absence of knowledge of a causal connection an inductive argument has little force. Thus, it has been asserted that animals which ruminate have cloven hoofs; but science has not discovered a connection between rumination and cloven hoofs. If a new ruminant should be found, one might infer that it would have cloven hoofs; but in the absence of knowledge of a causal connection, and in face of the fact that some animals with cloven hoofs (pigs and tapirs, for example) are not ruminants, such an inference would have little force. Fallacies of The fallacy which the inductive reasoner needs to guard against is that of inferring a general conclusion from instances so few or so unimportant as not to warinduction. rant that conclusion, and of ignoring instances that make against it. From this fallacy few books of travel are altogether exempt, so strong is the temptation to found a general statement on a few superficial and detached observations. Every partisan, every bigot, every person |