FALLACIES IN GENERAL. 299 



pbical theories, the sole recommendation of which consists in 

 the premises they afford for proving cherished doctrines, or 

 justifying favourite feelings : and when any one of these theories 

 has heen so thoroughly discredited as no longer to serve the 

 purpose, another is always ready to take its place. This pro 

 pensity, when exercised in favour of any widely-spread per 

 suasion or sentiment, is often decorated with complimentary 

 epithets; and the contrary habit of keeping the judgment in 

 complete subordination to evidence, is stigmatized by various 

 hard names, as scepticism, immorality, coldness, hard-hearted- 

 ness, and similar expressions according to the nature of the 

 case. But though the opinions of the generality of mankind, 

 when not dependent on mere habit and inculcation, have their 

 root much more in the inclinations than in the intellect, it is 

 a necessary condition to the triumph of the moral bias that it 

 should first pervert the understanding. Every erroneous 

 inference, though originating in moral causes, involves the 

 intellectual operation of admitting insufficient evidence as 

 sufficient ; and whoever was on his guard against all kinds of 

 inconclusive evidence which can be mistaken for conclusive, 

 would be in no danger of being led into error even by the 

 strongest bias. There are minds so strongly fortified on the 

 intellectual side, that they could not blind themselves to the 

 light of truth, however really desirous of doing so ; they could 

 not, with all the inclination in the world, pass off upon them 

 selves bad arguments for good ones. If the sophistry of the 

 intellect could be rendered impossible, that of the feelings, 

 having no instrument to work with, would be powerless. A 

 comprehensive classification of all those things which, not 

 being evidence, are liable to appear such to the understanding, 

 will, therefore, of itself include all errors of judgment arising 

 from moral causes, to the exclusion only of errors of practice 

 committed against better knowledge. 



To examine, then, the various kinds of apparent evidence 

 which are not evidence at all, and of apparently conclusive 

 evidence which do not really amount to conclusiveness, is the 

 object of that part of our inquiry into which we are about to 

 enter. 



