302 FALLACIES. 



We cannot regard one fact as evidentiary of another, 

 unless we believe that the two are always, or in the majority 

 of cases, conjoined. If we believe A to be evidentiary of B, 

 if when we see A we are inclined to infer B from it, the reason 

 is because we believe that wherever A is, B also either always 

 or for the most part exists, either as an antecedent, a conse 

 quent, or a concomitant If when we see A we are inclined 

 not to expect B if we believe A to be evidentiary of the 

 absence of B it is because we believe that where A is, B either 

 is never, or at least seldom, found. Erroneous conclusions, 

 in short, no less than correct conclusions, have an invariable 

 relation to a general formula, either expressed or tacitly im 

 plied. When we infer some fact from some other fact which 

 does not really prove it, we either have admitted, or, if we 

 maintained consistency, ought to admit, some groundless 

 general proposition respecting the conjunction of the two 

 phenomena. 



For every property, therefore, in facts, or in our mode of 

 considering facts, which leads us to believe that they are habi 

 tually conjoined when they are not, or that they are not when 

 in reality they are, there is a corresponding kind of Fallacy ; 

 and an enumeration of fallacies would consist in a specifica 

 tion of those properties in facts, and those peculiarities in our 

 mode of considering them, which give rise to this erroneous 

 opinion. 



2. To begin, then ; the supposed connexion, or repug 

 nance, between the two facts, may either be a conclusion 

 from evidence (that is, from some other proposition or pro 

 positions) or may be admitted without any such ground ; 

 admitted, as the phrase is, on its own evidence ; embraced as 

 self-evident, as an axiomatic truth. This gives rise to the 

 first great distinction, that between Fallacies of Inference, 

 and Fallacies of Simple Inspection. In the latter division 

 must be included not only all cases in which a proposition is 

 believed and held for true, literally without any extrinsic 

 evidence, either of specific experience or general reasoning ; 

 but those more frequent cases in which simple inspection 



