ERROR AND FALLACIES 305 



seven is odd and even &quot; (composition). &quot; Seven and five are equal 

 to eight and four ; therefore seven is equal to five, and eight to 

 four &quot; (division). &quot; Is it possible for a man who is walking not 

 to walk ? ( Yes. Then it is possible for a man to walk with 

 out walking &quot; (composition). &quot; Though you are not now 

 walking, you can walk? Yes. But if you can thus do a 

 thing when- you are not doing it, you can desire a thing when 

 you are not desiring it &quot; (composition : it is only the capacity 

 to desire, not the actual desire, that can coexist with the state of 

 actually not desiring}. 



Of course, the illicit combination or separation of words, as 

 in the cases just given, involves an illicit combination or separa 

 tion, in our thought, of the objects denoted. But sometimes the 

 fallacious mental process is not reproduced in the language. Con 

 founding the distributive with the collective use of terms is, perhaps, 

 the way in which the fallacy is most usually committed. The 

 showman who announced that children of both sexes would be ad 

 mitted free, and then proceeded to charge both for boys and girls, 

 on the plea that none were &quot; children of both sexes,&quot; com 

 bined in thought the sexes which the language he used did not 

 necessarily separate, but which were naturally assumed by all 

 to be taken as separate. &quot;All the angles of a triangle are 

 equal to two right angles ; A B C is an angle of a triangle ; there 

 fore it is equal to two right angles &quot; (division). Such instances 

 might also be classified as special cases of equivocation, seeing 

 that they turn on the employment of an ambiguous term in 

 different senses. 



The spendthrift who thinks that, because he can prudently 

 spend the portion A, or the portion B, or the portion C ... of 

 his revenue, he can therefore prudently spend A, and B, and C 

 . . ., is guilty of the fallacy of composition ; the miser who argues 

 that, because he cannot prudently subscribe to charities A, and 

 B, and C, and D . . ., he cannot prudently subscribe to any of 

 them, is guilty of the converse fallacy, of division. The person 

 who argues that protective tariffs would benefit all the industries 

 of a country because it can be shown that such tariffs benefit this 

 or that special industry, is guilty of the fallacy of composition. 

 The person who argues that because a knowledge of this, that, 

 and the other science, benefits the community, therefore every 

 citizen should be taught all the sciences in the schools, is guilty 

 of the same fallacy. &quot; Does one grain of corn make a heap? 



VOL. II. 20 



