ERROR AND FALLACIES 307 



omission of italics that were in the original, or any similar at 

 tempt to convey more or less than the context guaranteed in the 

 original. 



0) By the fallacy of FlGURA DlCTIONIS, Figure of Speech, Aris 

 totle designated the erroneous supposition that the same inflexions, 

 or roots, or other modifications of grammatical form in words, al 

 ways imply similar kinds or modifications of meaning : that &quot;poeta 

 is feminine because Latin words of that form are usually feminine &quot; ; 

 that &quot; a man who walks on the whole day tramples on the whole 

 day &quot; ; that &quot; important is a negative notion because impotent 

 is negative &quot; ; that when a person &quot; is resolved &quot; to do a certain 

 thing he does not act freely but is passive, because when he &quot; is 

 beaten &quot; or when he &quot; is flattered &quot; he is passive ; that a wooden 

 &quot; image &quot; is unreal because what is &quot; imaginary &quot; is unreal ; that 

 paronyms like &quot;artist,&quot; &quot;artisan,&quot; and &quot;artful&quot; must have simi 

 lar meanings (confounding etymology with connotation). J. S. 

 Mill gives as an instance &quot; the popular error that strong drink must 

 be a cause of strength &quot; which, if it were true, would be equally, 

 if not eo ipso, true of strong poison ! But Mill has himself fallen 

 a victim to the fallacy in a passage in his Utilitarianism, 1 - which 

 has since become classical in this connexion : &quot; The only proof 

 capable of being given that an object is visible is that people 

 actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is because 

 people hear it : and so of the other sources of our experience. 

 In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to 

 produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually 

 desire it.&quot; The force of this argument rests upon the assumption 

 that the termination -able .in &quot; desirable &quot; has the same sort of 

 meaning as the termination -ible in &quot; visible &quot; and &quot; audible &quot; ; but 

 this assumption is false, for though &quot; visible &quot; and &quot; audible &quot; 

 mean &quot; what can be &quot; seen and heard, &quot; desirable &quot; in the context 

 means what ought to be desired, not merely &quot; what can be desired &quot; ; 

 and, therefore, since Mill s argument only proves that what people 

 actually desire can be desired, while purporting to prove that what 

 they do desire is desirable in the real sense of the word, i.e. ought 

 to be desired, the argument is also an excellent example of the 

 fallacy of ignoratio elenchi (275, A, a). This example, therefore, 

 also illustrates the fact that the same individual argument may 

 be referred to different types of fallacy. Thefigura dictionis it 

 self may be regarded as a special sort of false analogy (275, t b). 



1 p- 53- 



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