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FALLACIES. 



When the fallacy is not one of Confusion, that is, when 

 the proposition believed, and the evidence on which it is 

 believed, are steadily apprehended and unambiguously ex- 

 pressed, there remain to be made two cross divisions. The 

 Apparent Evidence may be either particular facts, or fore- 

 gone generalizations ; that is, the process may simulate either 

 simple Induction, or Deduction ; and again, the evidence, 

 whether consisting of supposed facts or of general proposi- 

 tions, may be false in itself, or, being true, may fail to bear 

 out the conclusion attempted to be founded on it. This 

 gives us first, Fallacies of Induction and Fallacies of De- 

 duction, and then a subdivision of each of these, accord- 

 ing as the supposed evidence is false, or true but incon- 

 clusive. 



Fallacies of Induction, where the facts on which the induc- 

 tion proceeds are erroneous, may be termed Fallacies of 

 Observation. The term is not strictly accurate, or rather, not 

 accurately coextensive with the class of fallacies which I 

 propose to designate by it. Induction is not always grounded 

 on facts immediately observed, but sometimes on facts inferred : 

 and when these last are erroneous, the error may not be, in the 

 literal sense of the term, an instance of bad observation, but of 

 bad inference. It will be convenient, however, to make only 

 one class of all the inductions of which the error lies in not 

 sufficiently ascertaining the facts on which the theory is 

 grounded ; whether the cause of failure be mal-observation, or 

 simple non-observation, and whether the mal-observation be 

 direct, or by means of intermediate marks which do not prove 

 what they are supposed to prove. And in the absence of any 

 comprehensive term to denote the ascertainment, by whatever 

 means, of the facts on which an induction is grounded, I will 

 venture to retain for this class of fallacies, under the explana- 

 tion now given, the title of Fallacies of Observation. 



The other class of inductive fallacies, in which the facts 

 are correct, but the conclusion not warranted by them, are 

 properly denominated Fallacies of Generalization : and these, 

 again, fall into various subordinate classes or natural groups, 

 some of which will be enumerated in their proper place. 



