CLASSIFICATION OF FALLACIES. 305 



When we now turn to Fallacies of Deduction, namely 

 those modes of incorrect argumentation in which the pre- 

 mises, or some of them, are general propositions, and the 

 argument a ratiocination ; we may of course subdivide these 

 also into two species similar to the two preceding, namely, 

 those which proceed on false premises, and those of which 

 the premises, though true, do not support the conclusion. 

 But of these species, the first must necessarily fall under 

 some one of the heads already enumerated. For the error 

 must be either in those premises which are general proposi- 

 tions, or in those which assert individual facts. In the former 

 case it is an Inductive Fallacy, of one or the other class ; in 

 the latter it is a Fallacy of Observation: unless, in either 

 case, the erroneous premise has been assumed on simple in- 

 spection, in which case the fallacy is d priori. Or finally, the 

 premises, of whichever kind they are, may never have been 

 conceived in so distinct a manner as to produce any clear con- 

 sciousness by what means they were arrived at; as in the case 

 of what is called reasoning in a circle : and then the fallacy is 

 one of Confusion. 



There remain, therefore, as the only class of fallacies having 

 properly their seat in deduction, those in which the premises 

 of the ratiocination do not bear out its conclusion ; the various 

 cases, in short, of vicious argumentation, provided against by 

 the rules of the syllogism. We shall call these, Fallacies of 

 Ratiocination. 



We have thus five distinguishable classes of fallacy, which 

 may be expressed in the following synoptic table : 



7 0f Simple Inspection - - 1. Fallacies a priori, 



from evidence 



Fallacies 4 



of Inference 



distinctlj 

 conceived 



Inductive | 2. Fallacies of Observation. 

 Fallacies 



3. Fallacies of Generalization. 



4. Fallacies of Eatiocination. 



from evidence] 



indistinctly \ 5. Fallacies of Confusion. 



conceived ) 



3. We must not, however, expect to find that men's 

 actual errors always, or even commonly, fall so unmistakeably 

 VOL. n. 20 



