346 FALLACIES. 



tried dropping a ball from the mast-head, since they would 

 have found that it does fall exactly at the foot, as the theory 

 requires : but no ; they admitted the spurious fact, and strug- 

 gled vainly to make out a difference between the two cases. 

 " The ball was no part of the ship and the motion forward 

 was not natural, either to the ship or to the ball. The stone, 

 on the other hand, let fall from the top of the tower, was a 

 part of the earth ; and therefore, the diurnal and annular re- 

 volutions which were natural to the earth, were also natural 

 to the stone : the stone would, therefore, retain the same motion 

 with the tower, and strike the ground precisely at the bottom 

 of it."* 



Other examples, scarcely less striking, are recorded by Dr. 

 Whewell,t where imaginary laws of nature have continued to 

 be received as real, merely because no person had steadily 

 looked at facts which almost every one had the opportunity of 

 observing. " A vague and loose mode of looking at facts very 

 easily observable, left men for a long time under the belief that 

 a body ten times as heavy as another falls ten times as fast ; 

 that objects immersed in water are always magnified, without 

 regard to the form of the surface; that the magnet exerts an 

 irresistible force ; that crystal is always found associated with 

 ice ; and the like. These and many others are examples how 

 blind and careless man can be even in observation of the 

 plainest and commonest appearances ; and they show us that 

 the mere faculties of perception, although constantly exercised 

 upon innumerable objects, may long fail in leading to any exact 

 knowledge." 



If even on physical facts, and these of the most obvious 

 character, the observing faculties of mankind can be to this 

 degree the passive slaves of their preconceived impressions, we 

 need not be surprised that this should be so lamentably true as 

 all experience attests it to be, on things more nearly connected 

 with their stronger feelings on moral, social, and religious 

 subjects. The information which an ordinary traveller brings 

 back from a foreign country, as the result of the evidence of 



* Playfair'a Dissertation, sect. 4. f Nov. Org. Renov., p. 61. 



