FALLACIES OF RATIOCINATION. 381 



A second instance is, the argument by which it used to be 

 contended, before the commutation of tithe, that tithes fell on 

 the landlord, and were a deduction from rent ; because the rent 

 of tithe-free land was always higher than that of land of the 

 same quality, and the same advantages of situation, subject to 

 tithe. Whether it be true or not that a tithe falls on rent, a 

 treatise on Logic is not the place to examine ; but it is certain 

 that this is no proof of it. Whether the proposition be true 

 or false, tithe-free land must, by the necessity of the case, pay 

 a higher rent. For if tithes do not fall on rent, it must be 

 because they fall on the consumer ; because they raise the price 

 of agricultural produce. But if the produce be raised in price, 

 the farmer of tithe-free as well as the farmer of tithed land 

 gets the benefit. To the latter the rise is but a compensation 

 for the tithe he pays ; to the first, who pays none, t it is clear 

 gain, and therefore enables him, and if there be freedom of com- 

 petition forces him, to pay so much more rent to his landlord. 

 The question remains, to what class of fallacies this belongs. 

 The premise is, that the owner of tithed land receives less rent 

 than the owner of tithe-free land; the conclusion is, that 

 therefore he receives less than he himself would receive if tithe 

 were abolished. But the premise is only true conditionally ; 

 the owner of tithed land receives less than what the owner of 

 tithe-free land is enabled to receive when other lands are tithed ; 

 while the conclusion is applied to a state of circumstances in 

 which that condition fails, and in which, by consequence, the 

 premise would not be true. The fallacy, therefore, is a dicto 

 secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. 



A third example is the opposition sometimes made to 

 legitimate interferences of government in the economical 

 affairs of society, grounded on a misapplication of the maxim, 

 that an individual is a better judge than the government, of 

 what is for his own pecuniary interest. This objection was 

 urged to Mr. Wakefield's principle of colonization ; the con- 

 centration of the settlers, by fixing such a price on unoccu- 

 pied land as may preserve the most desirable proportion 

 between the quantity of land in culture, and the labouring 

 population. Against this it was argued, that if individuals 



