394 



FALLACIES. 



to the subdivisions of the distance, nor consequently to those 

 of the time in which it is performed. But an unlimited 

 number of subdivisions may be made of that which is itself 

 limited. The argument proves no other infinity of duration 

 than may be embraced within five minutes. As long as the 

 five minutes are not expired, what remains of them may be 

 divided by ten, and again by ten, as often as we like, which is 

 perfectly compatible with their being only five minutes alto- 

 gether. It proves, in short, that to pass through this finite 

 space requires a time which is infinitely divisible, but not ail 

 infinite time : the confounding of which distinction Hobbes 

 had already seen to be the gist of the fallacy. 



The following ambiguities of the word right (in addition 

 to the obvious and familiar one of a right and the adjective 

 right) are extracted from a forgotten paper of my own, in a 

 periodical : 



" Speaking morally, you are said to have a right to do a 

 thing, if all persons are morally bound not to hinder you from 

 doing it. But, in another sense, to have a right to do a thing 

 is the opposite of having no right to do it, i.e. of being under 

 a moral obligation to forbear doing it. In this sense, to say 

 that you have a right to do a thing, means that you may do 

 it without any breach of duty on your part ; that other persons 

 not only ought not to hinder you, but have no cause to think 

 worse of you for doing it This is a perfectly distinct propo- 

 sition from the preceding. The right which you have by 

 virtue of a duty incumbent upon other persons, is obviously 

 quite a different thing from a right consisting in the absence 

 of any duty incumbent upon yourself. Yet the two things are 

 perpetually confounded. Thus a man will say he has a right 

 to publish his opinions ; which may be true in this sense, that 

 it would be a breach of duty in any other person to interfere 

 and prevent the publication : but he assumes thereupon, that 

 in publishing his opinions, he himself violates no duty ; which 

 may either be true or false, depending, as it does, on his having 

 taken due pains to satisfy himself, first, that the opinions are 

 true, and next, that their publication in this manner, and at 



