398 FALLACIES. 



their establishment. "As if," says Archbishop Whately, " one 

 should attempt to prove the being of a God from the authority 

 of Holy Writ;" which might easily happen to one with 

 whom both doctrines, as fundamental tenets of his religious 

 creed, stand on the same ground of familiar and traditional 

 belief. 



Arguing in a circle, however, is a stronger case of the 

 fallacy, and implies more than the mere passive reception 

 of a premise by one who does not remember how it is to be 

 proved. It implies an actual attempt to prove two propo- 

 sitions reciprocally from one another; and is seldom resorted 

 to, at least in express terms, by any person in his own specu- 

 lations, but is committed by those who, being hard pressed by 

 an adversary, are forced into giving reasons for an opinion of 

 which, when they began to argue, they had not sufficiently 

 considered the grounds. As in the following example from 

 Archbishop Whately : " Some mechanicians attempt to prove 

 (what they ought to lay down as a probable but doubtful 

 hypothesis*) that every particle of matter gravitates equally : 

 e why ?' ' because those bodies which contain more particles 

 ever gravitate more strongly, i.e. are heavier :' ' but, (it may 

 be urged,) those which are heaviest are not always more 

 bulky ;' ' no, but they contain more particles, though more 

 closely condensed :' ' how do you know that ?' ' because they 

 are heavier :' ' how does that prove it ?' ' because all particles 

 of matter gravitating equally, that mass which is specifically 

 the heavier must needs have the more of them in the same 

 space.' " It appears to me that the fallacious reasoner, in his 

 private thoughts, would not be likely to proceed beyond the 

 first step. He would acquiesce in the sufficiency of the reason 

 first given, " bodies which contain more particles are heavier." 

 It is when he finds this questioned, and is called upon to 



* No longer even a probable hypothesis, since the establishment of the 

 atomic theory ; it being now certain that the integral particles of different 

 substances gravitate unequally. It is true that these particles, though real 

 minima for the purposes of chemical combination, may not be the ultimate 

 particles of the substance ; and this doubt alone renders the hypothesis admis- 

 sible, even as an hypothesis. 



