406 FALLACIES. 



in misconceiving the import of the premises, nor, as in 

 Petitio Principii, in forgetting what the premises are, but in 

 mistaking the conclusion which is to be proved. This is the 

 fallacy of Ignoratio Elenchi, in the widest sense of the phrase ; 

 also called by Archbishop Whately the Fallacy of Irrelevant 

 Conclusion. His examples and remarks are highly worthy of 

 citation. 



" Various kinds of propositions are, according to the occa- 

 sion, substituted for the one of which proof is required : some- 

 times the particular for the universal ; sometimes a propo- 

 sition with different terms ; and various are the contrivances 

 employed to effect and to conceal this substitution, and to 

 make the conclusion which the sophist has drawn, answer 

 practically the same purpose as the one he ought to have esta- 

 blished. We say, ' practically the same purpose/ because it 

 will very often happen that some emotion will be excited, some 

 sentiment impressed on the mind, (by a dexterous employment 

 of this fallacy), such as shall bring men into the disposition 

 requisite for your purpose ; though they may not have assented 

 to, or even stated distinctly in their own minds, the proposition 

 which it was your business to establish. Thus if a sophist has 

 to defend one who has been guilty of some serious offence, 

 which he wishes to extenuate, though he is unable distinctly 

 to prove that it is not such, yet if he can succeed in making 

 the audience laugh at some casual matter, he has gained prac- 

 tically the same point So also if any one has pointed out the 

 extenuating circumstances in some particular case of offence, 

 so as to show that it differs widely from the generality of the 

 same class, the sophist if he find himself unable to disprove 

 these circumstances, may do away the force of them, by simply 

 referring the action to that very class, which no one can deny 

 that it belongs to, and the very name of which will excite 

 a feeling of disgust sufficient to counteract the extenuation ; 

 e. g. let it be a case of peculation, and that many mitigating 

 circumstances have been brought forward which cannot be 

 denied ; the sophistical opponent will reply, ' Well, but after 

 all, the man is a rogue t and there is an end of it ;' now in 

 reality this was (by hypothesis) never the question ; and the 



