FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 407 



mere assertion of what was never denied, ought not, in fairness, 

 to be regarded as decisive: but, practically, the odiousness of 

 the word, arising in great measure from the association of 

 those very circumstances which belong to most of the class, 

 but which we have supposed to be absent in this particular 

 instance, excites precisely that feeling of disgust, which in 

 effect destroys the force of the defence. In like manner we 

 may refer to this head all cases of improper appeal to the 

 passions, and everything else which is mentioned by Aristotle 

 as extraneous to the matter in hand (f'$w TOV Tr/otryy/aroe)." 



Again, " instead of proving that * this prisoner has com- 

 mitted an atrocious fraud/ you prove that the fraud he is 

 accused of is atrocious : instead of proving (as in the well- 

 known tale of Cyrus and the two coats) that the taller boy 

 had a right to force the other boy to exchange coats with him, 

 you prove that the exchange would have been advantageous 

 to both : instead of proving that the poor ought to be relieved 

 in this way rather than in that, you prove that the poor 

 ought to be relieved : instead of proving that the irrational 

 agent whether a brute or a madman can never be deterred 

 from any act by apprehension of punishment (as for instance a 

 dog from sheep-biting, by fear of being beaten), you prove that 

 the beating of one dog does not operate as an example to other 

 dogs, &c. 



" It is evident that ignoratio elenchi may be employed as 

 well for the apparent refutation of your opponent's proposi- 

 tion, as for the apparent establishment of your own ; for it is 

 substantially the same thing, to prove what was not denied 

 or to disprove what was not asserted. The latter practice is 

 not less common, and it is more offensive, because it fre- 

 quently amounts to a personal affront, in attributing to a 

 person, opinions, &c., which he perhaps holds in abhorrence. 

 Thus, when in a discussion one party vindicates, on the 

 ground of general expediency, a particular instance of re- 

 sistance to government in a case of intolerable oppression, the 

 opponent may gravely maintain, ' that we ought not to do 

 evil that good may come ;' a proposition which of course had 

 never been denied, the point in dispute being, ' whether 



