FALLACIES IN GENERAL. 513 



raents of inquiry relating to the move complex phenomena of nature, and 

 especially those of which the subject is man, whether as a moral and intel- 

 lectual, a social, or even as a physical being; the diversity of opinions still 

 prevalent among instructed persons, and the equal confidence with which 

 those of the most contrary ways of thinking cling to their respective ten- 

 ets, are proof not only that right modes of philosophizing are not yet gen- 

 erally adopted on those subjects, but that wrong ones are ; that inquirers 

 have not only in general missed the truth, but have often embraced error ; 

 that even the most cultivated portion of our species have not yet learned 

 to abstain from drawing conclusions which the evidence does not warrant. 



The only complete safeguard against reasoning ill, is the habit of reason- 

 ing well ; famiUarity with the principles of correct reasoning, and practice 

 in applying those principles. It is, however, not unimportant to consider 

 what are the most common modes of bad reasoning; by what appearances 

 the mind is most likely to be seduced from the observance of true princi- 

 ples of induction ; what, in short, are the most common and most danger- 

 ous varieties of Apparent Evidence, whereby persons are misled into opin- 

 ions for which there does not exist evidence really conclusive. 



A catalogue of the varieties of apparent evidence which are not real evi- 

 dence, is an enumeration of Fallacies. Without such an enumeration, there- 

 fore, the present work would be wanting in an essential point. And while 

 writers who included in their theory of reasoning nothing more than rati- 

 ocination, have in consistency with this limitation, confined their remarks to 

 the fallacies which have their seat in that portion of the process of investi- 

 gation ; we, who profess to treat of the whole process, must add to our di- 

 rections for performing it rightly, warnings against performing it wrongly 

 in any of its parts : whether the ratiocinative or the experimental portion 

 of it be in fault, or the fault lie in dispensing with ratiocination and induc- 

 tion altogether. 



§ 2. In considering the sources of unfounded inference, it is unnecessa- 

 ry to reckon the errors which arise, not from a wrong method, nor even 

 from ignorance of the right one, but from a casual lapse, through hurry or 

 inattention, in the application of the true principles of induction. Such 

 errors, like the accidental mistakes in casting up a sum, do not call for 

 philosophical analysis or classification ; theoretical considerations can throw 

 no light upon the means of avoiding them. In the present treatise our at- 

 tention is required, not to mere inexpertness in performing the operation 

 in the right way (the only remedies for which are increased attention and 

 more sedulous practice), but to the modes of performing it in a way fun- 

 damentally wrong; the conditions under which the human mind persuades 

 itself that it has sufficient grounds for a conclusion which it has not ar- 

 rived at by any of the legitimate methods of induction — which it has not, 

 even carelessly or overhastily, endeavored to test by those legitimate 

 methods. 



§ 3. There is another branch of what may be called the Philosophy of 

 Error, which must be mentioned here, though only to be excluded from 

 our subject. The sources of erroneous opinions are twofold, moral and in- 

 tellectual. Of these, the moral do not fall within the compass of this work. 

 They may be classed under two general heads : Indifference to the attain- 

 ment of truth, and Bias ; of which last the most common case is that in 

 which we are biased by our wishes ; but the liability is almost as great to 



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