CLASSIFICATION OF FALLACIES. 515 



no clanger of being led into error even by the strongest bias. There are 

 minds so strongly fortified on the intellectual side, that they could not 

 blind themselves to the light of truth, however really desirous of doing so ; 

 they could not, with all the inclination in the world, pass off upon them- 

 selves bad arguments for good ones. If the sophistry of the intellect could 

 be rendered impossible, that of the feelings, having no instrument to work 

 with, would be powerless. A comprehensive classification of all those 

 things which, not being evidence, are liable to appear such to the under- 

 standing, will, therefore, of itself include all errors of judgment arising 

 from moral causes, to the exclusion only of errors of practice committed 

 against better knowledge. 



To examine, then, the various kinds of apparent evidence which are not 

 evidence at all, and of apparently conclusive evidence which do not really 

 amount to conclusiveness, is the object of that part of our inquiry into 

 which we are about to enter. 



The subject is not beyond the compass of classification and comprehen- 

 sive survey. The things, indeed, which are not evidence of any given con- 

 clusion, are manifestly endless, and this negative property, having no de- 

 pendence on any positive ones, can not be made the groundwork of a real 

 classification. But the things which, not being evidence, are susceptible 

 of being mistaken for it, are capable of a classification having reference to 

 the positive property which they possess of appearing to be evidence. We 

 may arrange them, at our choice, on either of two principles ; according 

 to the cause which makes them appear to he evidence, not being so ; or 

 according to the particular kind of evidence which they simulate. The 

 Classification of Fallacies which will be attempted in the ensuing chapter, 

 is founded on these considerations jointly. 



CHAPTER II. 



CLASSIFICATION OF FALLACIES. 



§ 1. In attempting to establish certain general distinctions which shall 

 mark out from one another the various kinds of Fallacious Evidence, we 

 propose to ourselves an altogether different aim from that of several emi- 

 nent thinkers, who have given, under the name of Political or other Falla- 

 cies, a mere enumeration of a certain number of erroneous opinions ; false 

 general propositions which happen to be often met with ; loci com.inune.s 

 of bad arguments on some particular subject. Logic is not concerned with 

 the false opinions which people happen to entertain, but with the manner 

 in which they come to entertain them. The question is not, what facts 

 have at any time been erroneously supposed to be proof of certain other 

 facts, but what property in the facts it was which led any one to this mis- 

 taken supposition. 



When a fact is supposed, though incorrectly, to be evidentiary of, or 

 a mark of, some other fact, there must be a cause of the error ; the sup- 

 posed evidentiary fact must be connected in some particular manner with 

 the fact of which it is deemed evidentiary — must stand in some particular 

 relation to it, without which relation it would not be regarded in that light. 

 The relation may either be one resulting from the simple contemplation of 

 the two facts si4e by side with one another, or it may depend on some 



