FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 573 



01* counteracted by them. As when Aristotle, in a passage already cited, 

 " decides that there is no void on such arguments as this : in a void there 

 could be no difference of up and down ; for as in nothing there are no dif- 

 ferences, so there are none in a privation or negation ; but a void is merely 

 a privation or negation of matter; therefore, in a void, bodies could not 

 move up and down, which it is in their nature to do."* In other words, 

 it is in the nature of bodies to move up and down, ergo any physical fact 

 which supposes them not so to move, can not be authentic. This mode of 

 reasoning, by which a bad generalization is made to overrule all facts which 

 contradict it, is Petitio Principii in one of its most palpable forms. 



None of the modes of assuming what should be proved are in more fre- 

 quent use than what are termed by Bentham " question-begging appella- 

 tives ;" names which beg the question under the disguise of stating it. 

 The most potent of these are such as have a laudatory or vituperative 

 character. For instance, in politics, the word Innovation. The dictionary 

 meaning of this term being merely " a change to something new," it is dif- 

 ficult for the defenders even of the most salutary improvement to deny 

 that it is an innovation ; yet the word having acquired in common usage a 

 vituperative connotation in addition to its dictionary meaning, the admis- 

 sion is always construed as a large concession to the disadvantage of the 

 thing proposed. 



The following passage from the argument in refutation of the Epicu- 

 reans, in the second book of Cicero, " De Finibus," affords a fine example 

 of this sort of fallacy: "Et quidem illud ipsum non nimium probo (et 

 tantum patior) philosophum loqui de cupiditatibus finiendis. An potest 

 cupiditas finiri ? toUenda est, atque extrahenda radicitus. . Quis est enim, 

 in quo sit cupiditas, quin recte cupidus dici possit ? Ergo et avarus erit, 

 sed finite : adulter, verum habebit modum : et luxuriosus eodem modo. 

 Qualis ista philosophia est, quae non interitum afferat pravitatis, sed sit 

 contenta mediocritate vitiorum?" The question was, whether certain de- 

 sires, when kept within bounds, are vices or not ; and the argument de- 

 cides the point by applying to them a word {cupiditas) which implies vice. 

 It is shown, however, in the remarks which follow, that Cicero did not in- 

 tend this as a serious argument, but as a criticism on what he deemed an 

 inappropriate expression. " Rem ipsam prorsus probo : elegantiam desi- 

 dero. Appellet hsec desideria naturcB; cupiditatis nomen servet alio," etc. 

 But many persons, both ancient and modern, have employed this, or some- 

 thing equivalent to it, as a real and conclusive argument. We may re- 

 mark that the passage respecting cupiditas and cupidus is also an example 

 of another fallacy already noticed, that of Paronymous Terms. 



Many more of the arguments of the ancient moralists, and especially of 

 the Stoics, fall within the definition of Petitio Principii. In the "De Fini- 

 bus," for example, which I continue to quote as being probably the best 

 extant exemplification at once of the doctrines and the methods of the 

 schools of philosophy existing at that time; of what value as arguments 

 are such pleas as those of Cato in the third book : That if virtue were not 

 happiness, it could not be a thing to boast of: That if death or pain were 

 evils, it would be impossible not to fear them, and it could not, therefore, 

 be laudable to despise them, etc. In one way of viewing these arguments, 

 they may be regarded as appeals to the authority of the general sentiment 

 of mankind which had stamped its approval upon certain actions and char- 



* Hist. Ind. Sc, i., 34. 



