FALSE INTERPRETATION. 



taking a moment for thought : " Here comes 

 the first of the fleet back to port." He would 

 instinctively feel that she was tacking in the 

 direction marked C, and would be prepared to 

 testify that he saw a boat sailing to shore. 



But a native of the port, knowing that on 

 this occasion the fleet from that port was not 

 expected back for several hours, and knowing 

 that a boat had sailed to the west just suffi- 

 ciently long ago to have reached the position 

 of the observed vessel while sailing in the 

 direction B, might be ready to testify confidently 

 that at that hour he saw a craft sailing away 

 from shore. 



Thus two honest and apparently competent 

 beholders of the same boat's movement at the 

 same hour might afterwards bear confident 

 witness, one that he saw it sailing into port, 

 and the other that he saw it sailing out to sea. 



In numerous cases, not so easily set forth 

 as these, we are liable to mistake for things 

 actually seen what are partly acts of judgment 

 or imagination founded, and sometimes wrongly 

 founded, on what we have seen. 



2. False Parallels. 



It is not only the politician, on the side 

 opposed to ours, who is guilty of employing 

 deceptive parallels. Nature herself practises 

 the same trick. 



237 



