FALLACIES IN GENERAL. 335 



common and most dangerous varieties of Apparent 

 Evidence, whereby men are misled into opinions for 

 which there does not exist evidence really conclusive. 

 A catalogue of the varieties of apparent evidence 

 which are not real evidence, is an enumeration of 

 Fallacies. Without such an enumeration, therefore, 

 the present work would be wanting in an essential 

 point. And while writers who included in their theory 

 of reasoning nothing more than ratiocination, have, 

 in consistency with this limitation, confined their 

 remarks to the fallacies which have their seat in that 

 portion of the process of investigation; we, who 

 profess to treat of the whole process, must add to our 

 directions for performing it rightly, warnings against 

 performing it wrong 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 induction altogether. 



2. In considering the sources of unfounded in- 

 ference, it is unnecessary to reckon the errors which 

 arise, not from a wrong method, or even from igno- 

 rance 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 attention 

 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 

 fundamentally wrong ; the conditions under which the 

 human mind persuades itself that it has sufficient 



