CLASSIFICATION OF FALLACIES. 343 



Fallacies of Induction, where the facts upon which 

 the induction proceeds are erroneous, may be termed 

 Fallacies of Observation. The term is not strictly 

 accurate, or rather, not accurately coextensive with 

 the class of fallacies which I propose to designate 

 by it. Induction is not always grounded upon facts 

 immediately observed, but sometimes upon facts in- 

 ferred : and when these last are erroneous, the error 

 is not, in the literal sense of the term, an instance of 

 bad observation, but of bad inference. It will be 

 convenient, however, to make only one class of all the 

 inductions of which the error lies in not sufficiently 

 ascertaining the facts on which the theory is grounded ; 

 whether the cause of failure be mal-observation, or 

 simple non-observation, and whether the mal-observa- 

 tion be direct, or by means of intermediate marks 

 which do not prove what they are supposed to prove. 

 And in the absence of any comprehensive term to 

 denote the ascertainment, by whatever means, of 

 the facts on which an induction is grounded, I will 

 venture to retain for this class of fallacies, under 

 the explanation already given, the title, Fallacies of 

 Observation. 



The other class of inductive fallacies, in which the 

 facts are correct, but the conclusion not warranted by 

 them, are properly denominated Fallacies of Generali- 

 zation : and these, again, fall into various subordinate 

 classes, or natural groups, some of which will be 

 enumerated in their proper place. 



When we now turn to Fallacies of Deduction, 

 namely, those modes of incorrect argumentation in 

 which the premisses, or some of them, are general 

 propositions, and the argument a ratiocination ; we 

 may of course subdivide these also into two species, 

 similar to the two preceding, namely, those which pro- 



