352 FALLACIES. 



lization grounded upon it. Fallacies of different 

 orders often herd or cluster together in this fashion. 

 But the origin of the superstition is evidently that 

 which we have assigned. In like manner it has been 

 universally considered unlucky to speak of misfortune. 

 The day on which any calamity happened has been 

 considered an unfortunate day, and there has been a 

 feeling everywhere, and in some nations a religious 

 obligation, against transacting any important business 

 on that day. For on such a day our thoughts are 

 likely to be of misfortune. For a similar reason , any 

 untoward occurrence in commencing an undertaking 

 has been considered ominous of failure; and often, 

 doubtless, has really contributed to it, by putting the 

 persons engaged in the enterprise more or less out 

 of spirits : but the belief has equally prevailed where 

 the disagreeable circumstance was, independently of 

 superstition, too insignificant to depress the spirits by 

 any influence of its own. All know the story of 

 Caesar's accidentally stumbling in the act of landing 

 on the African coast ; and the presence of mind with 

 which he converted the direful presage into a favour- 

 able one by exclaiming, "Africa, I embrace thee!" 

 Such omens, it is true, were often conceived as warn- 

 ings of the future, given by a friendly or a hostile 

 deity; but this very superstition grew out of a pre- 

 existing tendency ; the god was supposed to send, as 

 an indication of what was to come, something which 

 men were already inclined to consider in that light. 

 So in the case of lucky or unlucky names. Hero- 

 dotus tells how the Greeks, on the way to Mycale, 

 were encouraged in their enterprise by the arrival of a 

 deputation from Samos, one of the members of which 

 was named Hegesi stratus, the leader of armies. 



Cases may be pointed out in which something 



