376 FALLACIES. 



Kind into another. Why should it not be possible 

 to make gold? Each of the characteristic properties 

 of gold had its/orraa, its essence, its set of conditions, 

 which if we could discover, and learn how to realize, 

 we could superinduce that particular property upon 

 any other substance, upon wood, or iron, or lime, or 

 clay. If, then, we could effect this with respect to 

 every one of the essential properties of the precious 

 metals, we should have converted the other substance 

 into gold. Nor did this, if once the premisses were 

 granted, appear to transcend the real powers of man. 

 For daily experience showed that almost every one of 

 the distinctive sensible properties of any object, its 

 consistence, its colour, its taste, its smell, its shape, 

 admitted of being totally changed by fire, or water, or 

 some other chemical agent. The forma of all those 

 qualities seeming, therefore, to be within human 

 power either to produce or to annihilate, not only did 

 the transmutation of substances appear abstractedly 

 possible, but the employment of the power, at our 

 choice, for practical ends, seemed by no means 

 hopeless. 



A prejudice universal in the ancient world, and 

 from which even Bacon was so far from being free, that 

 it pervaded and vitiated the whole practical part of 

 his system of logic, may with good reason be ranked 

 high in the order of Fallacies of which we are now 

 treating. 



8. There remains one a priori fallacy or natural 

 prejudice, the most deeply- rooted, perhaps, of all 

 which we have enumerated: one which not only 

 reigned supreme in the ancient world, but still pos- 

 sesses almost undisputed dominion over many of the 

 most cultivated minds ; and some of the most remark- 



